Showers

The thing about summer is that it is so gloriously full of stuff that there is hardly time to write about it.

I am not going to write very much today either.

We had the most fantastic time yesterday, swimming in the tarn and laughing in the sunshine.

We were rained off the camping in the end. It was baking, swelteringly hot: hot enough to sleep outdoors without even the hint of a chill in the air. After I wrote to you we told ghost stories and watched the fire until we all dropped off contentedly to sleep.

Mark and Oliver and the dog snored. Lucy doesn’t seem to and obviously I have no idea if I do or not.

We were woken up at almost three in the morning by heavy splashes of rain on our faces, and after a few moments of waking up and trying to make a fuddled decision, Mark jumped out of bed and decided that even though the rain had stopped we were going to pack up and go home, which we did, crashing around in the dark sleepily, dumping quilts and pillows in the shed and collecting dogs and wine glasses into the car.

I had a shower when we got home, and went to bed smelling of lovely bluebell soap and lavender hand cream, which was lovely. Smelling of lake and woodsmoke is also lovely, but differently lovely.

We were glad that we did.

We were woken up at about six by the most astonishing thunderstorm I have ever heard in this country, huge thunderclaps which were loud and close enough to be actually scary, and fizzing lightening which made the electricity pop.

It woke us all up, we found out afterwards that we all lay in our own beds listening to the awful crashes of thunder and being just a little bit frightened, until afterwards the heavy pounding of rain lulled us all back to sleep again, and we woke up this morning to a fresher world and the mirth of Number Two Daughter at us turning out not to be Bear Grylls.

In fact Number Two Daughter woke us up again at ten to announce that she had got a taxi job to London and would see us tonight.

We tidied up smoky remnants of camping that we had sleepily dumped in the kitchen and then Mark and I went back to the farm to carry on with the camper van, and the children yawned and went back to bed. We had discovered during the previous day’s events that in fact Oliver had not had any sort of ablutions since he was at school, which as you know is quite some time ago.

Oliver was issued with a compulsory shower, which changed his colour astonishingly, he turned out to be quite pink and freckly underneath the layers of grime.

Lucy sat in bed and wrote her novel, it is an exciting-sounding plot about elemental creatures and I wish I had thought of it first.

Mark and I worked on the camper van until it was dark, when we all reassembled back at home for cheese and crackers and wine and stories of our adventures.

I love, love, love the summer and the sunshine.

I hope we have some more tomorrow.