Aahh – the picnic. It’s never how you think it will be. This was done for the art group monthly challenge for June on the subject of ‘Picnic Time’. Naturally my head was filled with glorious compositions of fondant fancies, Battenberg, scones, champagne, cherries and tiny sandwiches of yummy things all laid out perfectly on a windless, cloudless sunny day. Hmm. I’m not sure I’ve ever been on a picnic like that. Let’s face it – it sounds idyllic. It’s terribly Famous Five and often makes me think of what I call ‘the Grand Jatte painting’ (Un dimanche apres-midi a L’Ile de la Grande Jatte by Seurat, although with fewer people. Bit crowded there.)
The British are a weird lot. We spend ages picking exactly the right spot. Here..? Or what about here..? Here..? No, here. Or over there..? We can spend twenty minutes examinng an area a 3-foot square. It doesn’t matter because as soon as you finally put the blanket down (does anyone actually own a red and white gingham picnic cloth?), you’ll sit on a thistle and stick your hand in a stinging nettle. And then the wasp turns up, and then there are the flies… You can always tell where a picnic is going on – it’s usually the place where people are waving their arms, doing a weird dance and screaming, then relocating to a new spot about six feet away under the misconception that the wasp will be confused and not be able to follow them. We go home in a bad mood wondering why we bothered and remembering why we vowed last time to never do this again. But we do. Beause this is the way. (Although that might be Mandalorian rather than British.)