“Let me guess,” said Lucy this morning. “You’re never going to drink ever again.”
We were a bit delicate, but fortunately neither of us had a headache, or felt ill, or anything awful like that: we were a bit sleepy and slow and generally fragile. We sat in bed and drank coffee until we felt able to start the day, and talked about the night before, the way you do, until we had decided exactly what we thought about everything. I had some brief anxiety because I thought we might have forgotten to take the dog for a late night walk, but Mark reminded me about the two o’clock giggly guilt trip to the bottle bank and round the Library Gardens when we hadn’t realised it was so late and were astonished by how quiet it was, and after that we felt fine and made a start on the day.
It was lovely to be in the house after all that tidying up and polishing. The sun was shining, and there were fresh flowers everywhere, and the mirrors all gleamed, and we had been very conscientious at the end of the dinner party, so all the leftovers were in cling film in the fridge, all the pots were washed and the floor swept, and we came downstairs to the fire glowing cheerfully in the stove, and the scent of freesias. We had had showers before we went to bed, but still didn’t feel as if we smelled quite so nice due to having eaten lots of spicy food, as well as the wine and then the late night brandy and coffee, so we had another shower and washed all the sheets, just in case. We pegged them on the line to flap in the sun, and Mark went off to the farm to return the chairs we had had to borrow because we didn’t have enough of our own.
Of course we are now getting to the last few days of our time together, and it has gone so very quickly, and today was the day when I went into the loft with Lucy to start on the doleful task of getting her trunk repacked ready for school. Actually it wasn’t really doleful, she is quite chirpy and excited at the thought of seeing all her friends again, and looking forward to a summer term of tennis and rounders, and we always enjoy the journey down together as well, it is nice to have each other’s uninterrupted company for a few hours.
It was a bright little task, in the end, and we made lists of things that need replacing, socks, mostly, and tuck, and the only low point was discovering a horrible sack of Oliver’s very muddy P.E. kit that had somehow lain undisturbed since the beginning of the holidays and which smelled dreadful. I rushed it downstairs and tipped it straight into the washing machine, but think that further investigation may turn out to be a good idea in case there is more.
Fortunately there isn’t any rush for Oliver, he has still got another week and a half of holiday, and for the next few days I can just concentrate on making sure that Lucy has got books and pens and tuck and clean shoes and smart clothes for church and scruffy clothes for the outdoor adventure weekend and tights without ladders and some more socks. One of the great blessings of Lucy’s school is that the school uniform comes direct from a marvellous organisation called School Blazer, and all I have to do is send them an email and they will send some school uniform socks to school, complete with her name sewn in them, and then Mark’s credit card will do the rest.
Mark spent the rest of the day getting their bikes oiled and in good working order, because they are allowed bikes at school next term, and I went and sat on the taxi rank, and at some point one of us had the inspired idea that we should celebrate the end of Lucy’s holidays by finally getting round to our trip to Blackpool, so Mark joined me in my optimistic sit on the taxi rank, and we had a combined effort at making some money. By the early evening we hadn’t, but we had made some, and we were excited about a holiday so we gave up and went off to get ready.
We have packed the camper van and had our dinner and I am about to have my shower, and we are off. Lucy wants to go ice skating, and Oliver wants to buy some bullets for his air rifle so that he and Daddy can go shooting at the farm next week, and I want to go to the Clarks shoe outlet where they do reduced-price school shoes, and we all want to go cycling and eat doughnuts, and it will be wonderful. We have had an annual family pass for the Pleasure Beach for the past few years, but we didn’t get one this year, because we thought we probably wouldn’t go there enough, and I feel a bit sad about that now, but actually I was the only one who really wanted to go on the Pleasure Beach anyway, Lucy and Oliver weren’t very interested, and the last time I suggested it to Lucy last year she said that if I didn’t mind she would prefer to sit in the camper and do her homework.
We might go on it anyway. I like the Big Dipper very much indeed.
