Birthdays, graduations and new dawns.

Pride, Love and rites of passage

It’s been the gathering of the clans for us with two important events, Hugo’s birthday and Will’s graduation.

Last Friday was Hugo’s birthday. It was great because given our various locations it was the first time that all eight of the family have been together at the same time. It was a bit of a shock having a full house. This is a wonky character full cottage where everything is in a trembling state of near collapse and Hugo and I have got used to it mostly being us and the cat.

On Hugo’s birthday eve, we went to the pub, came home for a BBQ and jugs of Pimms. Then the kids wanted to play games. Hugo loves crosswords but gets into a rage if Scrabble is even mentioned but the kiddies love games not withstanding unintended consequences. In one game Wills girlfriend had to give clues for ‘bedroom’ and said it was ‘necessary but boring’ which led to Wills being ribbed for hours. Although our worst family games incident happened a few years ago when during a particularly vigorous game of Christmas charades Hugo dangled Wills upside down. Poor Wills complained of stomach pains, Hugo announced that that a good fart would sort it out and went to bed. By the time he awoke the next morning Wills was just coming out of surgery for a burst appendix.

At a certain point on Hugo’s birthday eve Tiger the cat came out and disappeared down the garden. There was a feline yelp which I deduce was a poke up the rear with a grass straw then he nonchalantly wandered back up the garden followed by a drift of eau de cat poo. Next second everyone had their noses buried into their tops and then decided that on balance it was time for bed. Mac and his girlfriend walked back to their house, whilst Zsa-Zsa and Wills and their loved ones retired upstairs.

Lulled asleep by the white noise of the portable air conditioner I awoke to see a shadowy figure in the door.

‘Mum! Mum!’ hissed Will

‘Shush- you’ll wake Hugo- what?’

‘The key’s broken in the lock’

‘What????’

‘I’ve got a text from Mads in the bathroom saying, ‘We’re in big trouble’ and a photograph of the key broken in half’

‘You’re joking’

The kiddies know never to lock the bathroom door. You can get stuck in there even when the door is just shut on the latch. They grew up with this, it is so engrained that we forget to tell visitors. I crept out of bed to find the bathroom door firmly locked, with Mads giggling nervously on the inside. We tried staring at the door and willing it to open. We tried poking it with a knife. We tried sellotaping the key back together. We tried telephoned all the 24/7 emergency locksmiths none of whom picked up their phone. Then, with no choice at 1am we did the most dangerous thing known to man - we woke up Hugo.

My hero.

‘We are going to get you out!’ said Hugo, his manly voice belying the paisley Noel Coward dressing gown belted around his Father Christmas physique. Then, armed with a hammer, he went the full Jack Nicolson. Our maiden in distress was rescued. However, the door and door frame are a complete write-off.

Next day was Birthday celebrations, then Boxing day birthday celebrations and sartorial panics as it was Wills and Mads graduations. I had said that I would get Wills a graduation/interview suit but had forgotten about it as he has not been here all summer. In the meantime I have splashed out on my new Specialized StumpJumper bike. Uh-oh.

A dark green woollen elegant double-breasted vintage Saville row suit arrived the next day. Wills looked great, student from the neck up –unshaven with unkempt hair but ready for a career from the neck down. I remembered all the other times similar moments had pulled at my heart strings – his nursery toddler uniform, prep school and finally boarding school suff. And I thought ahead of the interviews that will come up, and, if all goes to plan, the moment when he wears a barrister’s gown over it. This is so much more than a suit, it is a passport through the gateway into a new phase of his life.

There was a last-minute search for the family graduation tie. In the olden days when the kiddies were groaning about homework and the stress of exams Hugo used to lean back in his chair and say that he had never worked at university. At first this led to a bit of eye rolling but our family never let the chance of a ribbing to go by. So in no time we started doing Jazz Hands and praising the Lord for the knowledge that was beamed from the heavens straight into him. Then we decorated his life-size graduation portrait with a golden star, flower leis and candles and started humming Handel’s Messiah when he started talking about university.

During this process much was made of his 1980’s paisley tie. It is now, family history and The Graduation Tie essential wear for graduations. Hugo was able to put his hands on it and with the suit and tie safe, Will’s graduation could now take place.

The next day we finally loaded into the car for The Long Drive Up North. I was by then tired and grumpy from three nights sleep deprivation, several worn off jugs of Pimms and big bike, suit and hotel holes in the bank balance.

‘Shall I check the maps?’

‘Noooooo, it’s Sunday’ says Hugo

‘but –‘

‘Noooo’ Famous last words…

Many, many hours later, we made it to Newcastle and gingerly approached the Tyne Bridge. Last time we failed to notice the tiny sign in brail mentioning the fee hidden by the tunnel entrance. By the time we knew about it had exploded into hundreds of pounds and bailiffs were being threatened.

Graduation eve we went to a Lebanese restaurant for dinner. It was Keto heaven. A banquet of roasted body parts arrived in a brass coffin accompanied by flaming lamb stew. Wow.

Then it was back to the hotel (which had definite Shining Overlook Hotel vibes) for night caps before bed and retiring. We couldn’t sleep on account of 1) having the profile of a boa that has eaten an antelope 2) no aircon in stifling heat and 3) a selection of pillows made for the Flintstones family.

The next day we were in our finery to watch the Pufflings graduate. The strapping young men, no longer the boys that had arrived, wore suits. The girls wore dresses on a spectrum somewhere between bum-and-boobie pole dancing outfits and understated elegance. Radient, beautiful Mads looked like a mini Audrey Hepburn in Fuchsia silk, Wills her handsome, young Viking.

At one point there was a cloud burst which threatened to flood one of the halls. The next, our proud families filed into an old hall, or maybe it doubled up as a church as it had a wall to ceiling organ too. Its high walls hung with portraits of important people in old garb. Ranks of students in their regalia looked nervous and queasy to the right. Puffed with pride families to the left.

The next second there was an ethereal wheezing . There is something eerie , haunting, melancholy about bagpipes. The Northumbrian piper is not weapons grade sound like its Scottish cousin but has just as much impact.

The piper led a procession of dignitaries dressed in various historic academic regalia to the stage. Suddenly this was a moment of time. The students stood on the cusp of their lives. Their academic past was over (well, ish), their professional futures yet to begin. Somehow the piper seemed to knit together the past and the present. Our students were the next layer of a lamination of graduates that went back centuries. It felt as if we were at once witnessing a historic ceremony, which was somehow also acutely personal to everyone there; whether student, or family

I was so proud. Proud of him, of us, of them, of our family and of every single day it had taken to get to this point. Wills and Mads had done the work. The achievement was all theirs, every step of the way from when they had first held pencils. But, it had taken families to back them for all those years. With that first bagpipe wheeze my eyes pricked. By the time they had processed to the stage a fat tear had rolled down my cheek.

The speeches by the dignitaries were kind and personal, with no sense of the students being processed through the sausage factory. Then they lined up, each new graduate applauded individually as their name was read out.

There was a last speech and saddest, the longest applause for a boy who had suddenly died in the first year who degree was posthumously awarded and received by his sister.

Then we were out and it was thousands of photographs before our family joined Mads’s family for a celebration dinner. We went to a wonderful old Friary for a tasting menu supper. It was great, an odd room, but one that worked. At first glance it looked like somewhere they conducted dissections in the past; oval with two rows of seating but, for our party of 13 it was perfect. I delighted in hearing about how Mads’s family had rescued a peacock that was being bullied and got him a peahen. And how the loved-up Peas were now eloping across the hills of Herefordshire raiding strawberry patches with Mads’ brothers in hot pursuit with a peacock net.

I gave a little speech and tripped up over my words and missed things out. I tried to say how mystified I had been when Wills had correlated me being proud of him graduating with getting a new suit - (crossed wires as it turned out.) I said how proud I was of him getting a degree in Hockey and drinking and swerving an ASBO for having too much fun, but really that I was proud of him, and been proud of him every day since I first held him in my arms, for everything – for his art and creativity, for his kindness, and happiness, for every time he had sat down and studied when life, football, hockey and fun was calling him out the window, for when he was a daring rogue - and for nothing because my heart bursts with love and pride just because he lives and breaths and the kids light up our worlds and bring meaning to our lives.

Dinner over, the kiddies wanted to go out for ‘Prees’ and then head out for live music. Hugo and I instead slunk to bed exhausted.

The next day we gathered for breakfast. I followed a woman down the stairs carrying a silk pillow.

‘ I wish I’d bought my own pillow’ I said darkly

‘Ha’ she said, ‘ I’ve stayed here before’

The breakfast location had been moved from the previous morning so a lot of guests were following anyone with a tray of food in a slight panic that they had got down too late. We caught up in the new location. It was rammed with various generations of families.

Hugo followed the blind person as he tapped his way to the breakfast buffet.

‘He didn’t have any problems finding the sausages’ he muttered on return, then cast a look around at our fellow diners. Most had been ravaged by time or wrestling the stone pillows and were in various states of disrepair, leaning on sticks or wobbling up and down the steps. Hugo leant in

‘It’s how I imagine breakfast would be at a hotel in Lourdes’ he said.

We were surprised to then see Mads younger brother. The hotel offered free breakfasts to students, but, cunningly, they had to be taken before 9am.

‘You are up early!’

‘I haven’t been to bed yet. Everyone went to Tynemouth to see the sunrise’

And then as we munched breakfast the pictures started to trickle in over the WhatsApp fam chat. Dawn breaking over a still summer morning sea. Swimmers in their boxer shorts, less brave paddlers, then barefoot dancing, singing and football in the sand.

A new beginning, a bathing in the first dawn of a new era.