It was a success.
I mean a splendid success, the sort of success where so many people are so kind and complimentary to you that you have to keep sinking glass after glass of college-provided fizz in order to cope with it.
Everybody was lovely. I had my hand shaken again and again, and people kept saying things like You Spoke For Me, presumably in the bit where I said how much I wished I’d brought a hip flask.
Obviously I was absolutely terrified. The whole day started, as these things do, with a great deal of milling about, people telling one another how marvellous it was to see each other, and all that stuff. Mark buzzed off with the other guests, and I was left in the students’ enclosure where we all circled around one another anxiously. Imagine dozens of gleaming racehorses before the Grand National, and one solitary, rolling-eyed, fat Shetland pony in the corner, and you will get the picture.
I had a fixed grin on my face by ten past nine, the sort where your eyes keep swivelling over the top of it to see if there is a quiet corner anywhere, and then we were off.
It was a big marquee in the grounds, with photographers and saxophone players, very much like a school speech day except nobody was playing the recorder or the bagpipes, and we more or less all behaved ourselves without the rugby teacher needing to scowl over his glasses at anybody.
The chap in charge talked first, and frankly, took up most of the morning. He seemed to have a very lot to tell us about, none of which I can remember now. I am sure it was all very academic and important. There was some stuff about being pleased to be educating women these days, so that we would all know how modern and forward-thinking he was, but which secretly I thought was a bit belated, women have been allowed into universities for ages, perhaps it has just taken a while for him to notice. When Oliver first went to a school that let girls in as well it took him quite a while to be able to identify them reliably, so probably it was like that.
Anyway, I was truly glad of his very sensible academic speech, because after a while I realised that virtually anything I said afterwards was going to go down well, and suddenly started to enjoy myself. One of the tutors made a speech as well, and she was lovely, as she always is, and then it was the Awards, basically the school speech day format where everybody gets a prize for keeping their desk tidy and hanging their PE kit on the right hook all term.
We all got a prize, although I haven’t really kept my desk very tidy. It was not a graduation certificate because they sent those in the post ages ago, before the Vice Chancellor said that having a speech day would be better. It was a signed letter from the college principal which said Dear Student, this is a brilliant college, we hope you appreciate how jolly lucky you have been. Obviously they had to give us something, but it made Mark laugh when he read it afterwards.
I made my speech then, and everybody laughed, sometimes loudly, which was a relief, and then everybody clapped and it was over. There were glasses of something prickly and alcoholic, and I clung on to Mark’s arm and drank lots of it in my relief, whilst everybody took photographs of one another before finally sloping off to the pub.
Just as the last people were disappearing, something truly splendid happened.
Number One Daughter, Number One Son-In-Law and Ritalin Boy all turned up, looking bronzed and fit and lovely in the sunshine. I was scarlet in the face and a bit incoherent by then, but we all went together to join the others in the pub, and they were charming and entertaining and Number One Daughter took the wine away from me and said I must drink some water first. I was glad of this afterwards.
It was a very lovely end-of-college. When we finally staggered out of the pub we went to the camper van and fell instantly asleep.
It was dark when we woke up. We emptied the dogs and thought about what we might like to do next, and eventually chugged up the road to Lucy’s, where tomorrow Mark is going to mend the snapped exhaust before we set off, and Lucy is going to ask the rest of the police to leave us alone until he has finished.
I don’t have any words for how happy and contented I am now.
It has been a brilliant day.
PS. Those of you who have been trying to phone me, I am sorry, we left our phones in the van and they went flat. I will call you when we get back. Thank you for all your kind messages. x
