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Slow Life

Alex James

Wednesday, 9th July 2008

Highland fling

I wasn’t planning to take the family on holiday. We live on a farm and there’s always something happening. It gets harder and harder to drag oneself away. Claire got quite indignant about having missed the strawberries when we arrived home today. There were only a few soggy ones left. ‘If it’s not the strawberries it’s something else. We were always going to skip something. Try a redcurrant,’ I said cheerfully, spitting out a pip, but she ignored me. I even managed to find her some mulberries later, but I could tell she was still filled with loss. She’s pregnant and she needs strawberries.

The year before last we went to Bournemouth and completely missed the plums. That was a total disaster. It didn’t feel like summer had been fully realised without the sweet punctuation, the exclamation mark of more plums than one could possibly handle. The way they cascade into readiness, the crash and burn approach to being a fruit fills one’s heart with joy. Ah, the bounty of nature.

Rather than miss anything we stayed at home last year. I took the kids to the toyshop in Oxford, filled the car up to the brim with plastic junk for about a tenth of the price of putting them on an aeroplane and spent a week being silly in the garden. That was a great holiday. We had a chef over one night and a masseuse another day. It all made perfect sense: luxury in the living room.

The idea of staying in a hotel with three small children was terrifying, let alone getting there. They’re too young to camp or go on boats and there’s too many of them for anyone to invite us to stay, so this year I was rather relishing another week of bouncy castles and slip’n’slides chez nous.

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