I have started counting down until school happens again.
We are going to hold a massive end-of-holiday blow-out on the night before we head north. Lucy is going to join us and we are going to go to the theatre to see some kind of theatrical extravaganza orchestrated by the ever-amazing Derren Brown. It is called Unbelievable. Generally I will believe any old rubbish, and so I have got high hopes of being thoroughly mystified and entranced.
Derren Brown is not in it. It is some trainee magicians apprenticed to him who are being allowed out on their own for the first time.
I think Oliver could do that when he grows up. I will suggest it.
Obviously this might be some time off yet. First we have got to get him back from Korea, then we have got to get home and hastily earn some more money, then we have got to pack all of his things and find something cheap to do with the dogs whilst we are at the theatre.
Volunteers would be appreciated, of course, just saying…
Still I have been thunderstruck by the uncomfortable realisation that this is not going to be in some vague and distant future life. We have got to go and get Oliver in one week from today.
He seems to be having a splendidly foreign and exotic time. Every now and again the not-hyper-criminal, who has turned out to be very likeable indeed, sends us some pictures. Oliver looks taller than ever in these, and is wearing shorts. He has got very long legs.
Also, I am pleased to announce that we have had two end-of-year results today, one being for the not-yet-Mrs.-Oliver, who has done very well indeed in her A Levels and who is now thoroughly on track for becoming rich and famous. This is a jolly good thing, one of us has got to manage it sooner or later, and so I have turned my sights back to Oliver for care and nursing in our helpless old age. The other set of results was for Oliver himself. Oliver has not yet done his A Levels except for part of one BTEC paper which for some incomprehensible educational reason they took a year early. It was in Psychology, and he has achieved a double distinction. He has got to do more exams next year so it is not over, and I do not entirely understand the grading system but as far as I can tell this is something of a good start. Certainly I was very pleased when I got a Distinction for an assignment at Cambridge, and Oliver’s is a double one, so I suppose it is even better.
I have started flapping about in readiness for school, and today I waded through a huge pile of back-to-school ironing and started sewing name labels on things. I had a very narrow escape when I realised at the very last moment that the socks I had bought were four sizes too big. Fortunately I had not sewn any labels into them and could send them back in pristine condition and order some more, otherwise he might have needed to wear two pairs of socks at once, employing one pair to stuff down the toes of the other.
With this in mind I have mucked out the camper van, which was not improved by Ritalin Boy’s muddy presence after he had been down to the canal, and am just starting on Oliver’s bedroom. Lucy is coming home with us as well, although she will be bringing her car, at least as far as our house. After that we are all going to go to Scotland together, and see Oliver into his last year.
The very last one, they seem to have flashed past like Number One Son-In-Law on his motorbike on the M25.
He is becoming Distinguished.
