We are in Disneyland.
The Euro version, that is, not the sort with Americans. We are having the very best time in the world ever. I mean ever. I mean a really good time with knobs on and bells and sugar and a cherry. It is ace.
Mark says that the magic of Disneyland is that you start off with a full wallet and when you look at it after five minutes as if by magic you have got an empty one. Oliver said disapprovingly that the same was true of the bottle of wine at dinner time.
In fact Oliver was right, because it was gorgeous. We discussed our taste in wine with the helpful and knowledgeable waiter and he recommended that one out of a list of about three hundred. I was making things about my taste up a bit really, because my taste in wine usually runs to ‘plentiful and cheap’, and this one was neither but it smelled and tasted gorgeous and being French they thought it was entirely all right for Lucy to have some.
Mark explained to Oliver how you could tell a good wine and they inspected the cork together, and the wine waiter called Oliver Monsieur and gave him the wine to sample, which pleased him. He very bravely didn’t pull a face, and nodded sagely and said that it was jolly good.
We are, you see, at the Disneyland Hotel tonight and tomorrow night. We have parked the camper in the car park, much to the disbelief of the smart gentleman on the gate in a suit whose job description is to stop oiks from getting in.
We loaded our large purple suitcase on to one of their nice gold luggage trolleys, dumped it cheerfully in Reception with an airy request for a doorman to deal with it, signed in and went to devour a huge mountain of bacon and sausages and scrambled eggs and French cheese and croissants and fruit and yoghurt and orange juice and coffee before we rolled through the park gates.
We are going to be shaped like hot air balloons by the end of this holiday. It is not even Christmas and there are still so many lovely things that we haven’t tried yet, we are all in complete agreement that eating is one of the nicest things that we have been doing and we have got no serious intention of stopping before we get home. Anyway the breakfast was absolutely brilliant, there is another one tomorrow as well, hurrah.
The hotel is beautiful. Really beautiful. It is like an American mansion from films about escaping slaves, except in shades of pink and cream and gold. We all looked at it and felt happy just walking in through the door. We are in our room now, and Mark is asleep, and I am writing to you, and the children are doing things on their computers.
Of course we played in the park all day. We went on lots of things, Oliver and I didn’t at all like the Space Mountain roller coaster in the dark, and it was mostly wasted on me anyway because I had to keep my eyes shut on account of being sick and terrified, which may have been partly because of the breakfast excesses, and so missed most of the exploding asteroid effects, but apart from that it was splendid.
We ate a lot more at lunchtime, by which time the sun was out and the sky was vivid blue, and the weather was so warm we didn’t need jerseys, and I could wear my flip flops, which was the most marvellous, joyful good fortune, it is an absolutely brilliant thing to be sitting on the kerb watching a parade in your T-shirt in almost November.
You probably don’t need to be told that I love Disneyland. Not being burdened with good taste I love the lights and the fireworks and the little girls in princess dresses and youths in Goofy hats and the jolly music that you can dance along the street to. We did dance along the street as well, mostly me and Oliver, because Lucy thinks it is a bit embarrassing, and Mark is not really a dancing in the street sort of person, unless he has been drinking, and then he can be jolly good fun, because he doesn’t mind making a spectacle of himself then, whereas I never mind that in the least, which has occasional misfortunate consequences.
We have been drinking now, because we had dinner before the last firework display, we changed into dresses and ties and jackets and heels and ate in the lovely California Grill, which was truly ace, salmon and truffles and duck and rich dark chocolate, and gorgeous wine, and a nice French waiter who was helpful about the wine, and then afterwards the most stunning firework display, with lasers and fireballs and projections and music, and we cried because it was so fantastic, and felt like we might easily be the happiest people in the world.
I think we might be.
