This is a really, really short entry, because I am so excruciatingly tired that I can hardly see.
For tired, also read ‘over eaten and drunk’.
I am wrapped in the most comfortable dressing gown imaginable, in a lovely bedroom in the Hotel Caledonian in Edinburgh with Mark and Oliver. It is the end of the first day of our long expedition into the icy North.
Fortunately huskies and tents and Kendal Mint Cake are not called for at this early stage.
In fact we have just eaten an enormous dinner in the brasserie and rounded it off with hot chocolate, fortified with brandy in my case, and staggered upstairs, actually in the lift, since we are on the fourth floor, and collapsed.
Partly we are tired because we didn’t get to bed until five, and got up at half past nine, because I was in such a flap about going, and once I was awake then Mark felt obliged to join me, encouraged by a light elbow in the ribs.
We packed, and drove, and here we are. We have got a gorgeous room, and took Oliver for a swim before dinner. After that we ate, and ate, and ate, and I am so tired now I can hardly see the screen.
I am filling in the intermediate moments by lecturing Oliver about good manners and ways in which he can impress everybody with his general perfection. We have scrubbed him to a pink glow, trimmed his fingernails and dredged his ears clean of their vile brown sludgy filling. He has got clean underpants and a light covering of deodorant, just in case, and we have worked him up into such a state of good mannered anxiety that almost every single sentence consists mostly of the words: “yes thank you please, thank you,” followed by a worried look in my direction to make sure he has covered all the bases.
We have got a room with two double beds in, he has got one to himself and we have got the other, which is a marvellous contraceptive. Mark is asleep next to me, and Oliver is settled happily on his own bed in his underpants, playing some kind of vile game involving cannibal worms on his computer.
It is the loveliest hotel, the picture at the top was a surprise waiting for Oliver in the bedroom which I thought was absolutely splendid, what an absolutely brilliant thought. We all stood round and admired it for ages before helping him eat it.
We have left Number Two Daughter in charge at home, but when I spoke to her on the phone this evening she said rather impatiently that she had got no idea if the dogs were sad or not, because she hadn’t asked them, but she had emptied them in the Library Gardens, so if they were sad at least they were sad and thoroughly drained.
It is no good. I simply can’t write any more, My eyes are closing and I have a suspicion that in fact I may be asleep already.
This is a lovely journey. The wine at dinner was glorious, and I had a smoked haddock risotto with eggs, which frankly was paradise to eat. I am too tired to tell you more, but please know that I am an exhausted and happy diarist.
