Another very hot day. I have been working all day on my book manuscript. As much as possible I have been sitting outside in the shade of the walnut tree. Later in the day I move to the shade of the maple, as the sun moves round. Tara the kitten sleeps much of th day underneath a miniature trampoline that has been on the lawn for a while which makes a perfect little tent for her shaded yet open on all sides.
All this reminds me of summers past. Back in 1967 or 68 my first wife and I went on holiday to Cornwall. We went by train. We took our baby, Emma, and our cat with us. The cat, called Snowy, was in a basket. I remember that the ticket collector was not too pleased about it but we had looked up the regulations in advance nd were able to persuade him. We got to Penzance and took a bus to a camp site where we put up the little bell tent we had borrowed. We were poor as church mice at that time. I remember we had bought a green plastic snake along the way and hung it in the centre of the roof of the tent. Snowy liked camping and so did Emma. In fact, she learnt to walk by climbing up the side of the tent.
After Cornwall we made our way gradually up country using a mix of hiking and local buses. I carried Emma in a papouse on my backt. It was a hot summer. By August we got as far as Derbyshire where Diana's parents had kindly left their touring caravan on a site at Ilam. We had a final week there before making our way back to London.
In some ways it seems like a very long time ago, so much having happened in the meantime. In another way, it could have been yesterday. One hot summer is quite like another. I don't think I imagined in those days that I would be living in France and writing books now, but if somebody had told me so I would not have been that surprised either.
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