Running Out of Days
It’s Thursday morning, and the days of my “stay-cation” are slowly ebbing away. Just today, tomorrow, and the weekend left. After that I will be back to the old routine – making myself a packed lunch, dragging the bike from the shed, and doing battle with traffic in town. Thankfully the traffic will be light, because the children are still on summer vacation here for another few weeks, but after that the army of new school parents will appear – many of them with new cars purchased to make the school run (no, I’m not joking – many people around here appear to take the “who can piss the highest” competition to a ridiculous level).
There’s nothing quite like seeing two gargantuan four wheel drive tanks meet each other on one of the old narrow victorian back streets of the town. There’s also nothing like being five minutes late for work, and meeting the “returning from the school run” trophy mums, rushing towards a coffee morning and a first chance to both judge each other, and to see who has pissed the highest.
While wandering around the local stationers a few days ago, buying a pen for my bullet journal, I overheard somebody say “No Rupert, you cannot have a new iPhone for school”.
So- so today is really the only day I can really think about. I just knocked on Miss 16’s door, and enquired if she might like to accompany me into town for a coffee.
“I need to wash my hair”
She’s in the shower now. I’ll see if I can coerce her into picking her camera up on the way out of the house – turn the morning into a wander around town, taking pictures of life unfolding around us. If not, we will sit in Starbucks or Costa and wonder what to do next. Maybe I should tell her to take her bullet journal.
The younger children are at a dance class today – part of a summer camp run by the local dance teacher (the very lady that our funfair goldfish “Wonderwoman” is named after (a long story that I might recount if and when the goldfish ever dies – we suspect it might be immortal though. When I was young we had a funfair goldfish that lived for years, named after the label on the fish food). Miss 13 was feigning illness to avoid going today – the third and final day – until she discovered the dance teacher had a present for her, and was relying on her attendance to help. It’s amazing how a little flattery works – she left in a huge hurry about ten minutes ago.
I’m now waiting for Miss 16 to sort her life out. I imagine the national grid will dip for the next hour as a the sound of a thousand hair dryers erupts from her room. Ok – maybe one hair dryer.