I hate it when one of my best off-the-cuff lines gets lost in transmission. Like this morning, my neighbour said that it had rained all day yesterday (and all night, too). I said: ”Well, you can’t have the green, green grass of home without a drop of water.” He didn’t understand so we switched to the price of peas in Tesco’s. Or something similarly, mind-numbingly forgettable.
I don’t mind at all, though, that my memory of driving yesterday is fading fast, leaving the day itself all clean and sparkly, like a piece of amber washed up on the tide, perched nicely on clean sand.
They had a ‘continental fair’ on the seafront promenade at Burnham-on-Sea. Six wind-blown tents, a pile of German sausage that’d seen better days and a huge pan of genuine Spanish paella that wouldn’t know a better day if it salmonella-ed in the sun. I had good English ice-cream instead.
I couldn’t walk very far, though, so I sat beaming in the sea air while Graham went off for a high-energy saunter. He didn’t stay away long, though, which was nice.
He is looking forward to returning home to Wales so much that it’s almost painful. I said that it is perfectly understandable. I wish he’d not gone back to that dreadful holiday camp at all, and pray that this will be the last time.
I’m so happy that I have recovered my love of Wales. I said that I am coming rapidly to the view that all of the bad things said about the place are either untrue or unfair, born of jaundice, mostly.
On the way to Burnham we called in at Sainsbury’s in Bridgwater–the one I used when we lived there. We were not overly impressed with the store or the customers. I’d bought a new pair of chinos for the trip and they’d stretched so much that I had difficulty in keeping them up without a belt. So we bought one for immediate use. I was delighted to find that walking along holding up my trousers was funny rather than embarassing but the guy getting in the car next to ours scowled at the sight. I suspect that I shall take my favourite Bette Midler line to the grave: ”Well, f**k ‘em if they can’t take a joke!”
Back to the caravan and a power nap. Graham says a power nap is supposed to be no more than 10-15 minutes in duration but I’m slower than that.
I sat outside on a ricketty old chair on the broken paving between the caravan and a smelly old camper’s wash-house, and beamed happily in the soft sea air and the sound of the surf breaking invisibly on the cliffs below.
And then, coffee, another hour’s non-stop chat, and I had to tear myself away for the drive home.
I was tired at the end of it all, of course, but happy and triumphant. It was a lovely day. And I had presents!
