It was teeming down this morning when R and I set off for Stratford, hoping to get in a walk as well as doing some shopping. By the time we parked the car in Old Town it was clear that we should have checked the forecast, but for some reason it hadn’t occurred to either of us – both having some kind of seasonal senior episode, I guess. Anyway, we sat there for a while, trying to hear R’s current Audible book over the noise of rain thundering on the car roof, and ten minutes later, having established belatedly that things weren’t likely to get any better in the next four hours, gave up the walking plan and drove to the supermarket instead. At least this gave me the chance to buy a new poinsettia – last year’s having failed to flower again so far this winter, petulant and demanding creature that it is.
This afternoon we received a WhatsApp photo of the Boy Wonder, sent home by his form teacher shortly after she’d caught him cutting his own hair in class. This amused me hugely, partly because it’s almost exactly 31 years since his mother did exactly the same thing, and partly because karma has decreed that on this occasion it’s her job rather than mine to retrieve the situation. What goes around comes around, etc., etc. But my absolutely favourite bit of the incident was the fact that, on having the teacher’s phone pointed at his guilty person, the Boy – fringe removed to the hairline, and school uniform liberally decorated with shorn locks – produced his best and sunniest photograph smile for the camera. My advice to L was to get someone to sort it out with a razor, which definitely deterred her four-year old self from further exercises in self-hairdressing.
R: L2, C2, D21.
