Picnic preparation

Sunlight through the open doorway laying milk chocolate rectangles across the plain of the Marley-tiled floor, hinged with warm cream up the wall beyond which, black hair and white shirt silhouetted against the bright garden, Dad fold-wraps sandwiches and slices of home made fruit cake in waxy paper.

My brother and I, eager to speed the departure, unusually harmonious in our shared anticipation, running, giggling, bumping in doorways, bizarrely trying to disperse our overload of excitement by taking it in turns to sniff the revolting odour of some sort of purple yellow seaweed fern on the table in the hall.

Disbelieving, jigging frustration because Mum is sitting in the little-used, cold-from-no-sun front room sewing - hurriedly hemming the red spotted white skirt she has almost finished – she tells me it’s ‘circular’ in a way that makes that fact rare and important and I understand that part of the pleasure of the day for her will be wearing that skirt (but wonder why she didn’t finish it last night so we could be on our way.)

We sit on separate saddles fixed to Dad’s crossbar, my brother in front because he’s smaller and wriggles against me, Dad behind, his arms either side, his breath blowing my hair as he pedals, legs up and down, knees bumping feet if we don’t keep them still on the black, flat - barred footrests.

Mum carries the food in the big loose-woven wicker basket on the front of her bike, towels and buckets and spades and cardigans piled above the scalloped edge, smiling and pleased with her skirt and in anticipation of the day.

But here my picture ends – was that the day I got lost in the dunes? was scared by a giant green crab lurking under the wet wooden groyne? cut my foot and was so overwhelmed with contrariness that I screamed as she tried to put a plaster on, knowing that I was behaving badly? – I cannot remember, but I wonder how she managed to cycle in a circular skirt, smiling.