Mellow

As you know, we spent the night in Bradford.

We camped in a car park that was really a space where a building had once been, next to a funny little cobbled alley, and had the enormous pleasure of going out for a curry at eleven at night.

This has massive novelty value for us, because in Windermere everything closes at half past nine and you have got to have finished eating ready to go home by ten.

This was a city, and everything was different and exciting. Bradford is ace, a sort of mixture of concrete and glass and Victorian splendour draped with neon lights. It looks to be a place where all sorts of things are happening, there were at least three ballet companies advertising forthcoming visits, and one opera and a pantomime, and I was fascinated.

The restaurant was brilliant. It was exactly the way India would have been if Disney had designed it, red and black velvet chairs with plastic diamonds, and blood red chandeliers and a pretend waterfall and mirrors everywhere.

I loved it. Even more I loved the friendly Pakistani waiters with powerfully Yorkshire accents, who called both of us ‘love’ every few words, and the tables around us full of Muslims and Hindus of every possible degree of devotion, it was desperately hard not to eavesdrop and stare like the audience at a pantomime. I was completely captivated.

We asked for mild curries, which when they came were completely delicious but nearly incinerated our tonsils, and they didn’t serve alcohol so we had a large jug of mango lassi, which was lovely, thick and sweet and sticky and took away the curry-burn.

When we woke up in the morning we discovered that what had been a derelict quiet spot for discreet camping was completely crammed with dozens of other cars, so we pushed off as quickly as we could whilst there was still just enough space to squeeze out. We drove North for a while, and eventually stopped at a little village called Gargrave and took the dogs for a long walk along the canal tow path.

This was gorgeous. The skies were forget-me-not blue and utterly cloudless, and the autumn sunshine was warm on our backs. The hedgerows were laden with brilliantly coloured berries, scarlet rose hips and purple sloes and soft black elderberries and crimson haws. The dogs capered about and barked at the ducks, and we strolled along hand in hand for miles, listening to the birds and looking at things and chatting to bargees and soaking up Vitamin D the way a new dress soaks up red wine, and being peaceful and utterly contented.

It was the loveliest imaginable walk, and we only turned back when we suddenly became uncomfortably aware that we had actually forgotten to eat breakfast before we set off, and in fact we were fast becoming absolutely ravenous: so we retraced our steps rather hastily.

By the time we landed back at the camper it was almost twelve o’ clock, and it occurred to me that it would be an entirely civilised idea to have a glass of wine with our breakfast, so we had wine and some Chinese things that we had brought with us. Regular readers will not be in the least surprised to hear that we had to have a little lie down afterwards.

We set off again at around mid afternoon because we thought we would call in on Elspeth on the way home, but we shouldn’t have done really, because when we got there we were so mellow and sleepy in the sunshine that we were rotten guests, and couldn’t think of a thing to say. We sat there grinning stupidly until eventually Elspeth got bored with us and chucked us out, which was a good thing really, because of course we had got to get the van unloaded and go to work.

We dumped the van back in its shed at the farm, resolving to spend some time fixing bits of it over the next few weeks before we go away, and made our way happily home. It was lovely to come back into our friendly little house, and we felt as if we had been away for weeks.

It has been the most wonderful day. Life is ace.