We think we might have to buy some track suits.
We had bacon and sausages and potatoes and eggs for breakfast, and anywhere that thinks it is a good idea to serve doughnuts with that is well and truly all right by me.
After that we went off into Disneyland and wandered about happily looking at things and riding on things and buying things, and after that Oliver was starting to get a bit tired and tearful, so we abandoned Disneyland and went for a swim in the beautiful cream and blue hotel pool, which was empty, of course, because of everybody else being in the park, and we sloshed about happily getting in and out of the jacuzzi and splashing one another and not doing any exercise whatsoever until it was lunchtime. I don’t mean we did any exercise then either, because we didn’t. We ate more things.
We had lunch in a place called Walt’s American Diner, which served brilliant food and gorgeous wine in a beautiful green and gold and walnut dining room, we had some things that we didn’t know in the least what they might be, but they tasted nice, and we had to pretend that we were at least sophisticated enough to recognise small green seedy things wrapped in anchovies and served with some sort of vinegary sauce, although I must confess that we are not and none of us had the first idea what they had put on our plates, it could have been pickled owl pellets for all we knew.
Mark wanted to go and have a little sleep afterwards, but I wouldn’t let him because you can sleep any time but you are only in Disneyland very occasionally and you have got to enjoy yourself even if you are sleepy with sore feet.
Instead we went on the Studio Tour and then the Armageddon Special Effects Show, both of which involved a good deal of explosion and water and excitement, and woke us all up. We liked the idea of the Finding Nemo roller coaster but thought it might be a bit soon after lunch.
We did all our shopping, which we had dispatched back to our hotel so that we wouldn’t have to carry it, it is ace being part of the arriviste classes, you can buy Christmas tree decorations shaped like Mickey Mouse and covered in tasteless glitter, and somebody wraps them up for you and they turn up in your bedroom later.
Staying at the Disneyland Hotel was superlatively brilliant. We could have gone into the parks early had we got up soon enough, although obviously we didn’t, and our shopping got taken home, and everybody was polite and civilised and lovely, which I never am to my customers unless I think they are going to give a decent tip, and this morning the concierge very kindly booked us into the exclusive Disney Suites dining room for dinner, instead of into the usual expensive dining room with all the ordinary rich people.
This was because he was entertained by my efforts to speak French to him. Having lived in rural France for some time I have got a French accent roughly equivalent to broad Somerset, which the Parisians think is very funny. The concierge this morning was discreetly amused, and kept gently encouraging me to say more and more, and then clearly thought it would be good for the extremely elite in the exclusively expensive dining room to have an evening of my richly coloured conversational skills, and upgraded us.
We did not mind this at all, because the food was superb, and all manner of unexpected people like Mickey Mouse turned up to share the evening with us, because part of the pleasure of being revoltingly wealthy and privileged is that Mickey Mouse and Pinocchio turn up personally to say goodnight to your children instead of just from between the pages of a dog eared book with orange juice spilt on page six.
We are not revoltingly wealthy, actually we have got an overdraft by now, but we managed to be in their dining room anyway, much to our quiet satisfaction, fast becoming loud satisfaction as we got stuck into the bottle of wine.
The children had had enough of Disneyland by then, and retired to bed, and we collapsed in the most sophisticated manner that we could summon up in the beautiful hotel cocktail bar.
I have never had a cocktail, but I had a champagne Bellini, which was wonderful, and Mark had a Baileys on ice, and we sat in our beautiful surroundings in our smart clothes drinking beautiful cocktails thinking to ourselves that the world is a glorious, wonderful place and we are the most fortunate people in it.
I am in bed now. I can barely keep my eyes open and Mark and Oliver are snoring already, but I would like to tell you that life is utterly, deliciously perfect, and I am so happy I can hardly find the words to tell you. This is a beautiful place.
A bientot…
