Daughters

We were having morning coffee this morning and contemplating our existence to date.

We had just decided that although our list of external achievements such as life-saving medicines or world-changing novels or discoveries of new planets were a bit thin on the ground, we thought we had probably not done such a bad job with the children, who were all jolly splendid in their own little ways, and busily doing their own things without much interference from us. Child-rearing is a bit like firing arrows over a hill, you have got no idea what the target might be like, or whether you are pointing anywhere near it, but you make your bow and arrow and have your best guess, and pull the string anyway.

Right on cue, as if timed by a film director, probably the sort that has the hero rushing back into the burning building to rescue the tearful little girl who is standing in helpless mortal danger beside the inferno, the doorbell rang.

Mark answered it, because I still can’t get the front door open, it has got to be tugged really hard because of the damp: and to his surprise it was an absolutely gorgeous bunch of flowers and some chocolates addressed to me.

He brought them downstairs scowling a bit, and looking anxious, but of course they were not at all from a secret admirer, but from Number Two Daughter, who had added a card to tell me that she loved me.

I was, of course, unspeakably smug about this, as it was confirmation, if any were needed, of my successful parenting techniques, if my broad policy of benign neglect could be so described. Quite obviously Number Two Daughter had turned out just perfectly, and here was the evidence: her first Japanese pay packet and she was using it to send flowers home to Mummy. I was very pleased indeed, and felt very happy with the world and my splendid children.

Mark laughed a great deal about this, on and off all day.

In the light of last night, when we sat on the taxi rank from five until midnight, and finished up with rather less than thirty pounds between us, we decided not to bother until Friday, which is usually a bit more fruitful, and stayed at home for an early night instead.

We had dinner and a glass of wine and some Number Two Daughter chocolates in front of some episodes of a DVD series we are watching now that we have watched all that there is to watch of A Game Of Thrones.

This new series is called Downton Abbey. It is a ridiculously improbable story of some people called Lord and Lady Grantham, who have got three daughters, just like us. Unlike us they all live in a stately home with servants and tell each other and all the servants all about their feelings the whole time. They all seem to have all got an awful lot of feelings, even the servants.

I spend the entire viewing time being aghast at the shocking behaviour of everybody in the whole series, they are almost as bad as A Game Of Thrones except without any embarrassing bottoms being waved about, it must be shown earlier in the evening or something. I was astonished tonight how Lord Grantham managed to have a family of quite such badly behaved daughters.

Mark said that he thought Lord Grantham had got off fairly lightly. He pointed out that at no time in the series so far had Lord Grantham come home to notice through the kitchen window that one of his daughters was playing strip poker in the living room with her friends and some young men who were obviously losing rather badly, and had to pop round to visit another taxi driver up the road in  order to phone home and announce that he was going to be back in ten minutes.

He also reminded me that none of Lord Grantham’s daughters and their friends had ever astonished their neighbours with the Naked Surprise game, nor had they ever accidentally rolled over onto their telephone to leave a record of their amorous encounter on his answering machine: nor, he observed, had Lord Grantham ever had to answer a midnight telephone call which brought news of a nightclub brawl after which one daughter had been hospitalised and another arrested: nor had Lady Edith ever concluded a dispute in a bar by leaning over politely, opening a stranger’s handbag and being sick in it before handing it back.

Of course we have not got very far into the series yet.

I suppose there is still time.