You will perhaps not be astonished to hear that we are in Blackpool.
We had a House Meeting this morning for the purpose of deciding where we might spend the remainder of our happy holiday, and Blackpool won unanimously. Indeed, really it was the only candidate, since nobody wanted to go very far, and we haven’t really got any money left.
Hence we are presently sitting tranquilly beside the beach at Bispham, watching the waves crashing on to the shore as the sun sinks over the horizon in a glorious fanfare of gold and crimson. It is very lovely indeed.
We woke up this morning in an anonymous lay by somewhere around Harrogate. I still do not know where we were. We had made a vague attempt to visit a place called Swinstey Reservoir, or something similar, but missed the turning because of an exciting bit in the story, and given up. When we got up there were a lot of sheep milling about bleating their heads off, and not much else.
It wa lovely to arrive in Blackpool, familiar and exciting all at once, like coming home but with more doughnuts. We pulled into Bispham at what would have been lunchtime if we had remembered to have breakfast, so we parked by the shore and ate a large breakfast-and-lunch compromise, of olive bread and scrambled eggs and huge slabs of cheese, which satisfied everybody.
Oliver has taken to inventing dungeons and dragons types of games, and we all played one whilst we had coffee afterwards, a complicated story of being on a desert island and being chased by a bear. After a while Mark and I got distracted from the game and started explaining helpful desert island survival techniques to the children, like how to turn bear gut into string, and how to spin plant fibres, and the children said that we were boring.
Then we wondered what to do with the rest of the day, and the children said that they preferred not to do anything at all, thank you, because of still being tired from school, and having had quite enough adventures for one week.
We agreed that this would be perfectly acceptable, and then I went to the laundrette whilst Mark did things like empty the loo. Then we had a whole afternoon just to do useful camper van things, and Mark installed some new plug sockets whilst I cleaned out the oven and the bathroom.
This was quite satisfying. Some of the washing had not dried properly in the laundrette, because their washing machines have a rubbish spin, to make you spend more in the dryers. I brought it back and hung it on the mirrors and the open doors to air it all off. This made us look a bit like gypsies, but nobody shouts at us to go away now that the camper van has got pictures on it, so it didn’t matter.
We had needed the plug sockets, and I was very pleased to have them. We have got proper electricity in the van these days, for things like microwaves and Oliver’s PlayStation, and now that we have got it we can’t stop using it. We had to plug the solar panel in all afternoon to keep the batteries charged, so it is a good job that the weather has been so very good.
Eventually Mark and I stopped doing busy things, and went for a long walk along the shore. We paddled in the sea and looked at the seabirds, and it was so warm and lovely that we shouted for the children to come and join us.
They came out reluctantly, because of being still in their pyjamas, but we thought that nobody would notice. Of course nobody did, and in the end they came for a paddle as well, and we splashed about happily for a while, being careful to avoid jellyfish.
I don’t remember jellyfish being a problem when I was a child, perhaps they are a new invention.
We had an enormous dinner of pork pies and pizza. When we had washed up I wanted to watch another film, but nobody else did, so we settled down to read quietly, and I thought that I would like to write to you.
I have written to you now. I am going to go to bed and listen to the waves until I go to sleep.
