Just a quick note before bed.
It is very warm in the south.
We are going to go home tomorrow, because it is going to rain. This has novelty value to southerners, but none at all to Cumbrians.
Surrey is not as dry as Cambridge. Cambridge has wilted, and dried to crackling. Surrey dried all my washing in an hour or two this morning, but it did not leave it preserved and desiccated, like expectant tea leaves.
We have had a very quiet day sitting in the sunshine. Mark fell asleep, several times, and I encouraged Number One Daughter to flap about and worry about Ritalin Boy’s new school uniform. They are going away on Friday, and will not get back until the day before he starts. It did not seem fair to me that she should spend the last few weeks before term starts becoming increasingly mellow and relaxed and not caring that he has not got any swimming trunks, so I helped her panic a bit.
He has still not got any swimming trunks. I will have to go on a bit more about that in the morning.
They are going to Sardinia. This sounds splendid. Also they are really going to Sardinia, which is brilliant news, because there was some anxious doubt until Ritalin Boy’s passport finally turned up this morning. The Passport Office have been jolly good about this and rushed it all through in the flash of a digital scanner. It was not their fault that Ritalin Boy’s passport expired whilst nobody was looking.
Anyway, it has arrived now, so all’s well that ends with a passport, as Shakespeare said.
Ritalin Boy has continued writing the book he started whilst he was at our house. There is loads of it now. I am very impressed with it. It is fully illustrated and entirely brilliantly described. I do not have the first idea what any of it is going on about because it is something to do with Pokémon. He has explained it once or twice, but it was a bit like the time when my uncle, who is a nuclear physicist, tried to explain to me what he did at work. Some things simply will not sink in.
Mark is out of the shower now, and I will have to desist.
I will tell you a bit more tomorrow.
PS> The title is inspired by a poem. I am trying to read poems for my course. I am no better at reading them than writing them, but I like Ozymandias, it is not about anything self-pitying at all, although even so I will allow that it is not exactly cheerful.
