Once again I have been cross with Mark.
This time it was his own fault.
Whilst we were having our coffee this morning he confessed that he had accidentally set the chimney on fire.
He thought that it had gone out, but that I was to be very careful all day.
Regular readers will know that I have had some unfortunate experiences with the fire brigade, and so this was not good news. I promised to take care, and we got up.
Now that Mark is working I start the day by making a flask of tea, and a flask of hot dinner for him to take with him.
Then I wash up and make everything tidy.
Due to our primitive plumbing arrangements, all of this involves the boiling of two large kettles on the stove. They take a long time to boil, so a job like washing up involves some advance planning.
Remember this in your electrically-charged modern plutocrat kitchen, and spare some small sympathy.
Before we had coffee I asked Mark to put the big kettle on so that I would have hot water for all of the above.
When I came downstairs I discovered that he had indeed put the kettle on, but had neglected to put any water in it.
Imagine my pleasure at finding the house on fire for the second time in an hour.
My happiness was not improved by occupying the next hour with Vim and steel wool, scrubbing the kettle back to its unblackened state and making my fingers sore.
I did not kiss him goodbye.
Unlike in tragic films, he came back all right, obviously.
He actually came back early, because we were going out. Tonight was the night of Oliver’s carol concert in Ripon Cathedral, which is something of a highlight of the school calendar, and involves some preparation.
The dress code for gentlemen for these affairs is fairly simple, tweed jacket and either corduroy or moleskin trousers. If you are young and racy you can wear jeans, but only if you match them with expensive shoes and designer stubble. If you are a lord you can wear the old comfortable tweed jacket with holes in the elbows, because nobody expects you to have any money, because of the roof repairs to the stately home.
The dress code for me was also simple, it was so very cold that I wore my thickest jersey, and a woollen coat, and hat, and a scarf and sheepskin gloves. I was so wrapped up that movement was impeded, as I discovered at one point when I would have liked to scratch an irritating itch in the middle of my back.
We got to Ripon early enough to have a glass of wine and some pasta before the service, which was unexpectedly welcome, and then shivered our way across the road into the Cathedral, which is large and clearly having some difficulty financing the heating arrangements.
Despite this it was packed, with every local dignitary and aristocrat for miles having forked out for a ticket. The extortionate cost of these was rather offset by the large quantities of damson vodka on offer, which we accepted gratefully.
It was an ace service, as it happened. Oliver has been promoted to the senior choir, and the music, as always, was absolutely brilliant. It all started off being candle-lit. This was rather magical, but after a few minutes somebody realised that nobody could read their carol sheets, and so the electricity went back on, and to hell with the cost.
There was a gorgeous soprano, and a chap singing counter-tenor, and everybody clapped very hard indeed, even though it was church. This seemed to be all right, though. The speaker was some chap called Ed Chamberlin who does racing on the television, Yorkshire being inclined to middle-class pursuits. He did not mention God, but advised us to back Might Bite in the King George at Kempton on Boxing Day, so there you go, you heard it here first.
The vicar did not seem to mind the absence of God, and suggested cheerfully that after a few damson vodkas we might feel inclined to contribute to their own new roof as well as the cancer charity that the event was designed to support. We had not got any money left by then, but decided that if Might Bite wins we will send him a cut.
Oliver was fine, full of the singing and the end of term and the general happiness of an approaching Christmas. We sat together on the stone steps to the nave and agreed that we did not need to talk about anything at all, that it was quite enough to be together, especially with some illegally-smuggled tuck that had been my contribution to the evening, and the damson vodka.
We sat there happily watching people milling around us in fur coats and tweed jackets until it was time for the coach to set off back to school. All the other boys would be in bed when the choir got back, and so they would have to drink their hot chocolates quietly and tiptoe up the stairs.
We hugged him goodbye. We will see him on Wednesday. It is a very happy thing.
The picture is the music master, who played the Toccata at the end brilliantly and passionately, and is one of my heroes.
I will never tell him that. He doesn’t do talking to mothers. He goes pink and scurries away.
Oliver says he is one of the best teachers in the world.
