Sunshine!

At first it seemed like craziness, a bit of loose talk when considering what we might do for lunch: "How about a barbecue?"

The barbecuing device itself, rusty after its winter hibernation, lurks in the small garden at the front of the cottage. When I come to use it, I find that, grotesquely, its grill is a little furry with whatever micro-fauna has fed on last summer's leftover fats. 

There's a split bag of charcoal that's been just outside the porch door, adding the cottage's scruffy exterior, all winter. With the careful use of a flat Amazon box, I manage to get most of the coals into the barbecue and I set light to what's left of the thick paper bag it came in. At some point in its history, this charcoal was doused in a fluid to make it burn quickly but the winter rains appear to have rinsed this off. For whatever reason, it ignites patchily and I suspect that it's only the constant gusts of wind that keep it fanned sufficiently to properly catch.

But catch it does and eventually what was properly enough for three separate barbecues is giving off a fierce heat that burns the grill clean. At least, I think it does. The Minx is unconvinced and pops down to the hardware store for a wire brush, which, I am forced to admit, does make the bars look incontrovertibly clean, even as the strong heat burns the hairs off the back of my hands as I scrub.

Once it's calmed down a little, we put the food on and sit in our chairs to read our books and sip at gin and tonics. Abi and the miniMinx are quite happy in their den, hidden in the corner of the garden, building chairs, drinks holders and recycling ever more extraordinary bits of junk which they claim they have found discarded in the area of no man's land next to the cottage. It is an early slice of summertime bliss.