Tamsin’s 15 th Birthday
Sorry I do apologise, I lost the photo I was about to post of Tamsin. I hope this will do.
It was a big day. It is a day that only comes round once a lifetime. It was Tamsin’s 15th birthday. I am a fair bit older. I passed my 15th a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps I forgot to mention it as I was home that weekend.
In Boadicea Dorm we were all about the same age anyway. I thought for starters I would invite Tamsin home to Inveraray Castle on Saturday, then if she wished, she could go home on Sunday to Loch Awe Grange to celebrate her birthday with her family.
As it turned out the Lacey family had arranged for Tamsin’s birthday party on the Saturday at the Presbytery at Loch Awe. I had also been invited, as well as her next-door neighbours, Rosemary and her brother Richard. For Tamsin, this could turn out to be a two-day party as mother has also arranged something for her on Sunday at Inveraray.
Tamsin assured me there would be no children’s entertainer with rabbits and stuff; no magicians or ventriloquists at her birthday party. More importantly, her father was NOT going to play his clarinet. She said her birthday party was going to be a grown-up affair which is fair enough. I mean she is 15 years of age for heaven’s sake….er almost going on 16.
In passing, at college, Miss Pringle and Miss Sefton usually made a fuss of the girls on their birthdays and always announced birthdays at the morning assembly. Generally, the students leave Denhall Hall at around 17 years of age and then they go on to further education if need be.
Birthday presents from Tamsin’s friends were not going to leave her short of lollies and stuff for a long time. Candice gave her a lovely pendant and mother helped me fund a real silver ‘Language of Love’ bangle, well she is my best friend…….at present.
The following weekend I was at home at Inveraray Castle. I had invited Phaedra and ‘15-year-old Tamsin’ home for the weekend. It was like I had never been away. Colonel Carter-Brown and his wife Lady Rowena were already in the drawing room as was mother’s friend, Mrs Dalrymple. Disturbing though it might appear, mother and Mrs Dalrymple seem to have an unhealthy but common interest in contacting ‘our loved ones’ or our ‘dear departed’ or, as Tamsin says, ‘the dead’.
Oh, before I forget, first of all Phaedra Gascoigne told me she also is going to start her own blog. I asked her what the subject of her blog was about, as mine was life at Denham Hall. She said at this point she did not know. She is always quick to criticize my stuff so I will be quick to criticize hers. I pointed out to Phaedra my blog, in fact, is not far off a daily diary, is it?
It was Phaedra who suggested I got business cards printed up and suggested I ‘seed’ them at places like Macky Dees and Marks and Sparks, Tesco’s, bus stations, telephone boxes, waiting rooms and railway stations. I hand them to the postman, workers in the castle grounds, even to Japanese tourists to take home, in the shops in Inveraray village, in fact, all over the place just to help me drum up readership. I thought it was a good idea. Anyways I got a couple of hundred or so printed up. I suppose Phaedra will do the same once she starts her blog.
As a result of this I must tell you a story; well it is not really a story because it actually happened. I left a card advertising my blog on the notice board at Loch Awe railway station and when I went back a few weeks later my card was still there. Someone had left a lovely penciled note reading ‘I Love you, you are er… whatever. I left a reply, ‘Thank you for the lovely words. Us authors try to create an illusion. More stories will follow’.
I suspect a girl had left the note as my blog is aimed at young girls, unless it was a male of the species, like a gentleman who is trying to pick me up. If so I warn you now sir, these are business cards advertising my blog for heavens sake. I am NOT ‘seeding’ calling cards for Escort Services, thank you very much.
For those of you that might be interested, it is Kozłowski, the Polish Gamekeeper who is standing in for Beckett while he is on maternity leave, that's Beckett who is expecting his first child. If there is any confusion it is Beckett's wife who is actually expecting.
Later in the day Phaedra and I were looking out of the window of the saloon when we saw Mrs Dalrymple with mother carrying what appeared to be divining rods wandering aimlessly around the grounds at the back of the castle; trying something new perhaps? If there was water beneath our feet it might be because we are almost on the confluence of the River Aray and Loch Fyne.
It is not that we live in the Australian outback and are desperately looking for water. We have the River Aray which travels from, well wherever it comes from, and is within walking distance and runs into Loch Fyne in front of the castle which then travels down to the sea. I think it even has oyster beds in it and I see no chance of either of them ever drying up, both of them are full of fresh water. So I have no idea what mother and Mrs Dalrymple were up to and I was not about to ask father.
In the evening all three of us, that Phaedra, Tamsin and me went back into the private drawing room where mother and father were taking drinks with the Carter-Browns. Reynard the fox was curled up asleep in front of the fireplace. I noticed they had purchased a new collar for Reynard with a disc with his name on it. Colonel Carter-Brown told father he is behaving less like a fox and more like a dog, so that’s really good news.
I must remind mother to get the Bechstein tuned.
No comments:
Post a Comment