First goodbye

Despite being flushed and earachy this morning Lucy was not to be deterred from her return to school.

I would have sent her back to bed and taken her tomorrow, but she was quite determined to be well enough to go, so we carried on, a bit reluctantly. Mark has been grumbling sadly for a few days about children growing up, and not having a little girl any more, and we have all remembered that the holidays are inexorably drawing to a close, and that we would soon lose each other: and then today was the day.

Most of her packing was done, her tennis racket needed her name on it, and we never solved the missing sock mystery, but it was too late for that now. Lucy and I had a couple of hours collecting books and slippers and contact lenses and hastily retrieved PE kit, and then sitting on the lid of her trunk to try and get it closed, and I remembered at the last minute that I hadn’t cleaned her shoes, and she remembered that she had left her toothbrush in the camper at the farm, and Mark polished her bike and oiled the chain and we jammed everything into the back of the car. Everybody said a brisk and restrained English-child-off-to-boarding-school farewell, except the dog, who wears his emotions on the place where his sleeve would be if he had a jacket: and we were off.

We called in at Asda for fuel and a new toothbrush, and I needed some soap powder, and then we spent the long journey across revising together for the history exam that some teacher had thoughtfully scheduled for the first day back, and which made me glad that my own school days are long gone.

Once across the hills we stopped at the Designer Outlet just outside York, which has a splendid Penhaligons shop, because I have almost run out of my very nice lavender-scented hand wash.

(NOTE: It is much cheaper in this place than it is in Harvey Nichols. This is very handy information if, like me, you have ridiculously expensive tastes and no cash.)

We bought some hand wash, and I tried on all the testers of perfumes that I haven’t yet made my mind up about. Some of them of course, I use all the time and so they are familiar and lovely. However, there were quite a few that I hadn’t got, like the gorgeous Lily of the Valley and a splendid Easter one that smelled of daffodils, and I thought I might like them enough to remember when I have got some money. I tried them all, just in case. This made Lucy impatient, and she rolled her eyes and complained until I gave up and we went for a goodbye afternoon-tea at a place upstairs called Pizza Hut.

This was Lucy’s idea, because she has been there before, and thought she would like to go again. I have not, and it wasn’t quite what I had expected as a purveyor of afternoon tea.

It was surprisingly pleasant and amazingly fast. They don’t come to the table and take your order, or anything: you have to go to the counter and tell them what you want, and they just produce it instantly, like a conjuror with a hat and a rabbit, which is astonishing. I hadn’t at all expected that, usually when I go out to eat I give the waitress the order and then drink a glass of wine and wait whilst they cook it. They explained that none of their fruit juice had actual fruit in it, and I wasn’t sure that I liked the idea of the coffee, so we had water.

The pizza comes in a cardboard box which you just put down a hole in the worktop when you have finished, so presumably they save lots on the washing up, and the water came in a plastic bottle which we took with us anyway. They didn’t sell wine, which was perhaps as well, since I was driving, although I might have had a small glass if it had been on offer, and you have got to eat with your fingers. However the astounding thing about it was that for two small round pizzas and garlic bread it only cost eight pounds. It was nothing splendid in the culinary stakes, but it was perfectly edible, and probably one of the cheapest meals out I have ever eaten.

And then it was school, and goodbye.

We lugged her massive collection of trunks and boxes up the stairs and along a maze of corridors to her dorm, which is a very nice little bedroom that she is sharing with two other girls. They were there already, because we had dawdled in Pizza Hut, and shrieked and flung themselves on her as we walked in, in the manner of teenage girls. They all talked each other’s ears off about holidays and teachers and girl things whilst I helped Lucy unpack so that we could take her trunk downstairs for the porters to put into storage: and it appeared that the plan for the evening was for all of them to get into their pyjamas and eat tuck and watch a film together in bed on somebody’s laptop.

This sounded like a happy outcome to the day to me, and I hugged Lucy goodbye without a single qualm at leaving her, and she waved cheerily as I went off to get lost on the way out.

It was late when I got home, and Mark had got my dinner ready and split up a huge stack of logs.

“You smell nice,” he said, when I came in: so I might go back for the daffodil perfume next time after all.

LATER NOTE: Mark says that the absence of a couple of bottles of Beaujolais is what accounts for the economical nature of Pizza Hut and not at all because of any amazing value for money. I suppose he may be right.