It has been a very busy day.
As you will remember, today was the day of Oliver’s Great Adventure. He has not been able to find a job here, so we tied all his belongings up in a red and white spotted handkerchief, shoved a marmalade sandwich under his hat for good measure, put him on a train to seek fame and fortune in the city where the streets are paved with gold.
He and Mark spent last night sleeping under the stars at the farm.
To clarify, they spent some of the night sleeping under the stars. After that they were sleeping under the clouds, then they were sleeping in the rain, then they were awake in the rain, and finally they were in the car coming home, where they arrived at about eight o’clock this morning.
I knew this immediately, because the dog, who is not at all an enthusiastic camper, rushed straight up the stairs as soon as he got through the back door, to declare his heartfelt love for me, and for the warm bed which I was occupying, which, in the manner of people who declare their undying and heartfelt love, he was rather hoping to share. After a while Mark brought me a coffee and Oliver came to suffer from travelling anxiety, and we got up then and started getting packed and organised.
The idea was that he would travel with a large suitcase, a little rucksack, and his bike. I had booked his ticket and tried to reserve a space for his bike, but the booking computers had all crashed and it turned out that this was not possible, and the chap on the phone said that I would have to sort it out on the station.
This was fine, so Oliver filled his suitcase with things that he thought were important, like a couple of footballs, his PS3 and a stack of games, his Spider-Man teddy and his Beano comic.
I squeezed his toothbrush and some clean clothes into the remaining space, and Mark dragged it down the stairs. We had a minor crisis as we set off because the last thing I did was check the bank on line to make sure that everything was going as it should be, and discovered to my horror that the place where we had bought Lucy’s uniform for a sum of money which would have bought us a new taxi, had somehow managed to take the money out of our account twice, which had led to financial embarrassment bordering on humiliation.
I spent some time arguing with them on the phone, they agreed that it was their fault but thought it might take them a week or two to do anything much about it, which made me firstly cross, and secondly late, so in the end we had a very hasty dash to Kendal to the station.
By the time we got there we were on the last minute, so Mark dumped the car on some double yellow lines in front of a gateway, and we dashed in. Fortunately the train was late, so we had got some time, so I explained to the lady in the booking office about the bike, and she rolled her eyes and shrugged and told me that the computers were still not working and we would just have to wheel the bike down to the far end of the platform and take our chances.
It is a long platform and a very big train, and Oliver’s seat was booked in a carriage exactly as far away as it possibly could be at the other end of the train.
We collared a station employee and asked what we should do because we had got to get him safely on to the train and into his seat, etc, etc. He thought hard for a few minutes, in the way of people with a career in the passenger transport industry, and explained that because the train was late it would only be in the station for a few minutes. He kindly offered to put the bike in the guard’s van for us so we could wait at the other end of the platform and get Oliver safely settled in his seat, so we dashed back to the far end of the platform and kissed an anxious Oliver goodbye in advance, just as the train pulled in.
Mark leapt in with the huge suitcase, and I found Oliver’s seat and hastily plonked him in it, and then we rushed back to the doors just as they were closing.
They closed.
The ticket man shook his head with the air of one who has seen it all before, and explained lugubriously that they couldn’t possibly be opened and we stood there helplessly as the train pulled out of the station: then we had the sort of pointless conversation with him where we explained that we had been putting our son on the train and didn’t want to go to Lancaster, and he told us that we shouldn’t have done that because the train was late, but should have asked a station employee. We said that we had asked a station employee but he had chosen the option of putting the bike on and then obviously forgotten that we were on the train as well, and he said that we should have asked him to put both boy and bike on the train, and we said that this would have been impossible because the train was late, and in the end we gave up because it didn’t matter what we said since we were on our way to Lancaster anyway.
We decided not to rejoin Oliver, because of the upsettingness of another farewell, and lurked resentfully in the passageway all the way to Lancaster, where we had to wait three quarters of an hour for another train back. The train back was packed and very smelly, and we were jammed in with dozens of people, including one very peculiarly dressed gentleman whom I hope was having a stag party.
When we finally tumbled off the train in Oxenholme again the person whose gateway we had blocked with the taxi was very grumpy. We were contrite, but not very: actually since nobody had put a ticket in it we didn’t care in the least.
We arrived home about ten minutes before Oliver was due to arrive in London, and needed a little sit down and a bucketful of coffee.
He was absolutely fine, relaxed and proud of himself and cheerful.
It turned out that his bike had arrived there as well, which was a bonus.
How pleased we were.
