Flapping

We started the day off with a gentleness that did not carry on after the getting dressed stage, sitting peacefully in bed with coffee watching a pair of crows trying to build a nest in the chimney of the house opposite.

It is an absolutely perfect site for a nest, because it is not only warm, but has got a little pointy roof over the top of it, to keep the rain off.

They looked to be a very young pair of crows, small and affectionate and determined. The problem was that it is not at all easy to approach a chimney from the air with a large stick in your beak and then manipulate it in such a way that it will go underneath the very handy roof and then down the chimney.

We watched for ages, and longed to be able to go and help, the way you would with any other of your neighbours. They tried so hard, and it was so very difficult, because of course all the sticks were too long to go through the gap, and it is very hard indeed to arrange flight so that the stick you are carrying can be poked in end-on.

I had to stop watching them in the end, because I was aching with sympathy, and also it was time to get up, but I do hope they have managed it, because we can see the chimney perfectly when we are having coffee in the mornings, and it would be wonderful to watch the chicks growing up.

After that life took on a far less tranquil note. As you know we are working tonight, and then leaving tomorrow, when we get up. In consequence of this I have run myself round and round in circles all day with frantic preparations for departure.

There were all the usual things to be done, like washing and tidying up, of course, and then there was a pile of Oliver’s back to school luggage to be checked and organised, and then there were clothes to be packed for our Scottish adventure, and then on top of that I have been trying to make sure that Number Two Daughter will neither starve to death nor accidentally burn the house down whilst we are gone.

Of course since she is actually twenty eight and not thirteen I know that she will very probably manage perfectly well, but in a secret part of my soul she is still four years old and in need of parental care and attention.

In the end she managed to soothe my flapping by helpfully preparing lots of food and putting it in the fridge for herself whilst I am away. I can now sleep easily knowing that she has got salads and fish and rice and fruit and will not be going hungry to bed when Mummy is not at home. She laughed about this, and Mark laughed about it, but they were both very helpful anyway, and when it was all done I felt better.

After that I tried on all my clothes to decide which I wanted to wear and of course the answer was none of them. I have packed all of Oliver’s clothes, and all of Mark’s clothes, but I left mine until today, because I knew perfectly well that my own packing would not be nearly so uncomplicated, and it turned out that I was quite right.

There were dreadfully difficult decisions to be made, and there was a horrid bit in the middle where I was wandering about in my underwear surrounded by mounds of rejected jumpers, none of which would do at all. Once again I have made the depressing discovery that none of my clothes make me look twenty years younger with a small bottom.

Of course I got over this in the end, and decided to pack some clothes that were decent and comfortable and reasonably becoming for a fifty year old lady, even one who accidentally ate an entire bag of jelly babies during an interesting programme on the radio last night. It seems that each jelly baby has since turned into an individual globule of fat and gone to reside on my bottom in the intervening time.

It is too late to do anything about this before tomorrow. I have condemned myself to be an aspirationally round parent.

I hope Gordonstoun doesn’t mind.

The picture is the washing, mostly handkerchiefs. Number Two Daughter ironed them all for me after we had gone to work. It is supposed to make you think of domestic flapping about, in a French film sort of way.