More sunshine

More sunshine.

It is an absolute joy.

We sat on the back doorstep with a pot of tea and thought what a splendid place the world is. Well, obviously I can’t speak for all of it, but certainly this bit is pretty splendid, especially when it isn’t raining.

We pegged the washing on the line and brought in logs, and Mark spread the compost from the farm all over the flower beds. This makes the plants look as though they have been bedded down with a warm brown blanket. It is ace compost, very light and crumbly, we are very pleased with it.

I have begun to turn my attention to packing for our holiday. We go on Sunday.

I am so excited about this that I considered putting the last sentence in capital letters to emphasise my feelings but didn’t because I had a suspicion that it would have been vulgar.

In the absence of capital letters I will have to try and explain. I am absolutely thrilled, in an almost bobbing about in my seat sort of way.

We are going for our bargain complementary holiday in Disneyland, and we are going to stay for ages.

I am burying all of the coldly guilty awareness that this is not at all a good time of year to leave work, and really we should be getting our noses to the grindstone and paying the horrible winter credit card bill off. In bald terms, we have not made enough cash to get on with our lives this winter and now we are broke. This is not an optimum time for a colossal blow out splashing cash holiday.

I am ignoring this thought, which seems to be the best approach, since I can’t change any of it now anyway. Instead we are shuffling cash about so that nobody arrests us or steals the house whilst we are away, and I have formulated a master plan, which is that I will worry about it later.

This is a brilliant master plan as it leaves me completely free to get on with packing and feeling excited. The weather forecast is remarkably encouraging, and it looks as though we are going to need shorts. Shorts!

I will probably cut the legs off some of my jeans. It is a long time since I have needed shorts.

I am hunting out our sun hats and flip flops. I have brought the big suitcase down from the loft. It has had to be left on the landing because I am not quite sure where there might be space to put it, but it doesn’t matter. Its very presence is a cheering symbol of holidays to come.

I have been making lists. Every time I think of something I might be likely to forget, like washing powder, I have written it down on my master list. I have started packing up my zombie apocalypse kitchen and wondering about T-shirts.

I am not excited about Disneyland exactly. I am excited about being with Mark and the children, without having to rush out to work all the time. I am trying not to think how much I wish that Numbers One and Two Daughters and Number One Son-In-Law and Ritalin Boy were coming with us, which they are not because of not being able to afford it.

We did have a whole family holiday in Disneyland once, it was the most badly behaved joyful epic holiday I think I have ever had. We had a small and very giggly party in the hotel’s beautiful cocktail bar one evening. Mark set off back with Oliver, who was so little he didn’t really even have a name, and was called Stinky Baby.

Unfortunately it turned out that Mark was so intoxicated that he couldn’t actually  find his way to the hotel bedroom and fell asleep standing up in a doorway with Stinky Baby in his arms. I couldn’t help him because I was still giggling in the bar, with Numbers One and Two Daughters and probably Lucy, because I can’t think what else might have happened to her. I don’t remember how we got back to the room. Probably Lucy took us.

I wish they were coming with us. They all do bad behaviour with such glorious aplomb.

It isn’t nearly as much fun behaving badly without them.