There were a lot of other dogs about today. It's the kind of place where you can let your four-legged friends off the lead to race into the undergrowth, splash in the shallows and playfully sniff each other's rear ends. I guess if you haven't got the power of speech or opposable thumbs, a hello and a handshake are technically out of the question.
It's also the kind of place where you overhear other people's holiday plans - but only in snippets. One lady was bragging about a plush hotel in Dubrovnik that you can only get to by boat. Yawn.
At one point, I felt a really weird sensation in my shoulders. We had all sat on a tiered bank overlooking the lake. Walty, my cousin, was playing fetch with the dogs by throwing sticks into the water. The dogs were loving it. I was watching the smooth surface being rippled by the wind and listening to the way sounds were carried on the breeze.
I felt a kind of loosening - the same feeling I get when I take a little wine, a sort of melting of the tightness in the neck and shoulder-blades. I think I might actually have been relaxing.
Relaxing always makes me think. I thought about my attitude yesterday. I should be more grateful. I get tense just thinking about the gap between my expectations and my realities. It's way too easy to miss where you are, when you're so focused on where you think you should be. That gap is where some of the most beautiful flowers grow. I think God might actually have designed it to be this way.
The wind whistled in my ears and made me shiver. A plastic tub of KitKats appeared from nowhere, so I took one, said thank you, and snapped it in two. I peeled off the metal paper and broke off the delicious chocolate between my teeth. Who needs to go to fancy hotels in Dubrovnik to relax? I thought. Have a break...
I smiled. Then one of the dogs bounded towards me up the bank, looked at me for a moment, one yard away, with a kind of irrepressible mischeif ... and shook himself dry.
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