I had to take an ibuprofen tablet when I woke up this morning.
This is what happens when you persist in trying to beat somebody up even though you are a middle aged lady and the somebody you are trying to beat up is your energetic and expertly violent teenage daughter.
I have got large purple bruises on my wrists.
This was not a good look for taking Oliver back to school. I had to remember not to wag my hands about in case anybody thought that I had been a hapless victim of terrible domestic violence. Obviously it is not the sort of thing you can keep explaining to every single person you talk to, and being a smart school, everybody is far too polite to ask.
Before we set off, we spent the day doing all sorts of things that we should have done already. Lucy and Oliver did the last of his maths homework, Mark cleaned his shoes, and I sewed name labels into things. We all sat together around the table and puzzled over how many tennis balls might be inserted firstly into tubes, and then into boxes. I think the answer we came up with was 3.2, which might not have been what they were looking for. Oliver said that it was obviously rubbish, because nobody uses .2 of a tennis ball for anything, and of course he was right, it is a long time since any of the rest of us have done sums.
It was nice to be together, and sad that it was about to be over. Lucy brought her computer downstairs and we cheered ourselves up by looking at hotels to stay in for her end of school Summer Ball.
This is the expensive affair with the beautiful dresses, the one with the Hollywood theme and the dinner jackets.
It is going to be very splendid. There are all of the speeches in the morning, the usual ones from the head, and the head girl, and the governors, and then there is a speech by a person called Mary Berry, who is coming to judge the school baking competition.
I do not pay as much attention to things as perhaps I should, so when the name sounded familiar I thought probably she was another politician, like Amber Rudd last year, but she isn’t. She is a proper baking champion person herself, and has been on the television, so she will probably be ace. I hope she tells us about baking and brings some recipes. How fantastic to learn some new baking skills from an expert.
Better even than that, Number One Daughter and her family are going to come and join us, and so suddenly instead of dreading it I am really, really excited about the whole thing.
Hence we thought that we would stay in an hotel instead of just the camper van, so that we could get up and share our hangovers with Number One Daughter in the morning. In any case, it is wonderful to go to places with Number One Daughter and Number One Son-In-Law. They can do bad behaviour with more sophistication than anybody else I know. I have got the happy feeling that we will, actually, have a ball.
I am going to make absolutely sure that I don’t do any Krav Maga for at least two weeks before. I do not want to look like the sort of person who is featured on a poster reminding people that alcoholism wrecks families, especially in a ball dress.
Eventually we couldn’t delay it any longer, and it was time for Oliver to go.
He is almost as tall as I am. He looks unexpectedly grown up in his uniform.
We packed cricket kit and his bicycle, pyjamas and towels and new socks and underpants, and Mark loaded it all into the car.
I drove him back to school, and we unpacked everything in his dorm, except the bicycle, which we left in the yard. Obviously you could have worked the last bit out for yourselves, but I know that some of my readers care about details more than is strictly good for them and do not like it when I skip out boring but correct information. I do not mind this on nights when I have not got much to say and need to fill space up, but it is tiresome when I am in a hurry to tell you about something exciting.
It is a beautiful attic dormitory, right at the top of the school. He is sharing it with all of his best friends. This has been carefully arranged for them, because it is their very last term.
We hugged one another hard, to make it last, and he bounced off to find everybody and to eat a huge back-to-school supper.
I drove back home, slowly.
It is sad when they go. There is a silent place in the house where a child once was.
I like them being at school. It is wonderful to see them doing so very well, and becoming so confident and articulate. I would not in the least rather have them at home. They are making their way in the wider world, bright-eyed and brave and sure of themselves.
All the same, I miss them very much.
Have a picture of the camper van, taken from the Library Gardens
