Uncommon

Today has been extraordinary.  The weather is early-autumn golden delicious, and Michael, sick since Thursday, is finally feeling better. It was a perfect day to take the kids out to blow the dust off of them.

Wimbledon Common is a vast expanse of land about 15 minutes away, some wooded, some open, maintained for people to wander around on, ride their horses or air their dogs.

We brought a lunch of baguette, cheese and apples and hopped on the bus. In America, not having a car is one step away from living in a cardboard box and eating one's meals from the dumpster behind the McDonalds, but here, taking the bus is pretty standard practice. I am proud to say that I do not own a car, and, although there have been occasions when i've wished that I did, in general I am quite happy to live without one, un-American as that may seem.

We spent the afternoon on the Common, going in circles along trails beneath red and yellow canopies, and ate our lunch at the edge of a meadow,  in the shade of an ancient oak. 

Idyllic as this was at first, it is a fact that no matter where I am, and no matter how much open space there may be in my general vicinity, the minute I settle down in a nice corner of a field for a little rest, some tosser with a football will appear out of nowhere and start kicking the damned thing around right next to me.  If no footballs are handy, there'll be a goddamn cricket test match or a Six Nations rugby tournament going on. Entire extended families will turn up with picnic coolers and cans of Tennant's Special Brew, cheering for their side.  I could be on top of a mountain in Scotland eating my lunch and feeling one with nature and exceedingly grateful for not having fallen off, and some mouth breather in a Liverpool jersey will come striding along the ridge, football tucked under his arm, straight towards me.

I don't know why I attract people who don't appreciate the sublime beauty of sitting still, of relishing what may well be one of the last shortsleeve days until May, but I do attract them and this set includes my children. 

I'd better go kick the ball around with them.