…and I am.
We have had the most splendid evening, eating and drinking and dancing at Matt and Phred’s jazz club.
I have had three glasses of wine and a glass of rum, and I am in no fit state to do anything sensible, certainly not write inspirational prose, so this will be brief, and it is a miracle it is here at all.
We rushed about all morning. I took the dogs out, and Mark fixed Oliver’s car, and we hung up washing. I forgot the second lot of washing, and so it will still be in the washing machine when we get home, as a sort of welcome-back surprise.
Eventually we set off and drove to Manchester, where we shamelessly abandoned the dogs with Jack’s very helpful father, who kindly agreed to a couple of days of dog-sitting. I do not know if they were sad at being dumped but I do not care. I am on holiday.
We had a difficult hotel arrival, because we all turned up at different times, and Oliver and Emily got lost, and everybody wandered about looking for one another, but in the end we all worked it out, and the hotel kindly gave us all a free drink, which calmed everybody down.
Actually I do not know about everybody else, but it calmed me down.
We sat in the hotel bar discussing how we might best run the world, we would be quite good at it, perhaps we ought to have a go, and eventually we decamped to the jazz club, where my brother joined us, and we ate pizzas and olives and danced to a very, very splendid band. They were really good. The pizzas were ace, the staff were jolly nice, the company was brilliant, and it was a magnificently happy evening. There. I have told you everything about it.
I think that is my literary capacity exercised to its utmost. I am desperate to sleep. We finished the evening gassing in Lucy and Jack’s room, and Mark fell asleep in the armchair. I did not, but my time has come.
It has been truly splendid.
