Oliver came back from Portugal today.
That is to say, he has been back in the UK for a day or two, but only just returned to the nest, because of it being weekend and all of his family being too busy to collect him. He flew back on Friday, and has stayed with his friend ever since, until today I went to meet him from Piccadilly Train Station in Manchester.
This was rendered more difficult than it should have been by my taxi breaking down halfway through last night at work.
This is always a calamity. Saturday night is our cash-producing night, and at two in the morning, in the middle of a torrential rainstorm, my taxi flickered some mysterious lights at me. Obviously I ignored them, so sulkily it stopped working.
It is a modern car, which means that what had happened was a sensor detected a fault, and thought it prudent to stop the engine. The whole thing went into Limp Home mode.
This sort of behaviour is utterly infuriating in an automobile. I much preferred the days when the whole thing carried on until either you noticed that it was making a horrible noise and blowing out black smoke, or it exploded. This whole nanny-vehicle thing makes me very cross indeed, and last night cost me about a hundred quid.
The direct result was that I had got to borrow Mark’s car to go to Manchester to collect Oliver. I do not much like doing this, because of it all being a bit unfamiliar, but as it turned out it was for the best, because Mark’s car goes considerably faster than mine. As it happened this was an important asset, because I was stuck in standing traffic for miles and miles, and then had to belt down the last bit of motorway at penalty-point attracting speed in order to get to the station on time.
Fortunately I just about made it. In fact, had I not become hopelessly lost trying to circumnavigate Manchester’s complicated one-way system of roadworks and traffic calming and pedestrian walkways and self-righteous cyclists, I would have been early. I wasn’t, however, and had to meet Oliver wandering vaguely towards me down the road outside.
It was lovely to see him again. He was freckled and tall and wearing a new jacket, which suited him.
Obviously he has had an ace time. His friend’s family have a villa, with swimming pool, and he was full of the joys of hazily hot days and cool midnight swimming.
I have had to try quite hard not to be eaten up with envy.
He has brought me a key ring made of cork. Portugal does cork. I was pleased about this. I have not had a key ring for some time, and have had it in mind that I would like one, preferably fairly large to facilitate not being lost easily. This one is pretty and will do the job perfectly.
He brought a glasses case for Mark and a bar of chocolate for Lucy, actually half a bar, because he had been hungry on the train.
He was impressed by our garden earthworks.
Mark had looked at my taxi whilst I was away, and said that there was an intermittent fault because some valve needed cleaning.
He cleaned it, and fixed it, and so now I am at work.
The attached picture is the trophy won by Number One Daughter in one of her many Cross-fit competitions earlier on in the year, and which has just arrived with her now.
I am including it here as a sort of smug one-upmanship for the benefit of any other parents who might think that their offspring are doing well. It is always pleasing to have some world champions in the family.
