I put my washing on the line this morning, after which it rained a grey, drizzly sort of rain. This lasted all day until I gave up and brought it all in, after which the Weather Gods got bored and the sky cleared. I wondered if I might peg it out again, but in the end decided that I couldn’t be bothered, and so hung it wetly over the cold boiler, where it failed even to steam.
After that I did cooking. Mostly I made biscuits: but also I cooked some sausages and made chocolates and fudge as well. We are going on an Expedition tomorrow. The Peppers have bought a camper van which they are going to collect, and we are going to collect our raspberry pink sofa and pop around to see my parents.
We are taking the trailer and going in the camper van, and we will need to be well provisioned.
I made raspberry fudge in honour of the occasion, and chilli flavoured chocolate. This sounds dreadful but it is superb, and should be eaten with red wine for best effect. The fudge is still sticky, and will take a day or two to set properly, but it was jolly good all the same. It is good for my waistline to cook fudge, because after I have made it, and got my hands sticky, and scrubbed sticky off the pans and the working surfaces, I do not want to eat anything made of sugar for a couple of days.
Regrettably this does not last.
It was all a bit of a rush by the end of the afternoon, because it was Oliver’s end-of-term prize giving and Flag Service. All of this sort of thing has carried on valiantly even though there are no children there, because the school rhythms and routines are as sacred as Compline in a nunnery.
I think that this is rather splendid. I think that it is a Jolly Good Idea that Oliver attends Chapel every morning and is obliged to pay attention to a daily Inspirational Speech.
Of course there are only Inspirational Speeches in Chapel now. The sort of harangue I remember from my own days of school assemblies, about not dropping litter or running in the corridors or making a racket in the lunch queue, is a bit unnecessary under the current circumstances.
I wonder if this leaves teachers a bit stuck for topics to talk about. I am sure that mine must have talked about other things as well, but those are the only ones that I remember. This rather suggests that either the Inspirational Speeches of the time were not very inspiring, or that perhaps I just wasn’t listening.
That is a troubling thought. It could have been that if I had paid attention I might have been inspired to Make Something Of My Life instead of finishing up as a taxi driver in the Lake District, with an attitude problem, currently unemployed anyway.
Today the Headmaster made a speech, which was a tear-jerker because he is leaving, and took the flag down for the last time. Oliver and I settled on the sofa in the conservatory to watch him. This lacked the usual gravitas, because we were surrounded by piles of washing. I had snatched this hastily from the line just before the service started, but we were in agreement that it was very nice not to have to wear a tie and uncomfortable shoes, and to be able to get up to put the kettle on halfway through.
It was very peculiar to come to the end of it and to realise that the summer holidays had started. Oliver was joyfully, massively relieved, and I felt a bit lost. End of term, especially the summer term, is usually a moment for huge celebration. We are reunited with the children, and we have managed another term’s fees without going broke, and it is a time for happy togetherness as the summer stretches out in front of us. Last year was a magnificent extravagance of dances and dinners and sunshine and black-tie hedonism for which almost the whole family gathered, and which left us too gloriously exhausted to think about the summer ahead.
Today, in the rain, it all felt drearily flat. I am going to be back at work soon, but we do not know if it is going to be especially worth it. Not many people seem to have booked themselves into the Lake District yet, and you will recall that in any case our profits come from taking drunk people home from their delightful evenings of excessive irresponsibility. Most of our customers have danced and shouted themselves hoarse, and probably picked up somebody with whom they are planning some social lack-of-distancing.
These activities does not seem to be included in the new plans for widely spaced tables and people being policed to make sure they do not talk to one another. I am sure that it will all be jolly fun but it is very much not what we do usually. It appears that under the new rules you are not allowed to kiss a person even if you have just married them.
I expect they kiss one another secretly, later, when the Government is not looking.
Mark came in happy from his day of rural broadbanding, full of stories of incomprehensible things that he and Ted had talked about. These mostly seemed to involve engines, and whilst probably gripping, did not seem to have much of a punchline.
He is very glad to be back at work.
I hope that I feel the same when it happens to me.
