I am going to go to bed early.
This is because of an early start, two glasses of wine and a headache.
These did not all happen at the same time. I have never been tempted to forgo my morning coffee in favour of red wine, not even at my most desperate moments.
We worked late, because of weekend, and were woken up earlier than we might otherwise have started the day, in what I think must be almost the nicest way possible, because it was Number One Son-In-Law calling to invite us to have dinner with them this evening.
You will not be surprised to hear that we agreed instantly.
We were not going to go all the way to Surrey for dinner. They have decided to have a brief holiday in Barrow, and are here in the Lake District for the next couple of days.
Number One Son-In-Law suggested a rather nice country restaurant not very far from us. We have only been there once, for a glass of wine at some long ago lunchtime event that neither of us can exactly remember. We had thought that we would like to go there again some day if only we won the lottery, which we never have and hence have never been back until this evening.
This was a very happy thing to look forward to, and sustained us all day whilst Mark was breaking up firewood pallets from the builders’ yard and I was starting to work out the figures for next year’s tax return. This is by no means urgent yet but is such a colossal chore that it is always better to come to it miserably in April and to discover that the worst of it has kindly been completed for you by somebody who cared, in a quiet thoughtful moment in January.
After that we rushed about getting showered and brushed and polished, and unearthing some respectable clothes to put on.
I had stored all of these away in the loft because of not expecting to need them again until next Christmas, so it was a bit of a faff.
Then we swathed ourselves in respectable coats against the lashing rain, and set off.
I can tell you now that it was truly splendid. The food was superb, although served in such tiny quantities that it could not even have been considered merely middle class. Indeed, it was right up there with aristocratic. Actually that is probably not true. Most of the aristocrats of my acquaintance are more than happy to eat sausages and chips, preferably in large helpings, and don’t have much truck with the sort of menu that has to be explained by the waiter.
It was splendid to see them. Ritalin Boy’s Identical Twin Cousin had joined us as well, which somewhat occupied Ritalin Boy and distracted him from his non-stop wagging. It did not slow down his equally non-stop chatter. It is challenging to have a sensible conversation about politics or pressing social issues or theology when the persons next to you are noisily discussing the relative size of their willies.
Everybody should be obliged to take a ten-year-old out to dinner with them. It stops the conversation from becoming pretentious.
They showed us a video of their activities during the day, which involved Ritalin Boy stripping to his swimming trunks and leaping off the jetty into the lake.
He said that it had been very cold, which we had already worked out from his spluttering shriek of horror.
I was very, very impressed. He is considerably braver than I am.
He did not stay in for very long.
I was sorry to go home, but everybody has got things to do tomorrow, and so we could not stay late, and shortly after the last pudding dishes had been scraped clean, we reluctantly donned coats and scarves and said our goodbyes.
Obviously we should really have been at work, and wondered on our way home if we should, since it was still early enough for customers, but decided that we would prefer to sleep. We consoled ourselves on passing the taxi rank with the observation that nobody seemed to be going anywhere very much. although this might have been related to the absence of taxis.
It was lovely to see them.
After all, we have got the rest of our lives to go to work.
