I am back on the taxi rank, and very odd it feels too, after all of the week’s excitements.
I am weary and fuddled, and my feet are sore, but I am content.
My feet are feeling better since I burst the blisters. There were loads of them and they were huge, I looked as though I was trying to be accepted into the PT Corps. Popping them was remarkably satisfying. I will not go into detail. It was gruesome, and the nasty result of wearing ridiculous heels.
We obliged Oliver to try these on when we got back from the ball last night, since his feet are the same size as mine at the moment, and he will not get the opportunity again. I think it is healthy for all young men to fully understand the implications of womens’ fashion options, how awful if he were to grow into somebody who thought that high heels were good things for his girlfriend to wear.
I think that now I can also say with confidence that he is unlikely to become a transvestite.
He was absolutely astounded at their utter uselessness. He managed about four, horrified steps and kicked them off in disgust.
“What is all that about?” he said, shaking his head and looking at the shoes with revulsion. “Why would anybody wear those?”
Bursting my blisters this morning I was inclined to agree with him.
We were not very late to bed, because it was a school event and we were all chucked out at midnight, but nobody wanted to stir when the alarm shrilled this morning.
Lucy slept in our room, and she did not even hear the alarm, but had to be woken with a cup of tea some time later, and even the promise of bacon and sausages was hardly enough to drag her downstairs for breakfast.
We assembled in the dining room, only to discover that none of the rest of the family had wanted to get up either, and that we were the first. This was good, because of first crack at the coffee, and we were halfway down the jug before everybody else started to drift in, yawning.
It had been a splendid evening, a rather marvellous end to a lovely day. All the same, I thought at the end of it that I was very glad that I am not the Queen. I woke up on the morning feeling slightly queasy with anxiety about it all. There were a lot of smart dresses which did not need sauce to be spilled on them, and shoes that should not be tripped over, people whose names needed to be remembered and things like handkerchiefs and table manners that it was important not to forget. I would not at all like to do it every day. It was bad enough reminding Mark to take some cash for the collection in Chapel, the Queen has to remember to iron hers first.
Waking up today able to pull on a soft old cotton dress was lovely. It was not the sort designed to flatter anybody’s figure, and hence was entirely comfortable. I eased my feet into flip flops and the day was instantly all right.
After breakfast we packed. This sounds easy, but was not. Lucy’s things were distributed between our room, Number One Daughter’s room, and the camper van, and included all the contents of her dorm from school. She needed to sort some of them out to go camping today.
Oliver’s things were partly in our room and partly in the camper van. He was going up to Penrith to stay with his friend. I had packed for this already, but it turned out that he was staying for longer than we thought, so I had to rummage around in our luggage and find some more things that he could take, in order that he would not be in the nude by Day Three.
Lucy ambled around vaguely for a while before she decided that she was not up to packing anyway. She went back to Number One Daughter’s room and immersed herself in the bath, where we think she must have fallen asleep. She was still there long after Number One Daughter had checked out and left for the train station, and in the end we went up and bashed on the door.
Once we had her in our custody we had to go to collect the dogs. Roger Poopy barked when he heard us arrive, and we recognised his bark among all of the dozens of barks coming from the kennels.
They were pathetically pleased to see us, and leapt up to us in paroxysms of joy, with tails waving frantically. Obviously this made us feel horribly guilty. We were jolly pleased to see them as well, and agreed that much to our surprise, irritating as they are, it would be awful not to have them. It is tiresome to have to keep putting my flip flops on the top shelf, and to keep standing in dog food, but not having dogs is not nice.
They were very glad to be back, and dived into the dog-bed with ecstatic sighs of relief. It must be awful to be a dog and not understand when somebody tells you that they will be back on Sunday, so you should not worry.
Lucy went off camping, and we chugged away with Oliver to Penrith, and then finally back down the motorway towards home.
There was a lot to be unpacked.
There is a lot of washing. We have done some already, but there is still an awful lot more.
I will worry about it tomorrow.
Have a picture of my dancing daughters.
