We are back on the taxi rank, and oh dear, after such a magnificent holiday, we did not at all want to come back home.
In the end, of course, it turned out that home was a lovely place to come back to, just as it always is, and we settled ourselves back into our comfortable nest with sighs of happiness, at least, once we had made a start on the washing.
I am sorry to tell you that you could not see the washing machine behind the pile of it.
It has been a hot, hot day, and now we are back in the Lakes it is even hotter. It turns out that Blackpool’s invigorating sea breeze has a pleasingly cooling effect on a heatwave, in exactly the inverse to the miserably chilly effect of the howling gale all the rest of the time.
It has clearly been hot here in our absence, and the conservatory was full of yellowing, wilting plants, which Mark said smelled like a field just before haymaking. We have drenched everywhere with gallons of water, and it is beginning to recover, but the heat carries on.
I do not mind this in the least, because I number a lizard amongst my ancestors somewhere, and my blood runs cold on the hottest of days. All the same, it has taken us a very great deal of self control not to just hurl everything back into the camper and buzz off to one of the tarns to swim. I am not very interested in earning a living when the sun is shining, which is another one of the features that makes me unemployable.
We have not done this, however, mostly because we have spent all of our cash now and also need to repay what we borrowed from Lucy, and so I am on the taxi rank as I write these very words.
We started the day with a last paddle and a long amble along the beach, throwing the ball for Roger Poopy, who barked his head off and charged in and out of sandy little pools. Also, before anybody could reach him to stop him, he rolled with great enthusiasm in some large dollops of seagull poo. This has made him unpopular for the whole of the subsequent day, because a seawater-wet and bird-poo-encrusted dog is not the best companion to have in a very hot camper van.
His father does not like getting his paws wet, and picked his way grumpily along behind us, refusing to follow us into the sea and grumbling to himself the whole time.
We did not want to go home even then, and walked along the pier to gaze out to sea, where we bought hot dogs and ice cream for breakfast.
We thought that the hot dogs were all right, but when we offered the last bits to the actual dogs, they both sniffed them suspiciously, and turned their heads away disdainfully, so they might not have been haute cuisine, fancy that, on Blackpool pier.
After that our footsteps turned regretfully homewards. We had a cup of tea and some fudge. This last will forever be called fugde when we are in Blackpool, inspired by a carelessly mis-spelt shop sign which stayed in place for at least ten years before it was painted out.
In fact much of Blackpool seems to have had a restorative lick of paint during our bat-flu enforced absence, and we were impressed by its unfamiliarly gleaming and smart appearance. Lots of hotels have taken advantage of the combination of Government grants and no customers to tidy up their sea-frontage. There are newly-planted gardens and building works going on everywhere.
In contrast many of the passing holidaymakers seemed poorer and heavier, and somehow more shambling than we have ever seen them. Almost everybody was wearing black in one form or another, which seemed an unlikely choice for a heatwave, and which we put down to so many clothes having been purchased in supermarkets, which are not adventurous leaders of colourful fashions, for the past year.
We are shielded, here in the Lake District, from the struggles of the very poorest, and it is a somewhat uncomfortable pleasure to be back in the land of brightly-coloured summer dresses and well-groomed families. It has been sobering to see so many people looking as if they had been defeated by their lives.
It has been the most wonderful holiday, but it is a joy to be home.
Lucy and Oliver are going swimming in the lake with their friends tomorrow.
We have had to wash their swimming costumes in a hurry.
Have a picture of a boy on his way out for a swim.
