boiling up all the household sheets in the copper. Outside looked exactly like our scullery. Only not as warm. There were dribbles of water running down the windows, and the inside of the bus felt really quite cold suddenly, which it would do of course, because we had now left the city and were out in the countryside. Well, almost countryside. There were rows of houses with sheds leaning againstthem, or old bicycles, or rabbit hutches, and there were lace curtains at all the windows and pointy gables and titchy little gardens with sundials in the middle or tin baths hanging on the walls. And then, quite suddenly, they began to trail off. The lamp-posts ended, the road got narrower, and all at once we were out in the real country. You could see that easily through the dribbles down the window and the steam bits. I wiped them away with my sleeve, and outside it was all white, drifting mists, black trees and, now and again, a miserable horse standing with bowed head close to the hedges. Sometimes, in a quite wide field, there would be a herd of cows standing together, switching their tails, breathing out snorts of cloud, and then they would all begin to break away and clomp across the frozen grass because a man was coming towards them with a horse and cart full of bales of hay. It was very interesting. If you liked that kind of thing.
Then we got to the rest-stop at Felbridge and that was almost half the journey over. The café was by the side of the road with a big car park for the bus. It was surrounded by sad-looking birch trees and drooping rhododendrons and dead bracken, and everywhere the grass was spiked with ice, or frost. When the bus stopped everyone scrambled off and hurried across the car park to the lavs, and when we got into the actual café it was much better and smelled of varnish and wood and HP Sauce and fried eggs, so that you really felt quite hungry.
It was very warm, and the huge tea urn was hissing away just like a railway engine at a station, but Lally gave me a shove and told me not to dawdle, which I wasnât anyway, and bagged a table and dumped her wicker basketon the top. She told us all to sit round and make it look full up. Which it was with four of us and the Weekend beside my chair. I was a bit worried that the heat might draw out the smell, but it didnât seem to, and I had covered the whole of the cage in what Lally called âstout brown paperâ, so that no one would guess what it had inside. People would think that it was just a plain, ordinary, old brown paper parcel and not get the wind up. You canât tell with grown-ups.
I tore off one corner of the paper before I set it on the floor just to see if everyone was all right inside. And everyone was: I just saw a pink foot and a little sniffling nose and felt very comforted to think that they were having an adventure like us. They had sawdust all over their floor, and a whole folded page of the
Daily Mail
to sop up anything which might have made a stink. They hadnât died of fright or anything, which they easily could have, with all the banging about and bumps and swinging, and then Lally told me to put them down quick sharp or risk a sharp cuff, so I did. No point in getting a good cuffing, as she called it, in front of hundreds of strange people. She could cuff pretty hard when she wanted to.
The sandwiches were all spread out neatly on little paper napkins. Four each: bloater paste, egg and cress, Kraft cheese, and chicken and ham paste. It was quite good really. And when the Thermos came out, and the four cups were unwrapped and set about, and the sugar counted out carefully, one lump each, in a napkin, it all seemed Christmassy already. It really was a winter picnic. I rather liked it. We were never allowed to have tea out of the big hissing urn on account of âforeign bodiesâ and chippedcups and âhow-long-do-you-think-itâs-been-stewing-Iâd-like-to-know?â
So we just had home-made,
Then we got to the rest-stop at Felbridge and that was almost half the journey over. The café was by the side of the road with a big car park for the bus. It was surrounded by sad-looking birch trees and drooping rhododendrons and dead bracken, and everywhere the grass was spiked with ice, or frost. When the bus stopped everyone scrambled off and hurried across the car park to the lavs, and when we got into the actual café it was much better and smelled of varnish and wood and HP Sauce and fried eggs, so that you really felt quite hungry.
It was very warm, and the huge tea urn was hissing away just like a railway engine at a station, but Lally gave me a shove and told me not to dawdle, which I wasnât anyway, and bagged a table and dumped her wicker basketon the top. She told us all to sit round and make it look full up. Which it was with four of us and the Weekend beside my chair. I was a bit worried that the heat might draw out the smell, but it didnât seem to, and I had covered the whole of the cage in what Lally called âstout brown paperâ, so that no one would guess what it had inside. People would think that it was just a plain, ordinary, old brown paper parcel and not get the wind up. You canât tell with grown-ups.
I tore off one corner of the paper before I set it on the floor just to see if everyone was all right inside. And everyone was: I just saw a pink foot and a little sniffling nose and felt very comforted to think that they were having an adventure like us. They had sawdust all over their floor, and a whole folded page of the
Daily Mail
to sop up anything which might have made a stink. They hadnât died of fright or anything, which they easily could have, with all the banging about and bumps and swinging, and then Lally told me to put them down quick sharp or risk a sharp cuff, so I did. No point in getting a good cuffing, as she called it, in front of hundreds of strange people. She could cuff pretty hard when she wanted to.
The sandwiches were all spread out neatly on little paper napkins. Four each: bloater paste, egg and cress, Kraft cheese, and chicken and ham paste. It was quite good really. And when the Thermos came out, and the four cups were unwrapped and set about, and the sugar counted out carefully, one lump each, in a napkin, it all seemed Christmassy already. It really was a winter picnic. I rather liked it. We were never allowed to have tea out of the big hissing urn on account of âforeign bodiesâ and chippedcups and âhow-long-do-you-think-itâs-been-stewing-Iâd-like-to-know?â
So we just had home-made,
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