There is one question, dear client of mine, that has been asked more often of me, by more of you, than any other over the last few years. Alas it is not “what's your top pick” or even “where is the Hang Seng going to be at year end” both of which of course I would have scintillating and convincing answers for. No. It is whether or not my various baby darlings know that I am writing about them in this Friday missive.
Well, the fact is they do. So please stop asking. They are quite relaxed about this. You rarely hear about Jimmy. She's a girl btw and now 18. I haven't written about her much because, to be honest, she, of all of them, was the kind, even I felt, who wouldn't much like it. But I'm in her bad books for that. “Aren’t I funny” she asked the other day, somewhat plaintively.
I'm not sure funny comes into it really but here goes. On Wednesday she sat her final A level and was into her mothers car and out of Rugby before you could say “God, that nose-piercing is gross”. It is fair to say boarding school has not really suited her. From the day she went to Rugby she has wanted to leave. And although I don’t want to denigrate the place unduly, it has not done all that we might have hoped for her. Earlier this week she was sent for a routine health check. Essentially this involved comparing her height and weight now with when she had arrived, a full five years ago. The result you may be interested in. She is just 1cm taller and 3lbs heavier. How ridiculous is that?! What was the point of the last five years? What has she been doing???
So, suffice to say, she is very happy to have left and I fully expect a growth spurt now. I asked her the other day, driving up the A14 on her last return journey to school, listening to a stream of mournful dirges that she had insisted on playing off her iPod, and in an effort to distract her from the misery, if there was a perhaps a happy song she would play to celebrate the end of her career there. She couldn’t think of anything at the time but a few days later she sent me a note telling me she had found the very song. Here. I’m going to share it with you. It’s a Youtube link so you may have to wait till you get “home”.
Since then her final exam has been and gone and she is a happy little bunny back with us. Her first day back and she had the choice of anything she wanted to do. A shopping trip to London was what she opted for. I was a bit worried about this, truth be told. All sorts of damage to our bank account might have ensued, but I needn’t have been. In the afternoon I rang Sophie to find out how things were going. The phone had barely rung when a whispering and somewhat strained Sophie answered. I asked if she was perhaps in a library or even, odd though that would have been, visiting a church. No, she said, we’re in a thrift shop in Whitechapel. How cool is that? For £10 you get given a bag and can take away as many items of clothing as you can cram into it. Fair enough, they left with very little that might cater for the Rugby School Leavers Ball, but Bob is sorted for months to come as he tramps around the Suffolk countryside. And as the theme of the week is musical, while you’re at it, you might enjoy this little number…..
Hey ho. I’m knackered. Couple of late evenings in London, which resulted on Wednesday morningwith my missing my stop and ending up in Stratford. Have a good weekend and catch up on Montag.
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