The Final Final

Last night, when we rang Pascoe there was a great deal of rowdiness going on.  Apparently there were fifteen people at his place getting ready to go out.  From the state of the girl who snatched Pascoe’s phone off him and burbled to us, I wasn’t even sure they would make it to the door.

“Nice to meet you too, Miss….Er..” I bade her farewell as Pascoe wrestled the phone back.

The occasion – the end of final exams.  For the biologists at UEA, their degree is complete!

“Yes,” said Pascoe grimly, “People are writing their addresses on their arms before they go out tonight.”

It didn’t seem so long ago that I was writing our address on the children’s arms for not dissimilar reasons.   I was not a very good mother of young children – easily distracted - and found that the children were returned to me more quickly if I wrote my mobile phone number on them.  I have had children returned from:

The top of a mountain in the Lake District,

A beach a kilometre away from where we last saw him,

A lake warmed by hot springs (going under for the third time),

A campsite, at night, at a festival of twenty thousand people,

IKEA’s soft furnishings department.

Come to think of it, all those instances were the same child – Perran, usually returned by a kindly lady, and once, on the drowning occasion, by an enormous German man.

So this morning I texted and said I hoped Pascoe didn’t have a hangover.  But he was bright and alert - all he had drunk was tea and water.  Let’s hope that when Perran, one day, finishes his finals, he gets home safely too.

 

Drolls and Weirds - Fetching water or gold?  Read chapter 4 of my story of love and mystery set in Cornwall by clicking here. Or read from the start.