Mulling things over

The leaving was as hard as it had always been: the terror that two weeks of snatched holiday will lead to a return of reproach and disaster; the feeling that every skeleton must be removed from its closet, purged of menace and given a decent burial; the urge to try to get two weeks ahead, and anticipate every possible problem - and solve it - before for a moment considering that the vacation has begun.
When your job competes for stress levels with that of a hospital doctor, and you are in a country where the background level of stress is the highest in Europe, you need to be released from pressure from time to time, even though every bone and sinew in your body tells you to keep toiling. And that means sitting somewhere peaceful, “with a jug of wine and the thou of your choice” (as it was poetically put to me recently by a Solicitors Journal reader) and being as inactive as possible.
So what did we do?
I tried to stay calm. In fact I stayed annoyingly calm. We were already several days into the first precious week. Our attempt to reach the ferry terminal led us into a supermarket car park. She said: "Now look what you have done. We were supposed to be in line at 9.30 and it is already 9.35. If we don't get the ferry we will have to wait another 3 hours and then it will not have been worth going."
"Yes, darling" I said, still annoyingly calm. I don't actually ever call her "darling" unless I am trying to be annoying. I gently put the van into reverse and eased us into a traffic jam. The seconds and minutes ticked away. It took another ten (and not seconds) to find the queue for the ferry. Just before us the barrier went down. There were about 5 cars waiting. We were number two.
The invective was stepped up. There were a lot of us in the van. "The van" was a people carrier. They used to be called dormobiles or minibuses. But the manufacturers discovered that if you painted stripes on them, tinted the windows, carpeted the floor and gave them names which sounded like space shuttles they could charge at least five thousand over the odds; and people would flock to be carried. We had hired it for the week, crammed into it all of her children and one of mine, along with all the worldly goods any of them could need, and set off for Scotland with the vague intention of flushing out the loch Ness Monster.
We had thought to go to Devon to watch the eclipse, but had been put off by those predictions of the ending of the world as we knew it, the breakdown of vital services and the governments of the west country being overthrown. There was also the risk that we might find ourselves face to face with Patrick Moore. I hope no one else has shared my unkind wish that his monocle would fall out just as he was being at his most fulsome.
So it was to Scotland instead and a blend of the most breathtaking scenery in the British Isles, and the pressure put on two exhausted adults by five children (three of them teenagers) each with separate and incompatible views about what he or she wanted to do.
We climbed Ben Nevis (actually a slight exaggeration - we took a ski lift half way up, but it still put us in the clouds). We took a boat out on the Caledonian Canal. We endured bagpipes (in Scotland you don't have road rage. You have bagpipe rage. After the 17th rendition of the Banks of Loch Lomond I was ready to kill the next kilted, sporraned creature that dared to make droning noises at me). We took them to castles, put them on horses, dragged them round highland games but still they were not content. Whatever we suggested, one or more offspring did not want to do it. And as for the eclipse, the teenagers pronounced themselves completely bored by it and lay on their beds. Mind you, the choice was not wonderful. "Totality" did not reach western Scotland. Patrick Moore was on television and the sky was overcast. It grew slightly dark. The nearby highland cattle continued to graze. It grew light again. And it was all over.
So we were hardly relaxed when we decided, as a last ditch effort to take everyone to the island of Mull.
As I was being berated I looked in the rear view mirror. I am convinced (by the tell tale signs) that the driver behind us was also a solicitor. He too was in trouble and being given a hard time. He too was calling her ‘darling’ and not calming the situation. The queue edged forward. "Trust me" I said, "I'm a lawyer." We made it to the ferry, but the other car did not. "See" I said, "all is well". Just then a burly scotsman stuck his face in the window and said:
"Ye brae nacht gwwny the noo" or words to that effect. By gestures he indicated that the back of the van was sticking out and they could not shut the bow doors: we would have to make way for someone else. Fortunately he caught the "I told you so" glint in everyone else's eyes and by the adroit use of indecipherable Scottish persuaded other vehicles to inch forward, enabling the bow doors to close and us to travel to Mull.
High up on the passenger deck we looked down on one solitary vehicle on the quay. The gesticulations were still apparent and, very faintly, the words "yes darling" wafted from its open window.

Footnote. Mull did not enchant the children. But it did us. In an act of illogical behaviour which could only be undertaken by overstressed workers in a solicitors office, we drove the children home, dropped them (Watch out at Christmas for Home Alone in Norfolk on your screens), and sped back, catching the ferry without so much as a single "yes darling".

In the end we found perfection. Looking out from the patio of the Western Isles Hotel in Tobermory the calm water of the bay shimmered in the light of the setting sun. A few motor boats plied back and forth leaving white streams of foam behind them. The rest of the craft rocked gently. Around the harbour the brightly painted shops started to shut up for the day. Smoke drifted lazily from the chimney pots, and the air filled with the rich smell of burning peat. In the distance, the hills and mountains painted a variegated green divide between water and sky. Earth, air, fire and water. What more could a stressed out solicitor ever want?
"Are you happy?", I asked her.
"Yes darling" she replied.

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in August 1999.