Well, we are off again.
Actually we have already gone, and I am writing to you from the lovely lovely camper van, which is still sitting, forlorn and ailing, in my parents’ driveway.
They have hardly complained at all about having several tons of immovable scrap iron dumped in front of their kitchen window, which is very polite of them, although I suspect it might be occupying some otherwise useful parking space.
We have not yet got the bit to fix it. Mark’s friend the scrapyard man in Darlington has got a new axle for it, but at the time of writing it is still attached to a 2006 pickup truck, one careful owner I imagine, and nobody has yet had time to go and saw it off. I am sure it will be just the very thing, and fix our poor van in no time, but we have just not got to it yet. Somehow the last week seems to have been very full of car repairs, between two taxi MOTs and Oliver’s car needing to be welded up.
Oliver has gone back to school. He spent much of yesterday lovingly cleaning his car and replacing the fan belt. He is planning to go on an end-of-term road trip with some of his friends, and he explained that he did not wish them to get in and notice the bits where things went mouldy during its long periods of neglect whilst we have just been leaving it dumped in the field, leakily.
It was his very last trip back to school. He will never again set off for Gordonstoun, how quickly that has gone. I do not think his housemaster was very keen on Oliver taking his car back to school, but reflected that it is a bit late to expel him, and the only other option would be to send him home again, which hardly solves the problem, and would not help improve Gordonstoun’s A Level pass rate.
I do not know if he has been informed about the road trip, and I am not going to ask. One of the problems of teaching children to be adventurous is that as soon as you stop looking they will buzz off having adventures. It is Gordonstoun’s own fault. They are all off to Japan as soon as term finishes. There are not going to be any real grown ups there. He and his friends just like the idea of having an excursion and so they have booked themselves one. They are all flying separately because they are all over the world. Oliver is overnighting in Seoul, which will not matter because he has already been there once. It will not be scary and strange. He is a grown up now.
I have spent the last couple of days flapping around packing things. I have filled our biggest suitcase, which Mark had to carry down the stairs because I could not lift it. I filled the small one as well, with other things I thought we might need. Mark lugged it all out to the car and made some acid remarks about Ranulf Fiennes not taking that much stuff with him when he went to the Antarctic, which obviously he couldn’t have done because it is really difficult to carry suitcases when you have just had to saw half your own fingers off because of frostbite.
We have not got frostbite, because the weather has been splendid. I took the dogs for a last walk over the fells this morning, and it was just perfect. All the tadpoles have become fat and round, the way they do just before their legs start to appear, and I was sad to think that I will probably miss it. Next time I come past they will be leggy and beginning to think about the wide world which is just waiting for them to jump into it.
This is what happens to young creatures, I suppose.
We packed the taxi full of everything I could think of and drove to my parents, via Blackpool because we wanted to purchase some tasteful presents that people would really admire and treasure. Do not laugh. There is a magnificent shop on Blackpool pier that has exactly these things. I will not tell you what we bought because it would spoil the surprise for the recipients if they read this, which they probably won’t, but I can tell you that Blackpool was lovely, and we breathed doughnuts and candy floss and salt air and almost wished we were staying, but it would have been too sad without the camper van.
Instead we came here, and had fish and chips and a bottle of very good red wine with my parents and Lucy, who kindly took the dogs with her when she went back home. Roger Poopy was thrilled when he realised he was going home with Lucy, and practically bounced into her car. Goodness alone what he gets up to in her house, but he seems to like it very much.
We are in the camper van now, without the dogs, which is peculiar, and Mark has been playing Gershwin and practising oil rig knots whilst I have been writing to you, which has been very happy indeed. It is lovely to be here, warm and safe in our own splendid snail-shell.
We will get it fixed soon.
PS. Did you notice the almost-named song in the title. I will give you a clue if not, you sing it at Christmas.
I was just trying to be witty.
We have a Before and After picture. This is the result of ten years of expensive education.
It makes you grey-haired and anxious-looking.
