It has been a very quiet weekend.
It has been so quiet that Oliver, in his new incarnation as Door Supervisor, did not get into any fights at all, although at one point he had to hold the door open when somebody was chucked out of the pub.
He has worked for two nights now, the first supervising a band playing in Kendal, and last night he was in Bowness, and both evenings were disappointingly non-violent. He is enjoying it all the same. I have been giving him ironing lessons now that he is a real grown-up, so he will even be able to sort out his own uniform as well.
We both worked late last night, with the result that neither of us emerged until lunchtime today. Indeed, we would not have even been out of bed then had it not been that Mark generally telephones me at lunchtime, and the ringing noise astonished me into wakefulness.
We milled around rather absently for a little while, before deciding on an enormous scrambled-egg breakfast, which almost sent me straight back to sleep again, and realising at three in the afternoon that we had neither emptied the poor dogs nor put the laundry on.
The dogs were asleep on the sofa in the conservatory, and did not seem to care. I reassured myself that they are very efficient indeed at letting me know if they have any unfulfilled longings, especially if we are eating cheese on toast or biscuits, but Oliver took them off to the park with their ball anyway whilst I stuffed towels into the washing machine and tried to think what else I was supposed to be doing.
It was so windy that the washing had practically dried by the time I was getting ready for work just a couple of hours later, which was just as well because I had forgotten about such mundane domesticity by then, because Number One Daughter called with the exciting news that she has been given a date for her Date with the King.
It will be the fourth of June, and it will be at Windsor Castle.
Of course we have all been beside ourselves with excitement ever since, and we are all going to go down and join in. By All, I mean my parents, my brother, Number Two Daughter, and us. I have not called my sister yet so there might even be more of us. Oliver and Lucy have both got exams in that week and so have regretfully declined. We won’t all be allowed to come in and watch, the King is quite bashful about having thousands of people turning up to cheer him on at these events, so those who are left on the outside are going to take a couple of bottles of wine and then jump up and down, waving and cheering at the gate.
I am flapping about trying to book hotel rooms, so far without success. Obviously every hotel within five minutes drive of the castle is already full to bursting with potential Members of the British Empire, and there will be lots of us.
I imagine you have had time for a cup of coffee since the last paragraph, because whilst you have been busy drinking it I have now booked some rooms. I have booked lots of rooms. We are going to go on Holiday. We are going to go to Windsor in June.
I have not been so excited for ages. Suddenly there is a Thrilling Event in my future.
I have been wondering if we could stretch it out a bit and go and see things like Hampton Court as well, there are loads of interesting things to look at in the south, but we will probably have to take the camper van with us if we are going to do that, because it turns out that southern hotels think that everybody is on the same budget as the King, and there will be a lot of footmen to be tipped.
I like the idea of taking the camper van anyway. I expect the King will be pleased to see it parked on his drive, especially if we give it a wash and polish up first.
If we don’t start the engine whilst he is about then he will never notice the clouds of black smoke.
