It was Sunday morning…

It was Sunday morning, and the procession was beginning which every weekend passes our house on its way to the sea. Last year we should have joined it, but, alas, Angeline the Austin was sacrificed last Autumn, and as I watched my husband’s face, I guessed how he was missing her. The little boys, too, were starting to comment on the spades and pails in the passing cars, and I knew that, as usual, it was up to me. Flying upstairs, I unearthed the trunk where our sea~ side equipment was stored. David and Peter, trailing disconsolately  after me, fell with howls of delight on their bathing costumes. 

"May we put them on?”

 “And have water to play with?" 

I nodded assent, and clothes were torn off. Within a few minutes two blue figures on the lawn were blissfully splashing each-other from-a washtub full of water. My husband watched them for a time with-envious eyes and then retired, to emerge soon after in shirt and shorts, bearing a collection of toy boats. 

"Can we have some more baths?" asked a wet figure, breathlessly, and I turned - out all I had. The requests for more water soon became so frequent that I ran the garden hose out to them and turned out on a trickle.

Leaving them thoroughly happy, I tidied the house, and turned my attention to dinner. But why? I asked myself should I spoil the illusion by an indoor meal of cold joint and salad, Let it be one of our last summer's picnic lunches. Quickly I turned meat, lettuce and tomatoes into appetising sandwiches, and popped them into a basket. Hard Boiled eggs followed with their attendant  screws of salt, and plenty of lemonade.

 In a shady corner of the garden I spread rugs and cushions and laid the picnic cloth, and soon a jolly party was sitting round, resolved to pretend that it was really the seaside. David, whos imagination is too keen at times, caused a certain amount of confusion by leaping up at intervals to avoid incoming waves.

“Now rest time,"  I ordered, when they had eaten their fill, and both boys flopped. But David, the stickler for accuracy, was up again directly..

“You don’t look right mummy,” he objected. “You never wear that frock at the sea.”

With a guilty feeling that my neighbour might comment, I slipped on my gay beach suit and fled across the lawn tot he shady corner. David looked me over.

“Now we are all right,” he siad, “and th etide has turned. I shall go to sleep,” and promptly did. Peter squirmed over his cushion, and eventually dozed too, fat limbs outspread.

Lying back in our chairs, the peace of a June afternoon around us, my husband and I looked at each other, and wondered, though we scarcely dared say it, whether there was not a lot to be said for a pretend seaside in ones own back garden, with no long procession home at the end of the day.