OUTINGS Part I

Bloggiana has decided she wishes to practise going on outings, in order to prepare her for a moment when she may or may not deign to meet PokeyMokey – her latest internet date – face to face. Teener and I and Chumsky and others are game, not least because the old girl has volunteered not only to pay but also to drive.

In order to keep us all on the edge of our seats, Bloggiana decides to keep the details of our first outing a mystery and we climb into the car on a Saturday morning full of anticipation. There is a picnic in the boot; and some tartan rugs for sitting on; and some flasks; and a map; and all in all, we decide this outing is going to be jolly fun.

Next we drive - through horizontal rain for something approaching two hours. The radiant jutting hills of our landscape remain resolutely hidden and the rainclouds for which Our County is so renowned serenade us unchecked. In the back of Bloggiana’s car – which is a large truck-thing that has a tendency to sway somewhat – we sit and show our teeth through our lips as though we were smiling cheerfully. The potholes suck the car’s tyres down not gently but brusquely. The camber ducks and dives like a kite in the breeze and the corners too have a habit of disappearing out of sight, just when we think we know where they are taking us. Slowly but surely, the road becomes narrower and more rutted. Slowly but surely, the contents of our stomachs ebb and flow, up the alimentary canal and down. We are almost soporific with it all, drowsy on nausea – when at last the road becomes a track and the track becomes a field and the field becomes a wetland and the truck thing comes to a halt and Bloggiana turns round and announces triumphantly to us all: we’re he’ere.

But what is this, Bloggiana? we ask in a chorus. For he’ere seems to be just a field, a small field with a few cars and a few ponies, and some jumps and a caravan and a man with a loudspeaker and the occasional dog showing flagrant disregard for Health & Safety; and yes, over there by the corner of the field, one other thing: a huge faceless silent nuclear power station.

Bloggiana! we all exclaim simultaneously. What on earth?

Now the old girl must have pressed the Outings button on her control panel because by this stage she seems to be pretty much on auto-pilot. Out come the picnic, the rugs, the flasks. She lays them out around the car, deftly sidestepping the deeper swamp on one side and the glowing two-headed toad on the other. When one of us points out that we all to a man cannot bear pony gymkhanas, Bloggiana appears to lose the power of hearing. When another enounces – ever so sweetly – that he would rather not picnic in the pouring rain, Bloggiana soldiers on regardless. When a small skewbald pony ridden by a red-faced roly-poly out-of-control boy trots plumb through the middle of our party, causing the sausage rolls, the glowing toads and the hard-boiled eggs to combine in some lurid toxic cocktail, Bloggiana simply bends over and starts re-arranging.

Bloggiana, Chumsky pleads, do we really have to stay? Bloggiana, Jollyosa beseeches, can’t we have our picnic in a shed or something? Bloggiana, I entreat, are you sure this is meant to be fun? The old girl looks at me hard. I could swear I haven’t a clue what she is thinking.

To be continued.