7118/19638
Headphones on again and a decent night’s sleep - maybe I should wear the headphones to bed all the time- I didn’t hear the four am wanderer tonight. We stuck it out and even went back for the breakfast, though I passed up on the scrambled egg sitting in its own liquid. I let the bread ride twice around the toast rollercoaster and like every observational comedian who has ever existed wondered why the first trip through the toasting conveyor belt doesn’t seem to toast it all. Why not make the conveyor belt twice as long so we don’t have to send the bread round twice. It’s probably a bit toasted for some people by the time it’s round twice, but never toasted enough after one.
Don’t worry. I will never do that as material.
There were a couple more wedding based events today - an 11am dip in the cold Isle of Wight sea (which I did not join in with, but enjoyed watching) and lunch at a pub overlooking the sea. I was impressed with how many people turned up, especially for the dip in the sea. Some of them had been up drinking until 4am. I hadn’t been drinking at all, but still felt hungover.
Before too long we were heading back to the ferry to get home. We arrived an hour before our ferry was due to depart and subsequently got on to an earlier boat than we were booked for. Which meant we had a chance of getting home before the kids’ bedtime. We had planned to have our third night off from them, but now we could technically see them. We got a teary call from our daughter who said she was missing us (she actually said she was missing her mum, but let's not split hairs), so we decided to do the trip home without stopping and have the children back a bit early
It was nice to see them to be fair. Though not as nice as being able to sleep in in the morning. Ah well.
We gave them a couple of presents from a seaside gift shop and the 32 stones we had gathered from the beach. Phoebe was more excited about them than anything else and got straight to work painting some of them. Her theme for this phase of her artistic career is “Royalty” - I am not sure if she is pro or if her work is a satire of the gaudy souvenir industry, but she made a video of her with her first new work and made me send it to the family. “Who dares to buy this?” She said as she held her double sided painting up to camera, very much understanding the theatre required for the world of modern art. She wanted £1.50 which her Aunty Jill immediately offered. But her cousin Sarah tried to outbid her own mother and offered £1.55. What would Phoebe do? In her video she had said that the first person to respond would get it, but she was clearly thinking of all she could do with another 5p.
She was conflicted between greed and doing what was right. I told her that Aunty Jill already had one of her stones and Phoebe felt that it was fair then that Sarah should get it - you might think the money was the deciding factor, but no. Phoebe, completely unprompted, said that she would only charge Sarah £1.50 as that was the price she’d quoted. It was a wonderfully balanced and moral response. I was proud of her.
Later she said that it was only 5p. If the higher offer had been £1000 more then she would have taken it. Quite right too. She’s not stupid.
But lovely to see this bit to ethics come into play and my daughter making the right decision off her own bat. I am not sure that I would be so moral, even at the age of 54.
