Déjeuner sûr l'Herbe avec ...

I have had A Lovely Day. Perfect weather - we've had that for a few days now. But perfect company was another thing, and this was company we've not enjoyed since August. #1 son and family drove over for the day; we observed all the rules about staying out of doors; it was simply lovely. 

There were tense moments, though - the first being the thought as the lights all popped off in church mid-Epistle, silencing the organ and chilling the air as the heating faded, that we'd not be able to boil water for coffee and the family were even now on the ferry. We arrived home knowing that they were at the front door as we opened the back - and I flicked a switch and the lights came back on. Phew. And then, coffee in the garden dealt with and the picnic assembled and stashed in bags and the two cars heading for Loch Eck, the moment when I realised I'd forgotten the sausages ... 

But it was fine. The picnic spot, chosen in the drizzle at the start of the week, turned out to be in full sun and much more pleasant than I'd remembered; the loch, often black-looking under a leaden sky, sparkled in tiny waves on the shore. The grass was dry. I'd found a picnic tablecloth that I never suspected I'd had for years - I've never used such a thing before!. There seemed to be plenty to eat. My daughter-in-law had brought wonderfully sophisticated non-alcoholic drinks. Apart from Himself's problems with sitting on flat ground (that's him bent over trying to work it out) it was a classic picnic.

And the boys? They've grown. Alan is taller than me, by a hair or two, and has also grown up considerably. James is charming, possessed of a huge and knowledgeable vocabulary, given to discussing the way trees work. They relaxed into boy-things after eating, boy-things with bits of tree ...

By the time they left at teatime (it's a school day tomorrow) we were all showing signs of having been in the sun all day and Himself and I were completely exhausted. But you know the wonderful thing about this exhaustion, about the whole day, about the weekend? I feel normal. I feel life is normal. I feel alive again. Half dead, but alive.

Cheers!