It is quite astonishing to discover how very easy it is to get ready for something when you do not have any dogs.
This morning I swung my legs over the side of the bed to discover nothing but floor under my feet.
Nobody needed to be let into the back yard, there had been no unpleasantly odiferous accidents, and nobody needed to be escorted around the park with occasional headlong dashes after a thrown rubber ball. We simply got up, got dressed, washed the coffee pots, and left.
We also washed the dogs’ disgusting cushion. That has been on my To Do list for some time, and simply needed them to vacate it for long enough.
We had to set off for Manchester bright and early, because we had a lunchtime date with my parents. This was not at the Midland, where my father finds the parking a tiresome nuisance, but at another hotel on the far side of town, called the Lowry.
I have, of course, occasionally contemplated changing our habit of using the Midland as our urban version of the pied á terre, and so was interested to inspect the Lowry to see what sophistication might be on offer. However, you will be pleased to hear that I was not in the least tempted to make a change. The Lowry looked like it might have been part of the set design for A Clockwork Orange, had the Clockwork Orange featured anybody middle class, which as I recall, it didn’t.
They served a very splendid afternoon tea, featuring very interesting sandwiches.There was something like a croissant stuffed with embarrassingly squidgy liquid cheese, and a burger made of Chinese pork, and one sandwich, resoundingly ignored by Oliver, which contained only a variety of vegetables.
It was nice to see my parents, who very kindly funded the entire lunch. This must have cost them almost as much as it would cost to purchase Lucy’s car, and possibly more. We strolled slowly back to the Midland afterwards, feeling round and sleepy, and indeed, on the discovery that our rooms were ready, collapsed into them to sleep off the early start.
The point to the visit was to go to the theatre. This was the children’s Christmas present, as think I might have discussed before, as well as a happy event for us. We were going to see Blood Brothers at the Palace.
We had some more to eat before we went, obviously, at the international buffet restaurant. I am still full of dinner even now, and do not think I am likely to want to eat very much ever again, maybe at least not until breakfast.
The theatre was a bit peculiar, because we had been obliged to change the booking, and instead of being in the circle, where we usually sit, we had seats in the stalls.
This took some getting used to, I can tell you. I do not think I like the stalls very much.
The play was jolly well done but was really quite left-wing twaddle. It was about two brothers, separated at birth, one to the middle classes and one to poverty on a council estate. The one on the council estate had lots of brothers and sisters but mysteriously seemed to have almost no interest in any of them, merely an arcane bonding with the posh chap up the road who was his secret brother.
A chap in a suit with a penchant for rhyme explained that everybody in it got shot because of the wickedness of the class system, but to be honest I thought that they had got shot because they were idiots. Their mother had such confidence in the advice of the Pope that she had produced eight children. Indeed, every single character seemed to have an unquestioning belief in any unreasonable rubbish that anybody told them.
Oliver, who is kind hearted, felt sympathetic towards all of them. Lucy liked the policeman who shot them. Mark thought that they had all been led astray by religion and superstition, and I thought that none of them were any great loss to the gene pool and probably I would have shot a couple more.
Despite this, obviously I enjoyed the evening very much. I like the theatre, and this was brilliantly well done, and we ambled back to the Midland feeling very contented with the world.
We are here now.
I think this might be my favourite place in the world.
I am going to go to bed. It has been a lovely day.
I need a good sleep before breakfast.
