Just a few words to tell you we have made it back.
We are exhausted. We got up almost before we went to bed and dashed around making sandwiches before chugging to the back end of the far north of the known world.
I do not know why we thought that the best thing to do next would be to walk for a couple of miles through the woods and along the beach in a freezing Scottish gale, blowing uninterrupted directly from the Arctic circle. We could hardly stagger back to the car by the end.
It was dark by then. We went to school.
The carol service was amazing. It was our last one. It was held outdoors in the enormous old courtyard. The sky was crisp and clear and filled with stars, and there were geese yelling overhead. Smoky braziers full of logs burned all around the edge, and the whole school gathered, breath white and frosty in the night.
The singing was really good, and the bagpipes played. Gordonstoun played the bagpipes for the King’s Scottish coronation not long ago, and they were splendid, haunting and lovely in the icy night air.
Oliver was in the choir, and we could hear his lovely deep voice even above all the others, and when he came to find us afterwards he was even taller, and sensibly wrapped in layers of northern clothes.
We collected his lovely girlfriend as well, and jammed the car full of laundry and tuck boxes and holiday things, the term is done.
We came home then. It took ages.
We got in not long after midnight.
I am too tired to write more. Maybe tomorrow.
