Mark is not exactly better but he went to work this morning anyway. This gargantuan effort was made possible by the miracles of modern science, by which I mean that we stuffed him full of drugs.
He was still groaning and coughing when he left, but seemed sanguine enough about the day. I took the dogs off on our long Getting Fit Walk, a picture of which is at the top.
At first there was sunshine, warm even despite the chill wind: but when I got to the top the weather started to close in. This is a scary thing that happens on mountains, and I am always a bit worried when it happens even though School Knott is not really a mountain but a hillock, and you could probably walk over it in high heels if you wanted to.
I was going back down into the cloudy bit, and I was not sorry to get back to the road, because on the fellside it had started to snow, hard, tiny ice pellets that blew into my face and stung my eyes and cheeks. I was pink and breathless by the time we trudged back up the garden path.
I did not take my coat off. I went to the bank to pay the weekend’s takings into our financial crisis, and to Sainsbury’s for things that I hoped the children might eat. After that I filled the fireplace with logs and emptied the compost bin and finally eased my weary feet out of my boots with a sigh of happiness.
I had just started to think pleasant thoughts about breakfast when I remembered that Oliver had a dentist’s appointment, and went rushing upstairs to check the diary to see if I had missed it.
By a stroke of good fortune it was in five minutes’ time: so I bellowed up the stairs until he came staggering down, pulling his clothes on over his head.
The dentist is just across the road from our house, which is handy, so we made it in time. Oliver has broken his front tooth yet again. The crown, which was glued to it last time he was home, broke off during his very first school breakfast and may actually have been swallowed along with the responsible sausage.
This time the dentist said that it might be a wiser idea just to leave it. He said that it was up to us whether Oliver would like to have an American style smile, which would need careful maintenance and not too many apples and carrots, or just put up with the chipped bit like a true Englishman, and have it replaced when he grew up a bit and thought he might like a girlfriend.
Oliver said instantly that he was perfectly happy with his mouth as it was, thank you, and hopped back out of the chair with a look of relief. This is not because he ever eats apples or carrots, but because he does not like the dentist fiddling about in his mouth. I am sympathetic with this standpoint.
We talked about it on the way home, and decided that if ever he does want it fixed, it is the work of a few minutes, and anyway, we would probably have invented a better sort of tooth glue by the time he is grown up, and it would stick better.
He thought that this was sensible, and so I am going to have to to get used to being the parent of a child with a crooked, broken-toothed smile until the adolescent longings set in, probably around the time he goes off to a co-educational school. I am not at all sure about this next adventure, I can tell you. Boys only is a lot less worrying, whatever possessed Gordonstoun to let girls in.
When Mark came home I left him to go to bed, and went off for my nightly gym nightmare and then to work. I was late for the gym because of procrastinating like mad, but I got there in the end and burned up enough calories to be able to eat chocolate with a clear conscience for the rest of my life. After that I dragged myself wearily back to the taxi rank, which is where I am now.
I am not going to work late, because we are going to have an adventure when Mark wakes up. We are going set off at around midnight to drive the camper van to Manchester, and park there, because the children are going to have a skiing lesson at half past eight tomorrow morning. This is because Oliver is going skiing with school at Easter and Number Two Daughter said that he would have a rubbish time if he could not ski at least a bit before he went.
I am looking forward to this.
Whilst they are skiing Mark and I are going to spend the whole day asleep.
It is going to be absolutely brilliant.
