Because: Farts

The
most decadent thing in the world is being awoken from a nap in the library to
be told your poached sea bass is ready.

The
thing most likely to make you squeal in unbridled delight, not unlike an
eight-year old in an Enid Blyton novel, is being caught on a post-dinner bike
ride in a shower of rain so gentle it’s like being sent butterfly kisses from
the sudden grey clouds. There’s no better feeling than free-wheeling down a country
hill with mascara-streaked face and hair plastered to your neck, releasing.
Releasing everything. WAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Let’s
do it again!

Happiness
is waking up in a duvet light enough and big enough to suspend you like a
cloud; long, lazy breakfasts of poached eggs and spelt bread and
just-one-more-nibble of the homemade flapjack- you know, to straighten the
edges. It’s being welcomed into somebody else’s home, arriving as a stranger
who “We’ve all heard so much about! It’s so wonderful to finally meet you!” and
staying up past normal bedtime swapping stories and ideas and laughing. Always
laughing. Can it really be that time
already? 

Stretching
like a cat and apologising needlessly for falling asleep, I padded to the kitchen
from the aforementioned room of books, barefoot, wiping a little crust from my
eyes. I sat at the table as beans and courgettes and potatoes with generous
amount of salted butter were laid out in front of me. The French doors
overlooking the lawn were wide open, the smell of the herb garden wafting in,
two giant- if not a little grumpy- white horses in the field at the foot of the
garden, judging. The ground was wet. In between an afternoon in the sun and
dinner at dusk the sun had made way for a drizzle.

I
spent the weekend in the country, at the family home of a friend I met through
this blog. Because the Internet is brilliant. A mutual friend posted a link to
me on Facebook two years ago, one of her friends read it, we became email buddies, and BOOM. When I moved to London we agreed
that it was impossible to conceive a time when we weren’t texting each other
every morning to comment: “Wow! Your hair looks great today- really shiny.” A
time when we didn’t double-handedly spank strangers at power ballad club nights
or spend four glorious hours testing the limits of our capacity to consume French Fancies.

Boys
come and go, but some friends were sent to save you.

‘How’s
the book?’ her father asked me, referring to my weekend’s read.

‘Urgh!
Don’t!’ I said, messily taking the skin off of my fish. ‘It was so utterly
frustrating that I had to cast it aside and ponder it with my eyes closed.’

‘Yes,’
my friend said. ‘It’s funny. I had to have a little sleep for the exact same
reason.’ She smiled at me, pulling out her chair. ‘And to think I promised I
wouldn’t let you sleep until dinner.’

‘I’m
a terrible house guest.’

‘It’s
like you’ve been here before.’

I
push too hard. I picked up a colleague’s email last Monday morning which said,
“Hope you enjoyed your day off Friday!” and it nearly made me cry. I might only
work in an office for four days, but I put in a solid 60 hours a week writing writing writing and do you know
where you’ll find me on a Saturday night? Writing.

I
don’t know what I’m trying to prove, nor who to. But what I do know is that a
weekend of fresh air, long walks, and newspaper supplements was needed before I
sent myself totally bonkers. A weekend offline. A nice rest.

My
friend’s mum had to leave to go to London to a convalescing daughter, so it was
a weekend of me, my friend, and her dad. We were like the three amigos, smoking
cigars on the moors and discovering tiny hotels to have afternoon tea in. It
was so prefect we all sang Lou Reed at full pelt, out of tune but enthusiasm
abound, on the final way home.

Just a perfect day, you just keep me
hanging on… problems all left alone. It’s such fun!

Towards
the end of my stay, I took a shower. In the shower I farted. Just a little one,
a small release. When I inhaled it smelled green. You know how green smells- sort
of… brisk. Deliberate. Like a German house mistress. It was because I’d eaten
so well all weekend. And as I smelt my own fart, there, under the trickle from
the rain shower nozzle, I thought to myself yes.
That fart smells like the whole, perfect weekend. That fart smells like
contentment. That fart smells like how I feel.

I felt a special kind of warm and fuzzy.

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