I am quite sure I must have lost at least another half stone today, because even though we are in the camper van I have not eaten a single hummus-flavoured lentil crisp, not one.
We eat these on long journeys in the van, ostensibly because they are good for you but actually because they are cheap. I thought they were ghastly at first, but I have come to like them, and indeed take pleasure in eating them as a way of bringing variety and adventure to eight hours of solid knitting whilst we are driving north.
Today I did not eat any at all, and although the day is not yet over so there is still time for a misadventure, not a single chocolate button has passed my lips.
I will look like Joanna Lumley in no time at all.
One of the nice things about dungarees is that I would not need to buy a new pair even if I were to become as slender as a woodland faun. They fit absolutely anybody at any time, and hence are perfection for somebody who is expecting to be stick-thin at some time in the very near future.
I might have spoiled it a bit with a massive lamb curry at dinner time, followed by apple pie and cream, and also I accidentally ate some chocolate caramel shortbread at lunch, so it might be another couple of days yet.
I did not mean to. I was distracted. Oliver had completely forgotten to bring any socks with him, except a pack of new socks that I had left in his drawer at home and intended for home use.
The problem with these is that they were still virginally untouched. I had not soiled their pristine manufactured perfection by attaching the legend IBBETSON to them, and hence, if once dispatched into the dark abyss of Gordonstoun’s laundry system, they would have almost no chance of ever being seen again.
He had no others. We searched everywhere, and unless the school laundry had got several pairs secreted away for ransom purposes at a later date, he was sockless.
In consequence, wearily, and trying very hard not to say: I told you to make sure you had brought all your socks, although I would like it to be known here that I did say exactly that sentence and so it jolly well wasn’t my fault, I had to spend lunchtime sewing ten name labels into ten socks.
Actually I sewed eleven labels in, because in a frantic hasty moment I sewed two labels on to one sock, one on each side, and had to cut one off and sew it on to another sock. This discovery was a quietly despairing moment, the sort where one wishes that one’s life was different but knows perfectly well that it just isn’t so suck it up.
In the end he was suitably socked up, and I could wave him away with a clear conscience, promising to post the excess socks, and also handkerchiefs, which also seemed in short supply, as soon as we got back home.
We did not go back home. We went to the beach.
This was one of the happiest moments I have had for ages. We did not worry about money or problems or even socks. The sun was shining, and we picked our way through the glorious cedar woods and down to the shore, where we paddled in the icy water and walked and walked in the clean salt air.
The dogs splashed in and out of the waves, and plunged into the little streams running down the beach, and barked their heads off. We gazed at the shimmering expanse of blue and walked so far that it took us an hour and a half to walk back again, even though we were hurrying up by then because of starting to be hungry.
The water really was jolly cold, I can tell you. My feet are still tingling even how, and it was absolutely hours ago. It was so cold that it hurt although I pretended that it didn’t because Mark was strolling through the surf as if it wasn’t there and then stopping to examine some rock pools.
We are still here now. This is very naughty because we have got to get home by tomorrow, and it is going to mean we have got to make a serious effort to manage it, but we have had such a lovely time that we don’t care. We are parked on the edge of the woods, we have eaten an enormous dinner and drunk half a bottle of wine, which is white so it won’t make me fat, and we are about to shower away the salt and sand, and go to bed.
Until tomorrow.
