Of course we were up far too late to appreciate the glorious spring morning, but we just about made it for the glorious Spring lunchtime.
It was the day of returning Lucy to school, and so everything was anxious chaos for the first hour of the day. I completely forgot about the lovely new intercom and resorted to bawling up the stairs, whilst Mark loaded trunks and tuck boxes and tennis racquets into the car, and eventually Lucy emerged rolling her eyes and complaining about being rushed. It later emerged that she had forgotten all of her pens and pencils, which she thought was probably my fault for making her tidy them up last week.
We hugged Oliver, who promptly dashed off to Harry’s, and were away.
It was an astonishingly beautiful journey over. The sky was Alpine blue, and the fell tops were powdered with snow. The roads were clear and coltsfoot peppered the banks, and when we got over into Yorkshire we discovered to our surprise that the hedgerows were out in emerald-bright leaf. Actually I mean to my surprise, since obviously Lucy barely looked up from her laptop and clearly did not give the smallest hoot: but it was an ace sight, as the first real green always is when your eyes are hungry for it at this end of the long winter.
We had allowed time because I wanted to call in at Penhaligon’s on the way because of wanting more of my favourite bluebell perfume and also some candles.
Lucy did not at all want to go to Penhaligon’s, and sat in the car watching Japanese cartoons on her laptop and complaining a bit more whilst I dashed in.
It was a bit of a hasty trip, because of feeling guilty about my poor abandoned daughter waiting in the car, although I had wound the windows down for her benefit. It turned out all right in the end. I bought my perfume, and some lavender-fragrant hand wash, and moisturiser, and some of the cologne Mark uses. Apparently Winston Churchill used to use the very same one, so I have an experience in common with Baroness Churchill, which is a rather pleasing thought. I bought bluebell and English Fern candles, and hastily tried a couple of new perfumes that I liked the look of: and then the lady in the shop, who knows me, kindly gave me some free sample testers to make up for not being able to indulge my usual practice of hanging about for ages squirting myself with lots of different fragrances and deciding which one I would like for Christmas.
Lucy sniffed haughtily when I got back and said that I smelled like an old person, and asked if I realised that after all my flapping about shouting, we were not at all late, but in fact half an hour early. I attempted to explain about the roadworks being unexpectedly gone from the A66, but gave up and thought how nice it is that teenage girls can all be herded up together in boarding schools for most of the year, and not allowed out until they are eighteen and beginning to understand what civilised is.
We were meeting Nan and Grandad for lunch, for which we were early, so we managed a calming sit down in the pub whilst Lucy continued to watch Japanese cartoons and I read my book and drank a soothing glass of Merlot.
We had a splendid lunch, which we always do, it is one of the bits of trailing to and from York that I look forward to, and also banished Lucy’s downcast back-to-school grumpy mood a bit as well. She was quite a bit more cheerful when we finally got there and had to start the tedious business of lugging trunks up the stairs to her dorm, not helped much by her being unable to remember which one it was.
Of course we found it, and it was lovely, cream coloured with a mezzanine bit upstairs and a splendid view, and had Lucy’s friends already installed. We had the usual ritual shrieking and unpacked. I put everything tidily in her drawers, without much hope of it staying like that for longer than the first day or so, and then it was time to part.
Goodness, it is hard saying goodbye to your children, no matter how tiresome.
I listened to The Archers on the way home and thought that summer would be here soon.
Lucy took the photograph, under protest because I was interrupting her last moments of freedom. Actually she took lots. This is the only one that wasn’t mostly of the wing mirrors and the dashboard.
