We are home.
Obviously I like being at home, or I would have to start thinking about either moving or finding something else to do with my life. Being at home is lovely.
All the same I am very sad to empty the camper van and not to be on holiday any more.
It has been a lovely holiday day.
As you know we stayed at Elspeth’s Outdoor Pursuits centre last night, and when we finally ambled gently out of bed this morning, with no flapping or need to hurry up or panic about lost or forgotten things, the sun was shining and we went out for a walk.
We went to the beach, because obviously the point of going on holiday is to go to the beach, even the sort without doughnuts and donkeys and a funfair on the pier.
We walked there through the woods, which was ace. I took some pictures, I will put them on here over the next few days, because I don’t want to waste them all at once.
It is bluebell season, and the new emerald leaves are just bursting into the world, and the woods were an ocean of the freshest colours. We walked along quietly, just looking at things, whilst the dogs belted ahead up the path to make sure that if there were any unicorns or magical white stags hanging about in the sacred groves, they would jolly well know to buzz off before we got there.
We found a badger sett, and puzzled for a while about the amount of bird poo around it, because we couldn’t see any nests above. Then we found an owl pellet, which solved the mystery. There had been an owl bellowing abuse at another owl outside the van the previous night. We heard thrushes and finches and blackbirds, and something that sounded very like a bittern. I thought that it couldn’t be a bittern, but there are several nesting pairs at Silverdale, which is just a mile or two across the bay, so perhaps it was. We saw a squirrel and found a large rabbit warren, both of which enchanted Roger Poopy, and he had to be dissuaded from attempting to dig his way into their living room for a visit.
Once past the rabbit warren we were on the headland. I love the sound of the gulls, it is the call to freedom and adventure, except I have always been too boring to heed it. If I had been a more thrilling sort of person I would have accepted the King’s Shilling or stowed away on a three-masted schooner, and sailed off to see if I could find the countries where the people walk about upside down.
We looked at Blackpool Tower in the distance, and thought with fascinated horror about the lost Ninth Legion, who might quite possibly have perished without trace trying to take a short cut across the estuary instead of walking the long way round.
We made it back to the van just before the skies darkened, and fat raindrops began to plop down around us. We were not sad about this, because everywhere has become so parched and dry, it was good to feel the damp in the air.
We drove the camper van around the bottom of the cliffs, to see if there was anywhere else to park at some time in the future. This led to a small misfortune when we got stuck on a cattle grid which was situated on a little hill in the road. I panicked terribly about this, and did not know what to do, if it had been up to me we would probably be still there, but Mark just got out some big pieces of wood and put them in front of the camper wheels so that we were driving uphill until we were out of it, which worked magnificently.
After that we had Things To Do.
We went to see Ritalin Boy’s Other Grandma, who had a hoover that only needed a little bit of mending, and which we could have to replace ours. I was very pleased with this, it looks very much like a space rocket, all aerodynamism and curious buttons.
Mark has got it in bits even as we speak.
We went to Barrow then, so that Mark could show me the house that they have been building, and so that we could get some bits we needed for the taxis. The house is very nice, if unexcitingly painted in shades of pale grey and beige, not a splash of scarlet or orange or indigo anywhere. It is very beautifully done, it looks like an upmarket holiday cottage, probably because half of the bits in it came out of an upmarket holiday cottage, actually.
In the end we had to come home, and brush sand out of the camper van, because we don’t yet have a working hoover, and leave it clean and tidy for another day.
I hope another day comes soon.
Mark has mended the hoover even whilst I wrote.
I think he has just hoovered up one of the dogs.
