Hooded

I am feeling guilty.

I have spent all of our money and then advance-spent some that we haven’t earned yet.

This is what happens when I am allowed to go out unsupervised with a credit card in my wallet. If it is in Mark’s wallet then I have got to think more carefully and explain why I want something. He always says yes, but at least it makes me think about it.

I did not intend to spend lots of money. Oliver had an appointment with the orthodontist this morning, and afterwards I thought we would take advantage of being in Kendal and buy some socks for Mark, and some hoodies for Oliver.

Oliver is of the age where he has noticed his reflection in the mirror. It is no longer appropriate to choose a wardrobe for him that has been broadly based on the latest outfits modelled by Action Man or the chap in Call Of Duty. He has developed some sartorial opinions of his own, and wants to look presentable.

Not only that, but he has outgrown every single jersey in his possession. He came home with a very smart, but unfamiliar hoodie at the end of the half-term. This puzzled me greatly until he explained that it was donated by one of the other boys in his house, who has had greater parental investment in his appearance, but who has now outgrown it.

I realised that I was letting the side down, and so today, after the orthodontist, we dumped Lucy in Waterstones, and Oliver and I went to TK Maxx to investigate their range.

I am sorry to say that they had all sorts of lovely things, most of which they do not have any more.

We bought socks and jumpers. Then we bought some T-shirts and some rugby shirts for Mark, who likes these, and whose existing ones, when I remove them from his possession, will not be robust enough even to become dusters. Then we bought a beautiful soft creamy coloured hoodie for me, and some T shirts for Oliver and a hoodie for Lucy.

I hope you are noticing my use of the word Hoodie, by the way. It is a recent addition to my vocabulary, because I am speaking the language of youth. A Hoodie is a nice brushed cotton sweatshirt with a hood attached and a usefully big pocket on the front. They are marvellously practical garments. People disapprove of them. I am not quite sure why.

We bought so much that it took both of us to carry the basket down the stairs.

I felt guilty at the checkout and rang Mark, but he said it was fine and not to worry. I am a little bit worried, though, which is why I am on the taxi rank now even though it is raining really hard and there in nobody in sight all the way along the pier.

When we got home it was absolutely worth it, because Oliver tried everything on so that Lucy could see it, and he looks ace, properly grown up in a teenage sort of way.

I am trying not to mind that I am going to have to spend the next week sewing name labels in it all. I might save it until the journey back to school, it will occupy me very nicely for three hundred miles, and will be splendid with a story to listen to as well.

Lucy buzzed off after that, which was sad. She has gone back to Kettering to continue maintaining law and order on behalf of the Queen. I know the Queen needs her to do it, she can’t be everywhere at once herself, and is getting a bit elderly anyway, but I do miss the children when they all buzz off. This visit has been so short that Lucy and Oliver haven’t even managed to finish the jigsaw.

I put four pieces in it this morning whilst I was waiting for Oliver to find his shoes, and was very pleased with myself.

We have got to go back to the orthodontist tomorrow, because Oliver is going to have a brace on his teeth. He is not going to have it tomorrow, but at Christmas. It is going to make his teeth straight and perfect, and it will be horrible for a while, because it is awful to have something in your mouth the whole time, but he will get used to it, and then he won’t mind.

I do not know what I think about it really, because I do not think he ought to need his face to be messed about with to be made to look better, people’s faces are perfectly all right as they are, but he thinks it is a good idea, and in a world where everybody has their teeth straightened, I suppose he will not want to be the only one who has not.

He is going to be a jolly good-looking chap, what with the hoodies and the straight teeth.

Even though I say so myself.