“The Rat brought the boat alongside the bank, tied it up, helped awkward Mole safely ashore, and swung out the picnic basket. The Mole begged to be allowed to unpack it all by himself. He took out all the mysterious packets one by one and arranged their contents, gasping ‘Oh my! Oh my!’ at each fresh surprise.”
Kenneth Grahame, the Wind in the Willows
Yesterday was picnic day under the trees in Hyde Park. Perfect. Hot sun, cool shade, just enough breeze and cherry cake.
It was one of the idyllic days that are somehow rooted into every other perfect picnic in any other time and place. Those afternoons when you feel like some sort of combination of Anne Shirley, Emma Woodhouse, Omar Khayyam and Peter Pan. With a bit of Little Red Ridinghood and the disciples on the beach thrown in. And probably yourself as a five-year old, too.
It was a day made for grass and good weather.
We trekked down to the park after church, some carrying too many bags, some holding the children’s hands instead. It was a hot day, and we worried a bit about the stamina of the older generation. We tried to make the children run more slowly.
Because it was our church picnic day, we went through the usual rigmarole about nomenclature. Congregational vs Sunday school and all that. But still, in the announcements, it was printed both ways, and I’m sure there was confusion about who could come. There always is.
But, in the end, we had plenty of people and plenty of food to share.
And we had games galore. The one where you stand hand-in-hand in teams (a mix of heights is vital) and pass a hoola hoop down the line, each person stepping through in turn. The immortal egg-and-spoon variations. And the four-year-olds’ invention of chariot racing, pulling each other around using the hoops. We also played rounders, which is like baseball, but seemingly more chaotic, but maybe that’s just the way it’s played at English picnics.
Thinking about English picnics, I found this quotation from Andrew Hubbell’s How Wordsworth Invented Picnicking and Saved British Culture:
To picnic is to consume not only particular food, but also a specific environment chosen according to an aesthetic standard, and a particular form of sharing food according to certain standards of behaviour. It means creating a moveable feast and overcoming difficulties and inconveniences, not only for preparation and transportation, but also for consumption and cleanup. Yet picnicking is the pleasurable pursuit of a leisured people, so the difficulty of moving the feast has some reward. The reward is primarily ideological: it enables the participant to share a form of eating that creates relationships between small groups of people, natural landmarks, and cultural ideals. These relationships form a consciousness of national identity. Picnicking, especially for early nineteenth-century picnickers, was thus away of performing Britishness.
But, for me, to picnic is also to think about those afternoons when the canoe provides the table and there are blackflies to worry about. When you might need to keep an eye open for a bear. When there’s BC sand in the sandwiches or the Saskatchewan sun is so hot overhead that you just have to find the gazebo and hope those already there will share the shade.
Overcoming difficulties indeed.
What made yesterday’s picnic especially special for our family was that my parents are visiting right now, so we had three generations on our picnic blanket. I’m so glad that, despite distance, we are lucky enough to give our kids afternoons like this. I guess we were performing family. Our family and church family. The comfort of being together on a Sunday afternoon, of relaxing, eating and playing together.
Eugene Peterson talks about Sabbath as being about playing and praying.
I cast my vote.
Picnics are most certainly a great way to Sabbath.
