Valentine's Day weekend...

Friday Feb 13^th.

Tips for driving from Sheffield to Newcastle on Friday afternoon number 1: DON’T.

If we hadn’t set off at lunch time god only know what time we’d have got there. As it turned out it took us five hours. FIVE. That must be down to the several sets of road works and numbers of people getting away for half term.

Tips for driving from Sheffield to Newcastle on Friday afternoon number 2. Set off as early as possible.

We left at 1.00pm. We had a stop at Scotch Corner to give Callie a comfort break and then a second smaller one somewhere in Gateshead for the same reason. We pulled into the car park on Dean Street, a few hundred yards from the Theatre Royal, at 6pm. If we’d set off when we had planned, ie 3pm, we’d never have made it on time.

We strolled up Dean Street and then along Grey Street looking for an eaterie doing a deal. We found a pub doing two meals for a tenner so we hit that and ordered immediately. We also had a mini bottle of rose wine each. My ham, egg and chips were brilliant. The ham was so tasty. Loll had a lasagne, something she doesn’t cook at home as I can’t eat cheese. I couldn’t believe it though, no sooner had we sat down to wait for our meal than two bloody chancers tried to join us at our table. Why does it always happen? When they asked if they could sit at our table I said that I would rather they didn’t as we were about to be served a meal. This brought an attempt at a smart comment from one of them about my accent. (I do speak with RP at the best of times but I can also do supercilious cut-glass, like a very annoyed Queen Elizabeth, if I really want.)

I turned to Laura and said, “See what I mean? It’s an entire city with a speech impediment.” I don’t think they were amused by my Liz Windsor voice. But they took the hint and wandered off. After our bite to eat the place was still fairly empty, I suppose being only about 6.45 the hard drinkers were still at home getting pre-loaded. We found our way to the Theatre Royal and ensconced ourselves in the bar waiting for Avril and Kirsten and the two girls; we ordered a cup of tea at the bar, which flummoxed the staff for a while. Laura’s siblings and nieces arrived at about 10 past in a bit of a flap. They had also parked in Dean Street car park but had gone the wrong way down Dean and ended up at the river!

The show was really stunning. The sets and costumes were very good. I loved the Christmas baubles effect and the snow. I was a bit surprised that the choreography was rather different to the previous Nutcracker I’d seen, but borrowing Laura’s programme, I discovered it was the original Scottish ballet’s own version first danced about 40 years ago. It had been updated slightly but was essentially the same ballet. I had outlined the story to the girls before the start of the show and they were totally entranced by it all. They particularly loved the idea that there were loads of kids involved in the first half. I think they may end up asking for ballet lesson when they get home.

Plus points: the Sugar Plum Fairy was sublime. She really was expressive and lithe. Tchaikovsky’s music is an obvious winner too. I liked the Mouse King and Nutcracker battle which is always a treat, especially to eyes which haven’t seen it before. There was a woman in the bar saying how a reviewer had called the whole thing dull. I think that person may need a trip to the optician!

The journey home was punctuated by another toilet stop for Callie, so we lost Kirsten’s car just past the second roundabout over the A1. I wasn’t expecting Dad or Louisa to be waiting up for us, but they were still awake and watching TV when we finally rolled in at just before midnight. Louisa told us the hospital was going to induce the baby if she hadn’t put in an appearance by the end of next week. I was a bit surprised by this news.

Dad walked with me, up Tallentire Hill. to exercise the pack before bedtime. We walked arm in arm like we usually do and he seemed pre-occupied with thought of impending fatherhood again and the worry that there may be something wrong, as the baby hadn’t arrived yet. I tried to reassure him that all would be well, and the hospital would have pointed out any abnormalities when they had done the earlier tests Louisa had had. They had tested for all sorts of things because she is classed as an ‘older mother’. My kid sister doesn’t have downs syndrome or any other possible conditions that may strike a foetus when the mother is not in the first flush of youth. I told him I knew all this as it was something I had been thinking about, and researching, if I decided to have one when I finally had my career nailed down.

This made him stop and look me full in the face. He asked me if I was thinking of having one any time soon? I whacked his arm and re-linked with him. I told him not to be an idiot. I wasn’t going to do anything until I had a stable and permanent job, instead of this temporary post which ends in 18 months, when I’ll be in limbo again.

I asked him why he was so bothered me podding. He said that he wasn’t, as such, it was just that he knew I would feel so unbelievably fulfilled when / if I had a child. According to him it transformed my Mum in ways he hadn’t expected at all. She had always been doubtful about kids (according to him) but the transformation in her when they had Susannah was magical. I told him he was living his life through his literature courses and he told me I was just a cynic.

He went on to say that I was like my Mum in so many ways, more so than Suze who just inherited Mum’s stubbornness (and size). At times, he claims, it has been like watching a re-run of his early life with Mum, before they got married. [I thought this was getting unnecessarily romantic and sentimental but I kept this to myself.] I told him he was still being an idiot; I was nothing like my Mum. He said we needed to agree to differ. So I did.

Back home, snuggled up with Laura and gently pulling my fingers through her hair, as she rested her head in the hollow below my shoulder, which I love doing and I know it gets her so turned on, I asked her if I was like my Mum. Without hesitation she said, “God, yes! You look just like her in certain lights and from certain angles. You have the same chin and eyes, that’s for sure. You do tower over her, which she must find really annoying, but you do look very alike!”

I decided not ask her about any similarities in our personality as her fingers had got busy as well, but in a place much lower than my head.

Saturday 14^th February

I looked in a couple of the photo albums on my shelves this morning and found one of Mum and me taken in Paris in 2011. This was snapped by the guy she was ‘seeing’ at the time and who had been surprised to find his girlfriend’s daughter accompanying her on a supposed romantic trip to the ‘city of love’. We are head to head and smiling at the camera. I do look like her. If you just found the photograph without knowing who it was you’d definitely say; “These must be mother and daughter.”

I extracted a fairly large card from my hold-all and placed it alongside Loll on her bedside cabinet, then took Callie off and down the stairs for her first walk of the day. I gathered up the other three mutts and we made our way back up Tallentire Hill, sans aged parent who was probably still in bed. I left a post it on the chalk board saying, ‘Gone up to the trig point, will be longer than usual.’ I expected to be able to take if off the chalk board when I got back down with no-one being the wiser. That didn’t work. When I got back into the kitchen, after performing the necessary paw wiping on 16 paws I was surprised to be met by a low flying Laura who flung her arms round me and hugged me. She then began telling me off, asking why the hell I had been so long up the bloody hill and couldn’t I have just done the short walk instead?

I asked what the matter was and she pointed to the bunch of roses wrapped in cellophane and tied with a huge purple bow. They were for me. I had missed the delivery from the florists, scheduled for 9am – in case we went out. A dozen red roses. I hunted a vase from the vase and sundries cupboard and brought out a stem vase too. I arranged eleven of the flowers into the vase and handed one back to Laura in the stem vase. We hugged a bit more then snogged some more then heard a cough behind us as Dad came down and asked if we could hide the roses for a while as he’d got to fetch his surprise for Louisa from the garage and he didn’t want her to think he’d sent the roses.

I took both vases up the other staircase to my room and when I got back down Loll had started cooking a full English breakfast for everyone and Dad had put his pot of bush roses on the side counter. He said he was going to buy cut flowers too but the lady in the florists had asked him why not get a growing bush which you could plant out in the garden as a constant reminder to your valentine? So that’s what he did.

Louisa appeared, as if on cue, no doubt attracted by the smell of cooking bacon and promptly burst into tears. Now it was her and Dad’s turn to hug and kiss, after a suitable time Laura gave a discreet cough and addressed the room in general asking if we all wanted mushrooms with our cooked breakfast. When we said yes she told me that was my job then. Louisa helped by nuking a huge bowl of baked beans and in a couple of minutes Laura brought out a plate each for Louisa and Dad, then mine and hers. She had used the heart silicon egg rings to fry the eggs and the heart stamp for the toast. That’s was why she wanted me to cook up the mushrooms so I wouldn’t see.

As the weather was gorgeous we, Laura and I, decided we’d head off into the Park for the morning / afternoon and walk the circuit that takes you up to Watendlath and back down to the lake shore. We only took Callie as we planned to get the ferry to Ashness Bridge, walk upto Watendlath, drop down the path to Rossthwaite and get the bus back into Keswick. Managing four dogs on the ferry and bus could be a nightmare; especially if, at the end, they were all muddied up. Dad asked what time we planned on being at Watendlath and I gave him a rough estimate, He said he would drive both of them out and meet us at the café. It is usually open on Saturdays out of season.

It almost didn’t work as we were just giving them up as a bad job when I spotted a Land Rover heading down the cul-de-sac road to the hamlet. Sure enough it was Dad & Louisa. We stayed for another bladder filling pot of tea and yet more cake. I couldn’t believe how pleasant the weather was and how warm for mid February. D & L walked with us up to the little gate on the path to Rossthwaite and then wandered back to the tiny settlement. L & I yomped on up the track and at the brow we both had to hide behind a wall to squat and remove the excess liquid. How embarrassing. I told Laura that if we came up here in the summer we could find a secluded spot and have a sneaky bonk. She said I would not be allowed to forget that.

The road through Rossthwaite was incredibly busy. I asked in the local shop why it was so full of traffic and the owner thought it might be something to do with the road being closed in Portinscale. I couldn’t see how, myself, but I just agreed with him.

The concert this evening was very good. It seems they are doing a varied programme throughout the tour and they try to mix up the programme for each evening so that the performers don’t get to fed-up of playing the same thing over and over. That seems like a great idea. Other places were getting Tcahikovski’s 1^st Piano Concerto or a Shostakovich Symphony. Our evening was Beethoven Symphony one (a minnow) and Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No1 (soloist Natalie Clien). The second half had the Karelia Suite (one of the first pieces I remember as a child) and Tchaikovski’s Romeo & Juliet suite from the ballet. I suppose they included it to coincide with Valentine’s Day. We held hand through the R & J and at the end Laura whispered, I am sorry if I am an old cynic but if you kill yourself for love, I won’t copy you. We had a good giggle at that, even though at the back of my mind I was sharply reminded that I very, very nearly did exactly that. How glad am I that I was prevented from doing it?

Sunday 15^th Feb

Cumbrian weather eh? One day glorious next day iffy in the extreme. We had a lie in this morning after being overcome with a sudden and debilitating bout of wishy-washiness last night, on getting home from the Sands Centre. I snuggled up with Laura and we simply lay and hugged for a good half an hour without talking or anything. Eventually Loll said, “Oh I can’t wait any longer…” and dived under the covers. I felt her hot mouth over my important little place and we spent quite a while just pleasing each other with our tongues.

We decided to zoom off after lunch – a gorgeous chunk of beef from Thompson’s which will probably last Louisa and Dad the rest of the week now the gannets are going.

We hoped that there would be a good outcome with the bump soon and then whizzed off down the M6 this time as I was sick of the A1 and M1 road works. We were only held up at Mottram for a few minutes in the queue which forms at the traffic light bottleneck.

At home we piled the washing machine with clothes, found new vases for the flowers, had a pot of tea and toasted tea cake for a mid-afternoon snack and promptly fell asleep on the sofa together. Being totally stuffed from lunch and a tea cake each we decided to forgo a proper evening meal and have the remaining two teacakes with more tea instead. We are also a pair of lazy cows!

Callie was surprised to be walked at about 9.30 this evening. I wasn’t surprised to find a slender blonde nymph fast asleep in my bed when I got back. I carefully slipped into bed after my shower, rearranged her tangled mass of locks away from her face and kissed her ear before putting my head on the pillow. I whispered, “I love you so much.” The sleeping figure actually replied with an, ”I love you too…” How does she do that? I resolved to ask her in the morning. (I forgot.)