Summer is the time for picnics, and every picnic has its own magic, though none can ever quite match up to the glorious feast enjoyed by Mole and Rat as they mess about in a boat at the beginning of that idyll to the English country side, "The Wind In The Willows":
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"The Mole waggled his toes from sheer happiness, spread his chest with a sigh of full contentment, and leaned back blissfully into the soft cushions. 'What a day I'm having!' he said. 'Let us start at once!'
'Hold hard a minute, then!' said the Rat. He looped the painter through a ring in his landing-stage, climbed up into his hole above, and after a short interval reappeared staggering under a fat, wicker luncheon-basket.
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'Shove that under your feet,' he observed to the Mole, as he passed it down into the boat. Then he untied the painter and took the sculls again.
'What's inside it?' asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosity.
'There's cold chicken inside it,' replied the Rat briefly, 'coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscressandwichesspottedmeatgingerbeer leomonadesodawater-'
'O stop, stop,' cried the Mole in ecstasies: 'This is too much!'
'Do you really think so?' inquired the Rat seriously. 'It's only what I always take on these little excursions, and the other animals are always telling me that I'm a mean beast and cut it very fine!'
~~Kenneth Grahame~~
"Summer afternoon -- summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language." ~~Henry JamesAnother page from "An English Cottage Year"
