I am feeling very pleased with my world.
We are about to set off for Scotland.
Obviously we are not about to set off in the next two minutes. Mark is not even home from work yet, although he has telephoned to tell me that he has reached the bottom end of the lake and will be here very soon.
Nevertheless I am ready to go. I have spent my day packing everything into the camper van. I have filled the gas fridge and lit it, and left the heater on its lowest heat to warm everywhere up. I have packed salads to eat on the journey, which are sitting healthily on the dashboard, or at least they would be healthy if they didn’t include quite so much cheese and Scotch Egg, and then a little while ago I had a shower, stuffed all of my dog-paw-printy clothes into the washing machine, and now I am ready, squirted with Bluebell perfume and presentably dressed in tidy jeans and a checked cotton shirt and a cashmere jumper.
I have been having some difficulties keeping this lot free from dog paw prints. Some bellowing has had to be done.
I contemplated some pearls, but we are not going to get to school tonight, and probably nobody would notice them even when we do get to school tomorrow. This is because I expect I will keep my coat on, because we are going to attend the carol concert, which is being held outdoors in the massive courtyard of Round Square House.
Round Square House used to be the stables. The library is in one bit of it, and the boys in that house sleep upstairs in the grooms’ old bedrooms. Outside in the huge circular courtyard there is stacks of room for turning carriages around and changing legs at a gallop and rising to the trot.
None of those things happen any more. All that is in the courtyard of Round Square House at the moment is their Christmas tree, although even that may not still be there any more because one of the Gordonstoun Christmas House activities involves stealing one another’s Christmas trees under cover of darkness. This is not a legitimate activity but sounds like jolly good fun.
We will hear all about this sort of adventure tomorrow. It will be lovely to have a boy again.
Hence today has been filled with a bubble of preparation, and I have rushed around making beef burgers and cooking a joint of ham and generally filling the camper van fridge. This is because I am not entirely confident that things are going to be all right. Scotland has had some exciting weather lately, and you never know when you might finish up stuck in a snowdrift for a week.
I do not want to be stuck in a snowdrift, although a tiny bit of me thinks that it might be an adventure, and at the very least an opportunity to read some of the books I have got stashed in the camper van, waiting for an occasion special enough for me to get them down. I have still not quite relinquished the habit of saving books for a moment when I need to have something lovely happening to me. There is no nicer feeling than knowing there is a shelf full of unread treasure.
There is a shelf full of unread treasure outside my bedroom, they are my course texts. So far I have read about thirty of them, but there are a lot more to go.
I have got to write a critical analysis of my course assessment piece, and I have been considering it all day. This has meant occasional dashes up the stairs to type another idea into the computer before it evaporates. I have got ages to write it and so am in no hurry, but if I don’t get my act together I will forget.
I can hear Mark coming home.
We are going to go.
Scotland here we come.
