It has been a day full of the very best and the very worst of the current jobless economic collapse bat-flu plague lockdown.
It was partly the best because we are not really very locked down any more, although still enough to make me very grumpy with Boris every time I think about it.
The worst was Asda this morning, made possible by an embarrassingly welcome financial subsidy from my parents, but which was still as horrible as the current Brave New World occupation of shopping has now become.
The shelves were still inexplicably half-empty, and there was a tiresome one-way system in place which started off in the car park. This seems to have been designed to make sure that you could not possibly miss out any of the boring aisles, the sort that do not sell anything at all you could possibly want, like mineral water or Eastern European pickles. You are not allowed just to short-cut to the important aisles, like bread flour and sausages. They did not have either of these anyway, to my extreme irritation. You are not supposed to go backwards even if you have forgotten something, or not been able to see it since there was only one left anyway and it was tucked behind a bottle of olive oil.
I did go back, anyway, a couple of times. Also there were several people going the wrong way, which made my inner rebel feel secretly gratified.
If there is hope, it lies in the proles.
There were security guards and a patronising lady on the till. She watched me spend a frustrating few minutes trying to unearth my handbag from the very bottom of the trolley, where it was completely buried underneath a couple of melons, some chocolate buttons and a sack of dog food. She told me that I should not leave my handbag in my trolley because it was in danger of being stolen.
I pointed out that since I had been unable to extract it, or even find it, I doubted that anyone else was likely to make a quick grab and run, and added, in an unexpected burst of impatience, that I was sick of being told about things that I should be worrying about.
I am getting very fed up with the current fashion of everybody spending their whole lives thinking up more things that they ought not to be doing.
Mark and Oliver helped me unload, and Mark coughed a bit about the expense of going shopping these days, after which we had a restorative cup of tea with the Peppers whilst Oliver finished his chemistry prep.
After that came the very best bit.
We slung our newly-washed swimming costumes and towels back into the camper van and rushed off to High Dam to go swimming.
It was evening by then, and the day was just beginning to cool. This is the best time to go swimming, because anybody with small squeaky children has got sunstroke and buzzed off home, and the water is at its warmest from having the sun on it for the whole day.
Even so, there were quite a few people there. There were cars parked along the road at the bottom of the hill. I do not mean the way that the beaches in the south have got a lot of people there, but there were several little groups of people in the shallow bits around the edge.
We changed into swimming costumes as quickly as we could. Here is a handy tip. Getting changed outdoors is much easier when you are wearing a dress.
The water was wonderful. There had been people in it all day, so it had been quite stirred up, but there were still glorious stretches of warm water on the surface. Oliver and Mark swam across the lake to the island. I stayed closer to the shore on our side. This was partly in order not to have to swim across the very deep, cold bits of lake in the middle, but also to supervise Roger Poopy. He is not brave enough to jump in the water, but stood on the shore and barked in an agony of worry.
You can see him doing this in the picture. Oliver is swimming and the stupid tiresome dog will not get in but is whining and woofing desperately.
In the end I dragged him in with me, and he splashed about for a bit until I picked him, up and held him, but he would not stop splashing. His paws continued to paddle frantically even though he was about a foot above the surface of the water, so after a while I just put him back, and he got out to carry on being irritating on the shore.
It was utterly wonderful. I mean perfectly perfect. It was hot, and still, and the air was heavy with the smell of the water and the woods and the berries and the grass. We swam and dried, and then swam again, until we were cool and fresh and exhausted.
In the end we had to set off on the long trail back through the woods and down the hill, feeling full of comfortable happiness.
We had dinner in the camper van, and sat and talked for a little while before finishing the day with a quick social visit to Elspeth, for a glass of wine in her garden.
We could not stay late, because Mark is working in the morning, but it was lovely all the same.
It has been the most fantastic end to a day.
