“Surely they won’t actually turn up at nine?” said L hopefully, half way through our frantic efforts to pack, clean up, and remove ourselves from the house before the checkout deadline. “Well, obviously they can’t turn up everywhere on the dot of nine,” I replied, “but they’re going to turn up somewhere.” Which they did, and guess where? But luckily the nice young women of the housekeeping team, seeing that we were almost done, offered to give us an extra ten minutes, and no more than quarter of an hour later the crew – minus R, who had an early appointment in Stratford – were on our way to the café for breakfast.
We were still sitting chatting an hour or so later, when a small, damp and slightly sticky hand inserted itself into mine, and I looked down to find the Pocket Rocket standing beside me. “Come,” he said. “We goin’ to go outside an’ look atter big fie.” “Do you mean the dragonfly?” I asked, looking out of the window at a large metal sculpture of a dragonfly and some bulrushes. “Yes,” he said, “”Daggerfie.” So we went and looked at the daggerfie, and unfortunately I had to pick him up to give him a better view, which probably crushed another inch or so out of my already shortening vertebral column, but luckily his interest in sculpture stretches no further than mine, so I was able to dump him back on the ground again quite quickly. “Come,” he said again. “We goin’ to der paygound now.” So off we went again, and I watched in mingled admiration and terror as he threw himself around the climbing equipment with the enthusiasm of an SAS squaddie tackling an assault course. My new-found position inside the Circle of Trust didn’t quite survive me hauling him back to his mother for a nappy change (“NOOOOOO!!!”) – but you can’t win them all.
With breakfast time pushing towards elevenses, we finally said our goodbyes and left Lower Mill. The family B headed towards the second leg of their holiday, with G’s family in the Forest of Dean; H set off for the Frozen North, via a coffee stop wth R in Stratford; and I went all of two miles down the road, to Lower Moor, in search of a daggerfie. After quickly securing my first Migrant Hawker of the season I whizzed back home to dump my luggage and submit a supermarket order, then I drove into Stratford and joined R for an early dinner, over which we shared our favourite memories of the week, and made some plans for next summer.
R: L2, C10, D78.
