I am so late in starting to write this that it is thoroughly tomorrow. It is six in the morning so do not expect very much.
We have just arrived home. We have been travelling all night.
This was made far less onerous by being able to get crackly patches of the very thrilling election coverage on the radio.
We listened to it in bits, through deafening static, but still managed to work out, to our utter dismay, that our incumbent twerp carries on.
It is almost as good as deciding not to bother electing an MP at all.
All the same, we listened, gripped, to as much as we could, and in between we managed to get bits on the computer. We could barely hear that at all, and I had to sit right next to Mark and hold it up to our ears.
Of course we were in Scotland, so much of what we could hear was Scottish people being very pleased that they had managed to vote for William Wallace and freedom, or something of that ilk. We were pleased on their behalf, it is good to be united as a country, and the Scots on the radio all sounded very happy with their incomprehensible Scottish lot.
As you know, we had been to Gordonstoun to collect Oliver.
We arrived at Duffus just in time for the flag service, where the House Captain took down the house flag and announced that they are now on holiday, no longer need to repel boarders, and the flag would be stored safely until January.
This bit about repelling boarders is not exactly true, although it ought to be, because the houses all have an illicit competition to steal one another’s Christmas trees and hide them. They are not supposed to do this and you get in trouble if you are caught. This year Round Square House lost their Christmas tree, some other house managed to invade their territory when the guarding Year Nines were asleep, and when they woke up in the morning there was a dispiriting emptiness in the courtyard where their Christmas tree had once stood. I do not know if they found it.
After the Duffus flag service came the school flag service, where the Guardians, which is what Gordonstoun calls its Head Boy and Girl, took down the school flag and the Headmaster promised that he would look after it carefully over the holidays. What he will do if he decides to go on holiday I do not know, it is not something you would want to have to put on your luggage allowance or have chucked on to a runway and squished by a truck by disgruntled baggage handlers.
We sang the usual carols, between you and me the Gordonstoun music is not as good as the Aysgarth music, although the choir was nice, and was composed almost entirely of sixth formers. These are identifiable because they are the ones whose blazer sleeves only reach their elbows, because it is not worth spending another hundred quid just for the last year.
There were refreshments on offer, but Oliver was desperate to go, so we went.
He told us stories of school, and of boys, and of rascally behaviours and of happinesses.
He is having a brilliant time.
He fell asleep by half past eight.
We carried on driving through the snow, I think Scotland must have managed to secure an exemption from Global Warming, because it was freezing, and much of it was covered in snow, more than a foot deep in places.
In fact it was all very lovely and seasonal, snow and mountains and Scottish houses with twinkling Christmas lights. The skies were clear and the stars brilliant in that unforgiving-crystal way you only see in the very far north.
It is my bedtime.
I am too tired even to re-read this so if it is full of spelling mistakes I apologise.
The picture was taken at the beginning of the snow. It got a very lot worse than that.
