Picnics

Strange, isn’t it, that despite having such famously terrible weather, we Brits are so fond of a picnic. It’s something to do with making the most of what sunshine we get — but if you ever plan to eat outdoors, it will almost invariably end up raining. Never mind. There’s very little that we’re better at than embracing our terrible weather, and keeping buggering on.

This year’s Ascot was, for me, a case in point. Every day of the meet was blessed with excellent weather — except, of course, the one day I went. A person more sensible than I might have looked at the forecast and planned accordingly. I checked, saw that it was going to rain — and just got on with my picnic preparations as usual. So come 11 a.m., eight of us were perched around a foldable table with a rose-embroidered cloth on it, drinking English sparkling wine in the drizzle and gazing up at the depressing sky. Grey, just grey, as far as the eye could see.

But as we all know, fortune favours the brave. I had chosen to brave the weather, and fortune was on our side. ‘Would you like to borrow our spare gazebo?’ piped up our car-park neighbours. ‘Our boys can put it up for you, as well.’ A spare gazebo? I’m usually lucky if I have a spare pen in my bag. But they were our saviours.

The problem is, there’s rarely anything simple about ‘just’ having a picnic. It can range from the smartest of meals — complete with linen tablecloths, champagne flutes, vases of flowers and spare gazebos — normally reserved for the likes of Ascot, Glyndebourne and Henley, all the way down to a few clingfilm-wrapped sandwiches and a thermos of tea on a hillock.