We have had a very long night followed by an embarrassingly short day.
We sat in bed with our coffee when we woke up, guiltily aware that it was actually past lunchtime, and that any passer by who happened to glance in, would see us still loafing in bed in our dressing gowns.
This is inevitable on the days after the nightclub has been open. In my youth I used to try and get up anyway so that we could still have a day, but I am long past such determined virtue these days.
Not having small children helps as well, of course.
It had been a busy sort of evening. The nightclub was open, and we have had an encampment of gypsies arrive in town.
The council has already tried to chuck them out, but been politely told by the Chief Gypsy that they have got to serve twenty eight days’ notice. Of course they will be long gone by then, they only ever stay for a few days, so the council has ground its teeth and given up.
We were expecting some difficulties, but boringly, there were none. When the gypsies have arrived in the past there has been an excitement of little fights and underage drinking, followed by some very boisterous taxi rides back, but this time they were so quiet they might have been a convention of Caravan Club members.
I was mildly disappointed by that. The gypsies add some colour to an otherwise staid population, and I have a secret admiration for their lively independence and fierce determination not to be bullied.
It turned out that they had come up for a wedding, for which they booked out one of the most expensive hotels, where they partied undisturbed for the whole evening.
They have not gone yet, so perhaps we will see a bit more of them tonight.
The presence of the gypsies had the effect of putting all of the village door staff in a state of hyper-alert vigilance, waiting for the fights which never came. This meant that anybody who looked even vaguely scruffy and pugnacious was turned away without hesitation, and I picked up an awful lot of disgruntled campers whose evening out had been curtailed because they had neglected to wash and shave before setting out.
I took one couple whose evening had clearly been very much marred by a furious domestic. It had been caused because the husband had been made responsible for booking their anniversary Lake District weekend mini-break. He had innocently thought that the Backpackers’ Hostel, a bargain at a mere fifty quid for the two of them for the night, would be a good idea, since cash was a bit tight.
His wife disagreed about this. She had known nothing about the arrangements, dreamily imagining that twenty years of marriage might be celebrated in one of the hot tubs at Aphrodite’s lodge, or perhaps the austere grandeur of Storrs Hall on the shore of the lake.
What she had not expected was bunk beds in a converted carpet warehouse.
She was not pleased.
I sympathised.
They had removed themselves to the larger and more commodious hotel at the top of the hill. The Backpackers’ Hostel had refused to refund their money, reasonably enough, and the husband was bemoaning his empty wallet.
I was mildly surprised that he had got to twenty years of marriage and not yet learned this fairly elementary Wife Management lesson. I recall that there was once a time, many years ago, when Mark, in a similar spirit of economy, booked us into steerage on a ferry to Zeebrugge, instead of our usual Superior Club Class With Windows. The ferry turned out to be full and an upgrade impossible.
It turned out to be a sharp marriage-learning curve for us both. Mark learned that it is a good idea to remember that your wife deserves the finer things in life, and I learned that it would be a better idea to book these things myself, just to be on the safe side.
We do not have these problems any more. Mark has long since learned to say: that would be lovely dear, but isn’t there a more luxuriously expensive option? and I have learned that the answer should always be: no. This is the most luxurious and expensive that I can find. I am sorry to disappoint you but this will have to do, at which point he says, carefully: well, I shall order some champagne to go with it. You are absolutely worth it my dear.
I wonder if I could make a career in marriage guidance.
It is all so simple when you know how.
