Lucy has gone away.
She opened her computer, booked herself some train tickets, and left. She has become very expert at travelling now.
She has gone to see a school friend in Ilkley to do some girl things for New Year.
The friend has a big house with hot tub and other expensive accessories, and Lucy thinks that she might like to enjoy some truly middle-class tranquillity for the end of the festive season.
She is looking forward to this because she is bashed and bruised and weary after two days of intensive brawling practice.
I felt a bit lost and sad when she had gone. I am very pleased that she is going to have a lovely time with her friend, but it is nice to have the children cluttering up the house. She will be seeing the New Year in somewhere else, in proper celebratory style, and not just making a hasty trip to the fireworks for good wishes and hugs before we have got to dash back to work. She has become a grown up, and very soon she will be completely gone, living in her own house and making her own fortune.
Oliver is at home for the New Year, so we will still have a young person joining us for the fireworks.
The whole family except me has made a New Year’s Resolution to do their homework, because none of them have. Oliver has got pages and pages of ignored grammar and spelling practice for school, Lucy has got to write an essay, and Mark has got his GCSE maths to worry about. None of them have written a single word since the holidays started.
I thought that I was very glad not to have this problem. Then it came as a small shock of surprise to notice that I am the only one in the house who is not engaged in a programme of self-improvement.
I was not quite sure what to think about this. It is an uncomfortable truth. They are all striving towards something, Common Entrance for Oliver, A Levels and becoming a street fighter for Lucy, and maths GCSE and becoming a dot com millionaire for Mark.
I am folding their laundry and washing their coffee cups.
I am sure that this is a very worthwhile role in life. Somebody has got to scrape the mud off the rugby boots and sweep the hearth.
The thing is…
The thing is…
I explained some of this feeling to Mark when we got up. He kindly did the morning washing up by way of compensation, and whilst this was very nice, it did not make the uneasy feeling go away.
I don’t think I want to do maths GCSE or learn to poke people in the eye.
There are all sorts of lovely things I would like to learn to do, like sail a yacht or fly an aeroplane, but none of them are compatible with paying school fees.
I am trying to become a bit thinner and fitter, I suppose, although that is mostly about not doing things rather than the reverse. I will be less portly if I stop eating chocolate and quaffing red wine.
I am still not drinking after Christmas anyway, although really this is because of the sore throat and a general state of self-pitying malaise rather than any kind of newly espoused temperance principle. I am quite sure that as soon as I am in sufficiently good health to digest alcohol without feeling mildly nauseous then I shall give it another go.
This all requires some careful thought. I would like to have a proper ambition in life, other than just managing to have a clean bathroom. It could be that 2018 might be the time to get one.
I shall keep you posted.
Have a picture of yesterday’s snow.
