This is the shortest of short entries, because I am longing to sleep.
Mark has already excused himself, his eyes closing, and has headed for his shower and bed. The children are playing some sort of computer game about personal destiny. They are asking one another questions, and squabbling happily about the answers. It is sort of thing that goes, would you rather run over three grown ups or one baby? and might have been written by a Lake District taxi driver on a Saturday afternoon in August.
We are exhausted and happy.
We spent the entire day trying to organise ourselves to set off. This was a slow and tiresome process, involving a lot of getting out of bed and milling about, tripping over the dogs. Roger Poopy slowed the whole process down and made everybody shout at him by having an accident on the stairs. Mark said this was because he was afraid of being left behind, and I said that I wished we would.
It took ages. In the end we managed to get everything loaded into the van, and set off, by which time it was half past three in the afternoon.
It took us that long to pack up yesterday’s pre-cooked fridge dinners and two sets of spare clothes.
This was not exactly a huge achievement.
It took us ages to get there as well, because of miles and miles of grumbling traffic in Manchester, sitting motionless on the narrow streets. We had lots of chance to look at things, and waved at people on buses who were looking curiously at the camper van.
In the end we parked behind the theatre an hour before the performance was due to start. We hastily heated up some baked pasta and garlic vegetables, which was ace, by the way, although the vegetables should have been cooked for a bit longer.
We ate a massive dinner anyway, and then we rushed off. The five minute bell was ringing as we came through the doors, which was good because it meant that we did not buy lots of popcorn or get drunk first.
Matilda was completely magnificent, excitingly lit and noisy. We loved it from beginning to end, and clapped until our hands hurt. There are some jolly brilliant child performers in Manchester, and some clever and funny grown up ones as well.
We stood up to clap at the end, and staggered out feeling dazed and enchanted and full of theatre light.
Lucy and Oliver thought in the way home that they were glad not to be child actors, because of all the words to be learned.
If you haven’t seen it, it is jolly well worth the colossal ticket price. Go if you are thoughtlessly wealthy and can just shell out for this sort of thing. Go even if you are not, if you want a bright memory to make you smile during the winter.
Mark is asleep and so are the dogs. The children are having some sort of wrestling match, and wondering why your knees can get hurt so easily.
If I had to join in with somebody it will probably be Mark rather than the children.
I am going to go to bed.
