I am going out, and I am very excited.
It is real, grown-up going out. None of the children are going at all.
Better still, I am going to a very nice restaurant. This is just over the fell from our house, in fact if I kept going on my morning walk when I got to the top of Grandsire fell, instead of coming down again on the Windermere side, I would finish up in their back garden.
So much so that I contemplated driving across there and then just walking over in the morning for the taxi, but in the end I decided I had better not. Some things are just too difficult to explain to the dogs, who do not like changes.
It is a place called Gilpin. Obviously I know it, because I take people there in the taxi very often, and it is the sort of place where a smiling chap in a waistcoat comes out and says Good Evening to the customers. They do not say that to the taxi driver, they don’t quite add And You Can Buzz Off, Peasant, but that is what they mean.
Anyway, tonight I am not buzzing off. Tonight I am going to go swanning in and nod coolly to the chap in the waistcoat.
I have been flapping about this all day. I got myself into such a state that I could not even bear to change any more commas in my dissertation, and was reduced to such a state of about-to-go-out anxiety that I polished my hat boxes instead.
They look very nice now they are polished. I wrapped our hats in tissue paper and put them in cotton bags and set them gently in the hat boxes with a squirt of perfume and some cedar balls in case of moths, and felt that the world was a satisfactory place, despite anxious moments.
LATER ON. Please note I have now drunk quite a lot so do not check the spelling.
The taxi arrived at that very moment. It was Tomas, who managed to get lost even in Windermere trying to find our house with my taxi parked outside the door. He went the long way round to Gilpin, as if I wouldn’t notice, but then made up for it with the taxi driver thing of saying that of course he wouldn’t charge me anything, and I did the other taxi driver thing of saying No No I Couldn’t Possibly, and giving him twice the fare, which is what you have to do, and we parted feeling very affectionate towards one another.
After that I had the happiest evening imaginable. I know I often have happy evenings but this one left me feeling so light of spirit and contented that I practically danced around the Library Gardens with the dogs afterwards, who didn’t notice because they were chasing a squirrel, but it was lovely.
To start with the food was ace. It was the sort of food served in little bits, so that you never eat twice as much as you really want because it is so nice, and then have an uncomfortable waistband afterwards. I can’t even remember what I ate, mostly because it was so middle class that I didn’t really know what all of it was, although obviously I didn’t say so. I had scallops, because they were from Orkney and I thought I would do my bit for their local economy, and jolly good they were as well.
It was absolutely splendid, and to my great happiness, my companions were not the sort of people who say Oh No I Couldn’t Possibly when it came to pudding. Indeed, we all said Oh Yes, Please, so we had pudding as well. I hate missing out on pudding when you are trying to be polite or not get fat, and so it was an extra splendid moment, and it was truly divine. I think mine was some kind of bananas in whipped cream, there is no possible way to go wrong with that, it was glorious. Honestly if you want to eat real middle-class food I can recommend Gilpin. Even the chap with the waistcoat managed to be polite, and I am quite sure he recognised me as a secret peasant interloper.
The real pleasure of the evening was the company. It was a friend from school and his wife, who are on holiday in the Lake District and who had invited me for dinner, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed their company so much I could have cried.
I last saw him to talk to at school, and the evening was filled with explanations of what we have been doing in the meantime. School was a jolly long time ago, so you can imagine there was a lot of explaining, you don’t just chat away forty years in ten minutes.
It was a bit like opening a copy of David Copperfield. I had the eleven-year-old and the nearly-sixty-year-old in front of me all at once. I could not help seeing my friend through both those lenses all the time, and it was such a happiness. I had been anxious about the evening, because I am ridiculously anxious about everything, but I can hardly describe how splendid it was, and how marvellous it was to hear the missed bits of his story. In my mind he has been about fourteen for ever, but of course he is not fourteen any more. He has had adventures and scary moments and successes, and he has grown into a very contented gentleman with a lovely wife and some successful children.
I liked his wife very much. I liked them both so much that I did not want the evening to end, and although I had got to go home in order not to be the sort of nuisance where people have to try and pretend they are not yawning, I asked if they would come and have some coffee tomorrow afternoon. They said that they would, so tomorrow will be lovely as well.
I had to get another taxi on the way home. He thought it was very funny that it was me, being intoxicated instead of on the taxi rank. He said that it had been a very quiet night which was why Tomas had buzzed off home early, so not to worry because I hadn’t missed anything, and then he tried not to charge me and I gave him twice the fare, so we parted feeling exactly as taxi drivers should.
I would expect exactly that whenever any of them go off out on an adventure.
I have had a wonderful time.
I have been Very Well Fed.
