The Coming of Carloth

We’ve been threatened with the coming of Carlos (or Carloth, as I can’t help calling him, having spent years learning to say ‘Barthelona’ with appropriate aplomb) ever since Number One Son’s exchange trip to Seville.

Carloth is coming to stay with us next week to brush up his excellent English, Number One Son having spent his Spanish trip also brushing up Carloth’s excellent English. Number One Son’s Spanish remains stubbornly negligible, unlike my own, which is non-existent. I can say Ola! (without the upside down exclamation mark, which I can’t pronounce) because it’s the name of a magazine, and Grazie and Prego, which alas turn out to be Italian.

So we are all depending entirely and pathetically on Carloth’s Excellent English.

Number One Son asked me to fetch down his air gun to ‘give them something to do’ during Carloth’s stay. What exactly? They could practice shooting the bird table, which has already almost disintegrated under the strain, or the apple trees, though this risks winging Dolly, Mollie or possibly Polly in the field beyond. They could shoot each other, of course, but only by taking turns.

We both know why Number One Son wants the gun around; to make him look impressive. Like the sword.

I bought him the sword for Christmas. I was tired of investing in memory sticks that got lost and PS3 games I didn’t want them to play. I wanted to buy actual stuff for Christmas, not electronics. And what my total pacificist son turned out to want was a real antique sword.

Easier said than done. I soon discovered that telling a dealer ‘I want a sword for my 15 year old son’ meant he couldn’t then sell me one: it’s illegal. Daft really, as the sword I ended up with (by lying, alas) is so blunt no drug-crazed adolescent could possibly do harm with it, except perhaps by bashing someone over the head with the scabbard.

But Number One Son was enraptured, and has mounted it, Damocles-like, above his bedroom door, where it lives when he isn’t polishing it lovingly. It’s a nineteenth century infantryman’s sword apparently: hopefully Carloth will be impressed.

Armed with this and my red tray-cloth, they could always go and play matadors with ‘bull in park.’ – that should make Carloth feel more at home.

Ole! And all that. I do wish I spoke Spanish