Some days it is so tiresome to be me.
We are setting off to Gordonstoun soon, maybe even tonight after work. In preparation for this crucially important beautifully groomed event I have accidentally dyed my hands blue and grown the most enormous bright yellow and scarlet spot on the end of my nose.
The blue was a misadventure with some waterproofing that turned out to be blue. It comes off all over absolutely everything I touch except the scrubbing brush. I have scrubbed and scrubbed and my hands are still blue. So is our dinner, all the teatowels, and the spot on my nose where I keep poking it in the forlorn hope that it might just go away.
I don’t suppose that the Queen had any of these problems when she made her first visit to Gordonstoun to shake hands with her son’s housemaster. When she first went into Duffus and proffered her outstretched hand, I bet that whatever the housemaster was thinking, it wasn’t ‘I wonder why her fingernails are all bright blue’.
It doesn’t seem to make any difference at all how hard I try. In my inner soul I am just a scruffy oik.
I was troubled by this thought this morning when I woke up to a sudden icy-cold fear that I might have got so fat that my trousers won’t fit me any more.
Of course it has been summer-clothes season, and I have been wearing dresses. They are the sort of loose, shapeless dresses for which the design has been inspired by an upturned sack. Number Two Daughter once remarked that they made me look like Homer Simpson in the episode where he gets so fat that he has to wear a dress. Nevertheless I like them. They are cool and comfortable and do not involve tiresome fastenings.
The difficulty is that it means I have not actually noticed my shape since May. I have not needed to fasten a button or belt all summer. I could have put on pounds and pounds of extra lardy chocolate button fat and never noticed in the least. This morning I suddenly realised that it was perfectly possible that the trousers I have set aside to wear for our voyage to the Arctic Circle might not meet around my waist any more.
Obviously I did not mention this to Mark. I decided immediately that I did not wish the humiliation of straining to pull up too-tight trousers to become a spectator event. I waited until a quiet moment later on in the day, whilst Mark was doing something to Oliver’s bicycle, and there was a decent opportunity to contemplate my rotund woes in undisturbed privacy.
To my enormous astonishment, not only did they fit, but there was even some room at the waist. I have not exactly become thinner, but it would probably be prudent to remember to take a belt with me.
I was very pleased indeed by this unexpected development, and began to think about our expedition with a little more cheer. This was probably just as well since the object of today was to organise ourselves ready to set off.
It will not be difficult for you to believe that although we are supposed to be leaving in the morning, we think that we might go when we have finished working tonight.
This meant that everything had got to be ready today.
Oliver’s things are packed now, there is nothing more to be done there. We needed to organise food for the journey and travelling clothes.
In any case, Lucy is going to come home on Monday. I had to make sure that there would be things in the house that would be nice to come home to. It would be horrid for her to come home to an empty dark house and find nothing to eat.
We left curry and chicken and salad and potatoes. Then we bought her a bottle of wine and some Pot Noodles, just in case.
I flapped about for the entire day.
I made mayonnaise and hummus, and an enormous pizza. Then I made fudge and chocolates and Mark cooked some spiced potatoes.
This is perfectly all right since I am a person with trousers that fit them.
We are at work now.
We might even be going when we have finished.
It is happening right now.
Have a picture of our holiday.
