It is almost five o’ clock in the morning. It is daylight yet again.
We are just getting to the end of a short, but peculiarly sleepless cycle of endless days and brief punctuations of work-filled nights. Mark is in the shower, and in a very short while we will both be in bed. I am showered, and clean, and wallowing in the joyous relief of knowing that very soon we will just be able to sleep.
It has been Oliver’s Speech Day.
This started at ten o’ clock this morning, so some advance organisation was necessary. I am constantly haunted by the not entirely irrational fear that one day we might accidentally oversleep, and wake up too late, still hundreds of miles away from some school event where our forgotten child is sadly searching for us in vain.
It was important that when ten o’clock came, we should be faithfully in the school grounds, polished and smiling and determinedly impersonating the middle classes.
Travelling across in the camper van the night before makes at least the first bit possible.
We loaded the van up before we went to work yesterday.
By this I mean that we bundled up a change of clothes, shovelled Lucy into her bunk, filled the fridge up with biscuits and apple juice, and went back to work, because it is weekend, and we were busy raising cash.
When we finished it was four o’ clock in the morning.
We tiptoed into the van, hushing the excited dogs in order not to wake Lucy. This was a bit of a waste of time, because of course the engine roared into life like a percussion section trying to drown out a thunderstorm.
It was daylight when we set off, and by the time we chugged on to the school playing fields, trying to look inconspicuous, it was after six and the day was in full swing. Fortunately there was nobody around at school to grumble. Mark and I crawled into the back of the van and passed out.
It was not very long at all before the alarm went off. We had made flasks of coffee the night before, in order to have five minutes extra sleep instead of having to wait for the kettle to boil.
Details are important.
We staggered about, trying to make ourselves look as respectable as clumsy red-eyed gypsies ever can, and after a while the coffee started to work and we strolled across to the hall, trying to look as if we were the sort of people who were supposed to be there.
Oliver was waiting for us by the door, gleaming with the happy polish of the newly successful, and we hurled ourselves at him and hugged him excitedly.
We were still early enough to find seats. Oliver came to sit with us for a few proud minutes before the proceedings started, and we talked and talked. Obviously I would have liked to go and talk to everybody else’s mother as well, and just mention, casually in conversation, how wonderfully well my son had done in his Common Entrance, but perhaps fortunately, every other mother was busy telling everybody else about her own son, and I was tired and woolly-headed, so I didn’t.
Of course you have read about Speech Days lots and lots of times, so I won’t bore you with the same details again this year. Suffice to say that it was, as ever, brilliant good fun. Oliver sang in the choir. There was an orchestral piece from West Side Story, which was ace, and the Hallelujah Chorus, and the bagpipes made me cry. This always happens, I don’t know why. Fortunately I had remembered a clean handkerchief, and could wipe my eyes surreptitiously, so nobody noticed, and all was well.
Afterwards came the sports. The day was grey and a bit threatening, and after a while Lucy and I wrapped ourselves in the blankets out of the camper van. We watched, a bit vacantly, as in front of us little boys charged about and bounced around, and tried to outdo one another in sportsmanship and gracious victories and noble defeats. School is keen on gentlemanly behaviour, and the hearty handshakes and claps on the back that follow every race are easily as entertaining to watch as the races themselves.
Because it was the last one, after the sports, the fifth form parents congregated together in a little marquee for a picnic barbecue. You will be pleased to hear that this offered several opportunities for nonchalantly mentioning Common Entrance exams. We ate burgers, and drank a glass of wine, and then suddenly we were overwhelmingly tired.
Oliver did not want to join in with the whole-school wrestling match that appeared to be taking place in the centre of the pitch, and so we packed ourselves up and sloped off.
It was evening by the time we arrived home, and we knew that if we did not sleep we would probably not be very good at driving taxis. You are supposed to keep your eyes open.
We slept for two hours, after which we staggered out to work.
It is daylight. It is five in the morning, and we have just finished. We were too busy for me even to write this in between customers, which is what I usually do.
I do not know if it has been a good day. I am too tired to remember.
