The Big Day Out

It didn't bode well, the start of our Big Day Out. A Big Day Out requires sunshine and warmth so you can feel all smiley and happy and go 'tra-la-la-la, here we go on our Big Day Out'. We woke to freezing rain with the threat of more freezing rain. Actually, I woke to a clear blue sky but then that was at 5.20 a.m when I got up to let the chickens out. Between then and 7 when Andy and I had breakfast, the clouds had gathered and the temperature plummeted.

'Don't worry,' I say enthusiastically, 'the sun'll come out later!! It'll be great!!!' (Note, please, my excessive use of !!!!! in order to convey my enthusiasm!!!!!!)
'You reckon?' says Andy, who I can tell really wants to stay home and watch old episodes of Doctor Who and The Sky at Night.
'Yes!!! Come on!! Let's GO!!!!!,' I say. So we do.

Luckily, the journey to the Yalding Organic Gardens is not too long because it would have been incredibly miserable to travel for miles in order to troop round a garden in the freezing rain when we could have stayed home and got cold and wet in the comfort of our own garden (also organic.) The gardens themselves are lovely and it is reassuring to know that we, in our own little back garden/allotment/ bee garden/ chicken keeping/ compost heaping way are doing things how they should be done. We get a few ideas of how we can make our back garden look less like a mud flat. We have hot chocolate in the tea-shop and buy some local honey and gi-normous Montezuma chocolate buttons. We sit in the car and eat the gi-normous chocolate buttons until I begin to feel a bit icky.

'What now?' says Andy, as the morning is still young (and cold and wet).
'I'd quite like to go to that hop place over near Sevenoaks,' I say. I discovered this hop place during my search for hop bines (which are growing very well, and avoiding being eaten by chickens.)
'Okay,' says Andy. 'Can you remember where in Sevenoaks this place is?'
'No,' I say. 'But I don't think it's actually in Sevenoaks. It's somewhere in some village just outside.'
'Which is called?'
'I can't remember,' I confess.
'Can you remember the name of 'the hop place?' says Andy.
I have a considered think. 'No,' I say.

Andy is VERY patient.

'Or we could go to Sissinghurst for lunch,' I say. So we do. It is still cold and raining. My feet are wet and just as we are leaving, a big rain drop plops in my ear.

At Sissinghurst, we queue in the cold and rain for the restaurant. I look around. There are a lot of middle-aged, grey and droopy couples queueing with us. It's a bit of a sobering moment. Here I am, on a 'Big Day Out,' visiting organic gardens and getting excited about composting and crop rotation. Here I am, letting my hair go grey and sloshing around in jeans and big jumpers without a scrap of make-up on. Here I am keeping chickens, growing vegetables, writing bizarre 'stuff' in the vain hope it may get published (hopefully before I'm dead) and making cakes and biscuits for people, whilst worrying if the nutritional value of Brazil nuts outweighs their relatively high calorific value.

What am I thinking???? Is this right? Is this proper? Is this the start of a mid-life crisis???

Or is it that it is still wet and cold and a big blob of rain plopped in my ear?