We have had the happiest day, although the timetable we had imagined did not exactly go according to plan.
We realised this at four o’clock this afternoon, just as we were finishing breakfast.
We had not exactly only just got up, we are not quite that idle, although I confess that we slept as if we had been heavily drugged and then coshed into oblivion for eleven hours. We felt very much better, although mildly guilty, when we sat up and looked at the clock.
This is one of the tiresome things about holidays, you have to waste so much of them sleeping. In our happy-ever-after future world we will have one day off for sleeping, followed by another day off for adventures. This hedonism might have to wait for a little while until we have recovered our family fortunes and the world is gaily solvent again.
Obviously we did not then go to Blackpool.
Instead we took the dogs out to be emptied in the park, where Roger Poopy disgraced himself by rushing madly after another dog and hurling himself on it, growling savagely.
It was unhurt, although terrified, and Mark caught him and beat him up, much to the horror of a youth on the skateboard park, who was very cross with us for such cruelty.
I do not know why he had suddenly decided to be such a canine thug, but he was very ashamed of himself afterwards, and walked guiltily to heel all the rest of the way. His father sloped off out of attention range, just in case anybody thought anything was his fault. He was lost until we were on our way back, when we found him again. He had forgotten all about it by then, and just looked mildly lost and confused, absent-mindedly wandering about the cricket pitch, wondering where we had all gone.
The dogs are not exactly covering themselves in glory at the moment anyway. We watched a film together last night, chosen by the children, about an Alaskan sledge dog. The sledge dog was certainly considerably cleverer than either of ours, being able to navigate almost the whole way across Alaska unaided, whilst pausing every now and again to save somebody’s life.
The dogs watched it as well, and Roger Poopy’s father growled almost all the way through, rising to a crescendo of snarling fury every time a puppy appeared on the screen, presumably in case it considered jumping out and coming to visit him under the coffee table. He does not like puppies at all, possibly inspired by memories of his own. We had to keep bellowing at them to shut up, which did not exactly create an atmosphere of relaxation and tranquillity.
We might watch another film tonight, and have unanimously decided that there should be no animals in it.
We followed our walk with an enormous breakfast in the conservatory. I had mixed cream cheese and garlic, and home-grown parsley. which I wrapped in thin strips of beef, and bought some wedges of Cheshire cheese and some honey-roasted salmon. We served it all with sausages and fresh warm bread, and creamy yoghurt, and the obligatory breakfast glass of Orkney single malt.
Obviously single malt is not obligatory with every breakfast, at least not unless you are French, and even then they prefer Cognac, but it is one of the happy things about family breakfast when the children are at home. We sat for ages, talking, and eating more than was strictly necessary, until eventually it became uncomfortably obvious that we were not having a very productive day.
The object of the day was to turn Lucy’s car into a camper van, because she thought that she might like to go and visit friends over the summer. Mark likes projects like this, and so the two of them beetled off with tape measures and bits of board whilst I cleared up and Oliver disappeared to do his Physics prep. I do not know if he did this or not, for most of the afternoon I could hear him singing upstairs in his room, but I thought that being happy is just as good as being educated, and so did not bother to interfere.
It is looking like a pretty good camper van. They have taken two of the back seats out and put a carpet down. They have made a bed with some redundant camper van cushions, and installed a little board table. We found a camping stove and a kettle, and I have promised to make some curtains for the windows.
Somehow then there did not seem to be any day left. I made a pudding for dinner with pureed raspberries and peaches, whipped with cream and added to jelly, and Lucy cooked pasta and bacon whilst Mark tidied up.
It seemed to have lasted for no time at all, but it was jolly good. A happy life is made up of days like today.
I should have taken a picture, but forgot, so you will have to have a picture of some plants instead.
