We drove to Oliver’s school after work last night.
This was so that we would be there bright and early for the Fathers And Sons Clay Pigeon Shooting Competition.
We did not actually need to be there especially early. Team Ibbetson was not scheduled to shoot until the middle of the afternoon, but of course Oliver would be looking forward to seeing us, hopping from foot to foot and watching people coming up the drive. It would have been horrid to have left him there all by himself for ages, whilst everybody else’s father energetically rolled in, having bounded out of bed with the dawn chorus and ready attired in shooting waistcoat with a Range Rover boot full of guns.
We were late finishing work, and in any case I had failed to be properly organised, because of trying to get brown shoulders yesterday. This meant that after work we could not just rush off, but had got to shower and load the van. Because of this karmic consequence of idleness, we did not arrive at the lay-by at the end of the school drive until seven o’ clock this morning.
Lucy was fast asleep in her bunk. Mark and I slipped into the back and collapsed into bed.
I woke up before ten. The sun was shining, and the van had become uncomfortably hot. I opened all of the skylights, after which I couldn’t go back to sleep because of worrying that I had not brought any shorts for Mark.
I had brought his new tweed jacket, but this did not seem very important if we were going to have ninety degree heat.
In the end I worried so much that it woke him up. This happens sometimes. I think that I am lying awake silently, lost in my own thoughts, but somehow manage to be making such an anxious kerfuffle that Mark can’t sleep through it.
I told him about the shorts, and he said that he didn’t care in the least, and went back to sleep.
I did not go back to sleep, which obviously woke Mark up in the end. We got up and had another shower and got dressed, after which it turned out not to be nearly as hot as I had thought it might be, and it was a good job that he had got his moleskin trousers after all.
We thought that we would make a pot of coffee and go straight to school to drink it there, and indeed, when we chugged up the drive, the first person we saw was Oliver, waiting for us and watching the shooting from a handy all-round vantage point on the lawn.
He came rushing over excitedly, and told us that Actual Head Boy and his father were about to shoot, and we should go and watch, so we abandoned the coffee, and Lucy, who was still in bed, and went to spectate.
The school grounds echoed with bangs and smelled of cordite, or whatever it is guns smell of these days. I do not know what it is that makes a gun make that satisfying explosion and little puff of smoke, I know once it was gunpowder, but that might have gone out of fashion, perhaps it might be cordite. I do not know what cordite is, but it makes me sound knowledgeable.
We watched Actual Head Boy and his father shoot. Whilst they were blasting away, the teacher in charge came along and said they had a free slot, and would Mark and Oliver like to take it.
Obviously they said they would, even though Mark had not even had his first cup of coffee yet.
I rushed over to the camper van to get Lucy out of bed, and Mark and Oliver went off to shoot.
Both Mark and Oliver are fairly good shots, but school is full of really good shots. Whilst we were waiting, the boy whom I have got earmarked for Prime Minister came rushing up the hill with his father, having scored forty two hits out of fifty. I thought this was brilliant, but he wasn’t even in first place, and it was only eleven in the morning. Fortunately I don’t think you need to be able to shoot to be Prime Minister, although I imagine Boris Johnson would quite like to be allowed to take the odd pot shot every now and again.
Mark and Oliver scored thirty two, which was better than last year, so they were pleased with themselves, and then Actual Head Boy and his father joined us for coffee.
I can’t tell you how much we wanted coffee by then.
It had been stewing for ages and worked splendidly.
We did not quite know what to do with ourselves then. We had already done the shooting bit, and the day had opened up in front of us, without anything in it that urgently needed doing.
We decided that we would steal Oliver and slope off.
In the end we drove over to a country house hotel, called Swinton Estate, not very far from school.
This is a massive stately home, now become hotel and general public entertainment centre, with all the usual inducements of falcons and spa massages and good wine behind the bar.
It was gorgeous, imposing and splendid, and also I like falcons and massages and good wine.
As it happened, we knew the manager, who is an old school friend of Number One Daughter, so we did not get chucked out even with the camper van and the dogs. After a glass of wine, we whiled away a very happy afternoon, poking around their walled garden, which covered four acres, and contemplating their sweetcorn and delphiniums and blackcurrants with great interest.
I could talk about this for ages, except that I am getting sleepy. I think we will probably go back again, and so you might hear more about it. There was a ruined orangery, with fig trees, and cleverly plumbed fountains cascading down steps, and deer, including a couple of white ones, sunning themselves under an oak tree. Suffice to say that it was so interesting that even the children liked it and asked to go back.
We got back to school half an hour before Oliver needed to go in, so we slept whilst Oliver reacquainted himself with YouTube. This proved to be easily achieved even with the guns still blasting on the other side of the lawn.
We were sad to leave him, but he was going to have High Tea and get on the coach to Cornwall for his first week’s camping. He assured me that Matron had emptied his rucksack, removed everything unsuitable, and repacked it properly, which was a relief, so we hugged him goodbye and came home.
We worked until midnight.
I am going to go to bed now.
It was an ace day.
