We were saved from abject misery this morning by the discovery of an unexpected extra hour added to the night.
We were just staggering into the shower at the end of the drunk shift when Mark chanced to look at his phone and we discovered, somewhat to my perplexity, that it was an hour earlier than we had thought it was.
Of course we remembered about the hour quite quickly, but it was as happy a surprise as discovering that the Inland Revenue have made the right sort of error with your tax calculations. No longer were we shuddering in the face of five hours’ sleep and then hauling the poor camper van off on yet another trip to Mordor.
We had got time to sleep
Almost nothing is as important and wonderful.
Had we not had this surprise present it would have been a jolly horrible day, I can tell you.
We are, of course, heading north to return Oliver to the hallowed portals of Gordonstoun, whereby he can resume his usual school term activities of rushing about on his bicycle, dragging huge rucksacks off into the mountains, eating crisps and thinking about girls, although probably not all at the same time.
His current career contemplations are prodding him in the general direction of applying to Norland to train as a super-nanny. So far he has considered joining the Armed Forces and shooting people, then the police and arresting people, but perhaps being a nanny and just gently explaining things to people will suit him best. In any case, Norland Nannies are usefully trained in unarmed combat and high-speed driving, so it won’t be completely devoid of thrilling challenges.
We will have to see. If he is accepted on to their course we will no longer have to worry about luxury and idleness in our old age. He will do very nicely indeed.
We worked late last night. Indeed, we did everything late. We got up late and did not return to bed until five o’clock this morning. We were worried about this because of needing to set off for school, but as it turned out everything worked out rather well.
We are rushing with the journey to and from school because on Monday night there is a fancy dress disco at the Bowness nightclub, for the purpose of celebrating Halloween which we are hoping to attend. Obviously I do not mean attending for the purposes of dressing up in a sheet or a black pointed hat and sociably hopping about with a glass of wine which we are pretending is the blood of an innocent young maiden, not that you would be likely to find many of those in Bowness nightclub.
We intend to be sitting outside it and extracting cash from everybody who wishes to go home.
We think there will be a very lot of intoxicated people and hence considerable profit to be had.
I do not know yet if we will manage that. It has been a very busy week with a lot of travelling in it, and we are not yet at Perth on our way north, although it is already dark, thanks to the magically appearing and disappearing hour.
In fact it is not only dark, it is wet and windy and generally horrid. I do not mind the thought that we will not be dawdling about going for long walks and sighing romantically about the Scottish wilderness. It is no hardship to be in a warm cab when the world beyond is a sodden sea of leafless, wind-tossed trees and blackened brambles. Scotland is nice in the sunshine, I expect I will remember that if we get any.
Anyway, I am going to go. Mark is driving, we have got some tranquil music playing, and already a couple of hundred miles have safely passed under the wheels. It is too dark to knit now, and so I am going to occupy the next few hours reading some of the incomprehensible literature sent to me by Cambridge for the next section of my course. I am supposed to have read and considered this thoughtfully before the next module starts, but I haven’t quite got round to it somehow. Literary contemplation is hard work on a busy Saturday night in a taxi.
LATER NOTE: We are here, we have made it again, hurrah for the camper van. Better still, it has stopped raining and we have had a splendid late-night stroll under the vivid Scottish starlight. Oliver is looking forward to school and we are going to ring the Norland college and arrange a visit.
What an interesting future might await.
He could become Oliver Poppins.
