I have had a message from Oliver.
He wanted to know what had done with his gum guard for rugby, the answer to which was obviously that I had lost it.
The communication channel closed after that and I know no more.
I have not minded this silence very much, as I have been busy with my attempts to extricate his older sibling from the nest. This is considerably more complicated than dispatching Oliver. All we had to do with Oliver was spend a fortune and then take him north.
Lucy has got a lot of paperwork.
She takes over the tenancy of her new house on Monday. She has signed the contract and paid the rent. I do not really believe in this yet. It feels a bit like leaving the EU. I can hardly believe that it really is going to happen.
Lucy is not going to be thwarted by the squabblings of the House of Commons. She is really leaving home. It is not pretend, she does not have a moving in date that is going to be put off for months and months because nobody can agree on what she can take with her. In a few weeks she will be a policewoman and her bedroom will be empty in perpetuity.
I am very glad that it is not my problem to organise the details for leaving the EU. Just getting Lucy out has been difficult enough.
We have changed her driving licence and her bank details. We have sent off her V5 for her car. We have put her on the electoral roll and applied for a parking permit. We have emailed her insurance company. We have tried to speak to Vodafone but they were out.
It is an enormous amount of faffing about, and we haven’t even started on the spending a fortune part just yet.
I have had no shame in this department and have solicited all sorts of contributions from kindly grandparents and anyone else who might be considered a potential donor. Indeed, a very nice new kettle arrived in the post this morning as a present from my parents.
Lucy had been quite happy to let them choose this themselves, and explained, witheringly, that they were not at all like me, and were in possession of perfectly good taste. Therefore she felt quite safe in the knowledge that it was not going to turn up with scarlet and gold painted flowers or anything else dreadful. It might have had these things if it had been chosen by me.
Actually I am quite sure that it would, if I had seen a kettle covered in scarlet and gold flowers I would not have been able to resist and would have been astonished if she had not been delighted.
I resisted the temptation to ring my parents and tell them that she was hoping for a scarlet and gold flowery kettle, and it would be a lovely surprise if only they could find one.
I have started digging through my drawers for anything which might have been duplicated, and found a surprise cheese grater and a bread knife.The cheese grater is a surprise because I had forgotten that I had got it. It has been sitting on the shelf for ages, looking pretty, it is a lovely green and yellow plastic lady and you grate the cheese on her skirt.
She needs some beautiful things in her kitchen if she is not going to have a scarlet and gold flowery kettle.
I also found a lot of crumbs, some cleaning has turned out to be necessary.
After that I did some sewing. Of course she is going to need an apron. She does not believe this but she will. Of course she will probably not be making things like candles and soap, and she might not even do much baking, but she will need one all the same. You cannot cook splashy things like curry, or spitty things like bacon, in a smart police uniform unless you have an apron.
I wear my own aprons all of the time. I put one on in the morning when I get dressed, and do not take it off until it is time to go to work. It has a large pocket for putting clothes pegs and handkerchiefs in, and I do not feel properly comfortable doing things without it.
I have cut out a new apron for me as well. This is a happy thing to be doing. It feels very self indulgent.
We will have matching aprons and remember one another when we wear them.
