We did not go home.
We meant to. We have had such a long travelling day.
Northamptonshire is the other end of the world. When the alarm went off this morning it was six o’clock, about an hour after we usually go to bed. We might not have woken up quite so quickly, but Lucy stirred in her bunk, and Roger Poopy, who had forgotten that she was there, thought that she was a burglar and barked his head off.
We got up, although not in any kind of haste and after a great deal of gritty black coffee. Lucy had been told that her fitness test would start at eight o’clock sharp and that she was required to turn up in plenty of time.
This would have been fine except that when we got to the gate at twenty to eight, nobody answered the buzzer. Reception, it appeared, didn’t turn up until eight, we were blocking the gateway with our camper van, and there was a very long line of impatient policemen stuck behind us.
Eventually one of them got out of his car and was helpful, in a grumpy sort of way. He said that Northamptonshire was on a High Security Alert, and he needed to see evidence that Lucy was really an aspirational policewoman and not a secret villain before we would be allowed in.
The queue behind us extended considerably whilst Lucy hunted down an email from them, and the cross policeman contemplated the camper van. Presumably this was in case we were secret terrorists, doing the double bluff thing of trying not to draw attention to ourselves by having the most ridiculously conspicuous vehicle in the developed world. I expect that sort of thing happens all of the time in Northamptonshire. You can’t be too careful.
Eventually she found one, and the grumpy policeman let us in, although he remarked that he didn’t think that the police station was the sort of place where we should bring the camper van, and would we please park it somewhere else, preferably Birmingham probably. The dogs barked at him, crossly, but we left Lucy beside the courtyard and chugged back out through the great steel gates to wait outside, mostly because there was a shady tree-lined parking area there. This seemed more sensible than trying to squeeze the camper van into a miniature parking space under the critical eyes of fifty policemen who had already been made late for work.
She was hardly any time at all, and bounced out looking rosy and pleased with herself, having sailed through the fitness test without stopping to draw breath, never mind needing an oxygen mask. We were very impressed.
We stopped briefly for tea and toast, and then set off back to school, where the next appointment was with Nan and Grandad for lunch at the pub next door to Lucy’s school, so that Lucy could round off her new adult independence by getting drunk before she went back into school.
We have not seen Nan and Grandad for ages, and so spent ages regaling them with stories of our comings and goings, to which they listened politely and laughed in all of the right places. Then Lucy thought she might go back to her dorm for a little snooze, and Nan and Grandad thought they might go home and sit in the garden, and we went back to the camper van, warm in the May sunshine, where we passed out instantly.
Eventually we made our way across the fells towards home, but at the last minute remembered that we have to drive practically past our friend Kate’s front door. This was too good an opportunity to miss, and so we stopped to see her. You can tell that she is a good friend, because she didn’t mind in the least even though it was already ten o’ clock at night, and we drank all of her wine.
At any rate, if she did mind, she didn’t mention it, which comes to the same thing.
Her brother and his wife had been visiting, and were on their way out. They had a new baby, and were at that entertaining stage of child-rearing where there is nothing else at all in the world except the thrillingness of the baby. It bashed a xylophone for a while, which they thought was lovely, and then clashed some sticks together. It fell over and banged its head, and then eventually went to sleep, whilst the parents beamed admiringly all the while.
We agreed after they had gone that this must be a necessary survival adaptation to stop you just chucking children in the lake. We remembered our own moments of mindless baby-adoration, and sighed.
I am jolly glad ours are all grown up, although Mark said that you never really grow out of it, and pointed out my own appreciation of Oliver’s brilliance on the drums.
We are in the camper van now, having rounded the day off with tea and contentment.
Have a picture of our travels.
