Oliver and Lucy passed one another in the night.
Lucy staggered in out of the lashing rain at about one in the morning, laden with sodden camping gear.
She had been at the Bluedot science festival. Bluedot is held annually at Jodrell Bank, and combines sciencey lectures with rock music. This peculiar combination has turned out to be rather popular.
She had had an ace time at this one, it turned out, partly because an old friend of mine, who is of a theatrical bent, was there as well. He had been hired to pretend to be a passing Jedi warrior for the casual entertainment of scientifically inclined hippies. I think this is a bit like the way Mickey Mouse makes an occasional appearance at Disneyland and everybody rushes up to tweak his ears and shake his under-fingered hands.
Lucy had been stopping villains from getting in at the gate, but it is such a well-behaved and mellow festival that instead of searching everybody for drugs they just politely ask any suspicious types if they have any that they think they ought to hand over.
She had also been promoted to being main stage security for a while, being part of the protective steel ring of muscle that stands between an over-excited audience and the performer. She was not greatly impressed by the music, which she thought might be considerably improved by the consumption of a couple of pocketfuls of drugs, and employed the provided ear-defenders to useful effect.
In between their quite startlingly diverse employment arrangements, the two of them had been off drinking and partying together, and Lucy came home having had an absolutely splendid time.
She was suntanned and exhausted, and smelled of muddy fields. She collapsed between fresh sheets and slept.
She did not emerge until half past three in the afternoon.
Oliver was off to Northumberland today, and was already in bed when Lucy got home.
We set the alarm for some ridiculously anti-social hour, long before the time got into double figures. and then rushed about trying to get ready so that we could get him on to the train.
He was going from Darlington, which on is the other side of the country, but more or less the only way he could get to Northumberland on the train without changing about six times and getting confused. After some deliberation we had decided that train changes in Preston and Carlisle made things far more complicated than they needed to be, and so Darlington it was.
Somehow things did not happen as they were supposed to, and we got very late.
I started to panic.
I rushed round chucking washing in the machine whilst Mark emptied the dogs. When we were almost ready I remembered that we needed to put the takings in the bank, and so I dashed up there whilst they filled themselves with breakfast, leaving instructions that they were to come round in the car when they were ready and pick me up, so that we could get off without any more delays.
For once there was no queue in the bank.
There was one man in front of me.
He turned out to be the non-English speaking Chinese chef from the restaurant in Bowness, who seems to be called Crazy Chef. He had come in to find out how to set up Internet banking on his phone.
Sometimes it is very difficult to remember that I am a liberal civilised intellectual without issues of racial prejudice colouring my judgement and making me irrational.
I could cheerfully have punched him.
He looked doubtfully at his phone screen and waved it anxiously at the chap behind the counter. The chap behind the counter was not allowed to touch the phone himself and had to rely on trying to point out, through the glass screen between them, which button to press next.
Crazy Chef did not have the first idea what the chap was talking about.
I was in a terrible hurry.
When they got almost to the end and it turned out that the app would not download because Crazy Chef had not installed the latest updates on his phone, there are no words to express my lack of liberal tolerance.
I don’t know which minister it was who said that immigrants ought to learn the rules of cricket, but it would be a jolly sight more useful if they were compelled to learn how their phones worked.
There was a huge queue behind me by then.
The chap behind the counter excused himself and went scurrying off to try and find somebody to open one of the other tills, and in the end somebody else appeared to take my money, and I rushed off.
Mark and Oliver were waiting for me outside, and we fought our way through the early summer holiday traffic.
We breathed a sigh of relief as we got out of Windermere.
“Have you remembered everything?” I said to them. “Have you got your phone?”
Oliver went white.
His train tickets, his games, his life, everything was downloaded on to his phone.
We fought our way back through the traffic and collected his phone, and then back again out through the summer holiday traffic.
Mark drove to Darlington at thrillingly high speed.
We made the train with several minutes to spare.
We reminded Oliver how you get off the train. This seemingly unnecessary lecture has been given to all travelling boys in Oliver’s class, ever since Prime Minister To Be did not know that you had got to press buttons to get the door open, and misfortunately finished up in Edinburgh.
Of course Oliver knew the story as well, and assured us that he would be fine, although Mark still poked the buttons as he got on, and said: “It’s this one,” which made Oliver roll his eyes.
It is Kendal Calling festival next weekend.
Lucy will have gone before Oliver comes home.
They are ships that pass in the night.
