the joy of pastry eaten outdoors

no the inner child isn't back. this is the outer adult typing with her left hand. b.a. sleeps long and late as befits a brain cancer survivor. my new laptop has a touchscreen though so I'll try using that too. 

one of the reasons children have so much energy and cheer must be all their sleep. man, to think I could get a start on the morning without a cup of coffee for over 20 years. I even worked in a coffee shop as a teen without developing the habit. hmm. what if I went back to living like a child, with work as school but no piano lessons. couldn't face that again. back to ballet! what a hoot that would be.

b.a. and I have both lost weight since Christmas thanks to Lent, the exercise bike and outdoor walks. but on our recent stay by the seaside we ate delicious French pastries from our favourite bakery. twice-baked almond croissants, pains-au-chocolat, chocolate and pistachio 'escargots' ... nom nom nom. Fortunately we were not greedy about this and averaged just one pastry each every second day.  I just checked the scales and I didn't gain a pound, so yay! (the 6 hour hikes may have had something to do with that.)

I learned an important lesson from the pastries, too. Eating a pastry in the open air e.g. after an hour's walk, on a bench outside an old country church, with steaming coffee from a thermos flask, was a gazillion times better than eating one while reading on the sofa. Although you would think my senses would have been overloaded by the warmth of the sun, the cool of the breeze, the sights of grass, flowers, church gate and village, and the mad chirping of birds, they were not.  they all just enhanced the flavours, textures and scents of butter, chocolate, almond frangipani, pistachio ... On the sofa reading, however, I ate half a danish-sized chocolate-pistachio escargot without really noticing. What a waste of a glorious pastry!    

and not to brag, but a completely different but even more rarified joy was pulling on my old boy-shorts two-piece bathing suit and discovering it fit much better than it did in Poland last summer. in fact, it actually did fit. the reason why I had it with me, by the North Sea in early May, was that I was determined to get into the sea once no matter how cold it was. So one windy day after a seaside walk, I pulled off my outer garments, left them on the sand with b.a. and proceeded to run into the sea. 

I think I lasted 15 seconds before I ran back out again because the cold water stabbed at my legs like knives and I couldn't take it. the amusing thing, though, was that the short adventure left me euphoric and--mirabile dictu--I did not at all mind walking home in wet socks inside very sandy boots. 

Google still won't let me use my own combox, so thank you for your comment, sunnysaffer!