Constructing a happy day.

We are up for seven thirty, to a bright sunny day and after breakfast, I write up yesterday's blog, which takes a while, as it was a long and eventful day. Around eleven o'clock, Norman and I walk down as far as the little bridge over the dyke again, chatting to several neighbours along the way, who are also walking their dogs. It is another pleasantly mild and warm, late spring day, with the sun occasionally burning through the high cloud and lifting the temperature by ten degrees, temporarily, before becoming obscured again. We return home for noon, I give Normy some biscuits and fresh water, before driving to the leisure centre for a swim. The pool is fairly quiet again and I am able to secure a free lane, where I run through my medley programme, warming up and down on 400m mixed stroke medleys and then swimming a set of 4 x 200m individual medleys, as the main session, two fewer than yesterday, as I am collecting Louis from school this afternoon and need to preserve my energy. There are freshly baked, sultana scones, in the cafe again, but when I start to congratulate Danny, one of the other chefs, tells me she has made them. She is a young, shy girl, so I tell her that her scones are every bit as good as Danny's and she blushes with pleasure. Of such small, human interactions are happy days constructed. Before collecting Louis from Saint Mary's Primary School, I call at the supermarket to buy Parma ham, Bavarian smoked cheese and a large baguette, for his ante pasta tea, which we will eat in the garden. Whilst I wait for him, sitting in the sun in the playground, I ring Felicity, to confirm that we are both going to Rosemary's, instead of the Poppy Seed, tomorrow. All the usual suspects will be there and I tell the old girl that I will walk her back home afterwards. Rosemary lives round the corner from her, in a large house with a lovely garden. Louis emerges from his class and shouts to his teacher, Mrs. Wildbore, that he can see his grandad, so she lets him out through a little gate, into my custody. As usual, he wants to play football on Tickton playing fields, but has forgotten to bring his ball. "Never mind, perhaps one of the other boys will have brought one, when we get there." I tell him. First, when we get home, we unpack the shopping, let Normy into the garden and give him some fresh water, and then walk back to the playing fields, through the snickett, at the end of Green Lane. When we arrive, the play area with its climbing frames, swings and roundabouts, is packed with children from the local Primary school, but none of the boys has a football, so Louis and two other boys, play a game of racing each other to the far end of the field, about a hundred yards away. The sun is shining brightly and it is now very hot, so I take a seat beneath a tree in the shade and watch them, marvelling at their energy. After ten minutes the other boys have to leave with their mum and so Louis asks to play with some children who are on the roundabout. Unfortunately the roundabout only has four seats and there are about ten children who want to play, so I intervene and suggest a game. I will push them round quickly for a few minutes, until they are dizzy and then they have to walk round the climbing frame and return. The last two have to give up their seats to the next in the queue of children waiting. The kids love the game and stagger drunkenly when the ride stops, laughing out loud if they topple over. Of course the game has to be adjusted for the smaller children, but everyone plays happily for a while, until the numbers dwindle down to three. At this point, I sit in the fourth seat and propel the roundabout using my feet, when it stops, I don't even attempt to stand, as I am sure I would topple over. Fortunately the sun has retreated behind the clouds again, so it is not too hot. We finish off our hour's play on the balancing snake, which is a combination of walking along a rotating wooden log and then stepping on to a tubular frame with foot plates, shaped like a snake, about six inches from the ground. Everything for Louis has to be a competition, so we play the first to walk across it, without touching the ground three times and when I win, we make it the best of five and this time I  make sure I lose. There are two little girls playing on the climbing frame, a series of metal ladders that rise eight feet from the ground before descending to the floor again. Louis joins in and although one of the girls is only a year younger, the other is barely four years old and both are tiny, compared to him. He shows them scant regard and starts to bully his way past them, ignoring my requests to play nicely and be gentle with them. Intervention is necessary again, so I squirt him with the plastic water bottle we have brought, catching him full in the face. The girls roar with laughter as he shakes the water out of his hair and now that I have his attention, I insist that he plays nicely, or we will leave immediately. He does and we are about the last to leave the swing park, around a quarter past five. Back home he plays "Temple Run", on my iPad, arguing that the ban imposed by his mum applied only to his epad, and that the three day ban applied to Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and as it started on Sunday tea time has expired at the same time today. Of course his maths are faulty, it is only two days, but it keeps him out of mischief, whilst I lay the table in the garden for our ante pasta and slice the French stick. We are both starving and between us we eat all the food on the table, feeding the occasional titbits to Norman, who has also had his dog tin outside in the garden. Louis plays on the iPad again whilst I clear the dinner things away and then we walk Norman down to the little bridge again, pausing for Louis to climb, the old hollow willow tree, that has two holes in its trunk, like port holes, that Louis has christened his "Pirate Ship". When we arrive at the bridge, he pays at being a troll and Norman and I have to be "Little Billy Goats Gruff," before making our way back and playing the "Praise and Pat," game with Normy. It is almost half past seven when I deliver him back to Sarah's house, his mum is in the bath and Alice is in the dining room, looking sheepish, her face a weird cocoa/red colour. She confesses that she has been experimenting with fake tan and overdone it a bit. She is sixteen and only finished her GCSE exams last Friday. "Don't worry, it will probably have worn off a bit, by the time you start college in September!" I tease and she has to laugh. Sarah's friend, Richard, is in the lounge and we chat for a minute, I gather he and Sarah will be going out later, and then it is time for me to go home, as the events of the day are catching up with me. I arrive back in Tickton at eight, try to meditate for a while, but promptly fall asleep, so put on my pyjamas and have an early night.