bags packed...

Bags packed, tent aired, food gathered, sleeping bags stowed, summer shorts bought, midge repellent found, car repaired, dreams dreamt of ducks in the woods.

Boy and I are off for a few days. A week actually, the first two days of which will be spent in the woods, camping by a pond populated by lazy ducks. After years of proclaiming 'don't like camping' whenever the Boy would wistfully suggest that we might like to make use of the tent sitting in the cupboard, I've discovered that the thought of unzipping the hatch, crawling into our own little softly lit and softly furnished cave and falling into a cosy sleep while birds twitter above gets me through each and every week.

Days spent sitting in front of the computer, waiting in queues in the supermarket, fidgeting awkwardly in suspicious smelling waiting rooms are the slowest of minutes ticked off on a clock that counts down day by day to the moment we throw our bags in the car, turn the radio up and pull away from the street where people live stacked one above the other.

. photograph of Audrey by Bob Willoughby