HAND-DRAWN BE-KINDERY

I woke up a bit earlier today and went to get coffee from the deli.

That was a nice treat - the air was still fresh and the autumn sun was just high enough the catch the overnight puddles.

Unfortunately I also needed to be on the phone to the doctor. Oh, don’t worry, nothing serious - I just needed to make an appointment to get my mood-swings and emotions checked. You may have noticed I get low sometimes: I want to do something about that.

So it was that my phone (in my back pocket) was on hold, while I happily stood in the famous Black Dog Deli.

I say famous, mostly because the walls in the Black Dog Deli are hand-illustrated with Charlie Mackesey art. He lives in the village, and his sweet brand of ink-drawn be-kindery trails around the place. You know, ‘love wins’ at the Anchor down the road, and ‘choose kindness, said the horse’ while you’re picking up your organic oat latte. Good on you, Charlie, I thought.

“We are experiencing an unexpectedly high number of calls,” sang out my pocket, suddenly. “You are in the queue at position… eight.”

The deli man raised an eyebrow and gave me a wordless smile. The word ‘Townie’ must have been just behind it, I thought.

Why is the call volume ‘unexpected’ if they’ve prerecorded the message? On some level it must have been wholly expected. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever phoned the surgery when there hasn’t been an ‘unexpectedly high number of calls’. Plus, for something to be unexpected it means that neither they nor us expected it, I think, and let’s be honest, the exact opposite is true isn’t it? We all expected it.

I wandered back from the deli thinking about how I probably shouldn’t be thinking of such things while we’re on holidays.

First stop then was a lifeboat museum. After that we sat on the beach for a while and tried to eat our lunch. I voted we bury the egg sandwiches we’d made, but Sammy thought that would constitute a biohazard. Fair enough - we couldn’t have risked children or dogs digging them up someday and contaminating Southwold beach. Despite a quick thought that they’d be useful in a war against the Russians, the egg-bombs went in the nearest bin and we ate Co-Op sandwiches on the sand dunes.

Charlie Mackesey’s right - even if he’s plastered it all over the Black Dog Deli. Kindness is beyond all things, it is important to choose love, and worrying about what others think of you is the biggest waste of time. I found myself wondering if he’d ever played crazy golf, when, in classic holiday tradition, Sammy and I stood clubs in hand on the Southwold Adventure Golf Course.

It’s properly not called ‘crazy’ golf any more. Better to have an adventure (I imagine Charlie saying) than to be unkind about people. Adventure golf it was.

Talk about your classic British holiday activity. Few things are more exciting than knocking a plastic golfball through a windmill and round some polystyrene rocks. The grey clouds rolled over, the air went chilly, there were even flecks of rain. I got the feeling that if there’d been a sudden deluge, not a soul out there would have run for cover. Hoods up and on we go. Thankfully it came to nothing.

My doctor’s appointment is in a couple of weeks’ time. That’s okay. Sammy asked me what I would say. I’ll have to think about the best words to use. One thing is sure though - being on holiday with my wife, resting and taking it all a bit easier for a while is a great help. I might mention that.