The Summer of Small Classes

Wednesday. Summer holidays, and the castle is busier than a cauldron at a banquet. Sessions full, weekends booked, and a great many families who left it too late standing at the gate with long faces.

Two cousins came on Saturday, just the pair of them, and found the online calendar would not let them in. Saturdays are for classes of four or more, they were told; any other day of the week, two is plenty. But a pair may ring the front desk on the day, or simply turn up and ask, and if a Saturday session has come free it is theirs.

They waited. A session came free. In they went: two students, one sanctum, an hour of whispering. I listened at the wall and heard the younger one say, quite clearly, “I’ve got it.” I have never disliked three words more.

A lesson for anyone planning a holiday siege: book early. I did not, and spent the afternoon outside a shoe shop.