Bliss

Last week I didn't post due to having scarpered to the countryside to stay with my parents. They have a beautiful garden but no broadband, so I was confined to sunning myself and watching out for the frog in the newly-cleared pond (it's beneath an apple tree which regularly sheds its fruit with a 'plop', resulting in a pond more like cider than water...). We read a lot, spent as many daylight hours as possible outside, ate a variety of cake and occasionally pottered off for a walk (to a pub). We visited the marvellous Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in Singleton, following a superb picnic on the top of the Downs looking out towards the Isle of Wight. We ate extraordinarily well at both The Brewer's Arms, Vines Cross and The Star, Waldron. My long-suffering brothers tried (and failed) to teach me how to bowl during the family games of cricket, which lost balls into undergrowth, trees and neighbouring gardens. I sometimes won at pool (usually on a technicality), but more usually lost dismally. I was (falsely) accused of cheating at Scrabble, due to a spectacular win. We visited my 98 year old grandfather, who gave us windfall apples, walnuts and some seeds between stories about cars and hitch-hiking nurses. I also snoozed, dozed and napped. A fabulous time was had by all. I can't believe that 10 years ago I was so entirely desperate to leave home that I felt like my mind was melting with every extra minute I had to stay. I am currently thanking the gods that I never have to go back to being a teenager...