This is the second time I have written this diary entry. I wrote it once on the way back from Scotland and then lost it all, completely inexplicably, somewhere in the Cairngorms. I am very cross indeed but I am in bed at home now and there is no point in going back to look for it.
Anyway you will be pleased by the discovery that we did not die, and indeed, the gas not only lasted all night, we slept very well indeed and were comfortably warm when we woke up. We discovered from the assistant Housemaster at school that it had been minus seven degrees at Duffus when he had taken his dogs out in the early morning.
This seemed to confirm Mark’s opinion that the gas was not running properly because it was freezing in the tank, and indeed, this explanation was given further credit when we went for a walk on the beach afterwards and discovered that the beach was actually frozen. The sand was a sheet of ice, slippery and black, and although we walked and admired the stunning Arctic beauty of it all, it was jolly chilly, and we decided that we had no particular wish to hang about for a second night.
It was very, very cold. Mark took the dogs out when we woke up, accompanied by a determined cat who seemed to feel that she might miss something if she stayed behind, after which we took Oliver back to school.
We were pleasingly early. This is important because Oliver wanted a nice room. The Housemaster decides who has which room, making careful selections based on the personality, associations and trustworthiness of the boy in question. Once the boys actually arrive the first ones there just decide which room they would actually like and just swap the names round, so the latecomers just have to put up with whatever is left.
This is rascally but perfectly understandable.
This term Oliver’s room seemed rather splendidly nice, and better still, on a corridor with all of his friends. Now he is in the Upper Sixth he is no longer compelled to share with anybody, and his room was warm and bright with a desk by the window. This first is always a bonus at Gordonstoun. Even today, with temperatures struggling to climb to several degrees below zero, the door and half of the windows were open, and the Housemaster was striding about with an air of breezy heartiness and a slightly pink nose.
Oliver’s room was warm so this was fine.
We unpacked all of his things. This involved the usual mountaineering through the Trunk Room. This is the store room where they leave their kit during the holidays, and which is piled floor to ceiling with bags, in exactly the state of order one might expect from luggage which has been placed there by fifty teenage boys in a hurry. Stuff was spilling out everywhere, I particularly admired a large poster which depicted half a dozen of them looking slightly nauseous on board ship. It must have been ages ago because Oliver was tiny.
Oliver clambered over the top of the pile and hurled his baggage out over the top again, and we dragged it all back along the corridors to his new room. Oliver is very tidy, and it took us a while to put everything away. He has since emailed me a list of forgotten things, so I will be going to the post office in the morning, as is customary in the first week of every new term.
Not many more to go now.
I am going to give up and go to sleep, it is the middle of the night. This might have been a longer and considerably more entertaining entry, except that one was lost for ever and I am now too cross to bother trying to be witty twice. Suffice to be able to tell you that we are not dead and that we have reached Windermere without incident, replete with the thrilling adventures of Ashton Pelham-Martyn in the Far Pavilions.
It really is the most magnificent epic story.
It is not nearly as cold in Windermere, I can tell you.
I will see you tomorrow.
