#106: The Picnic Blanket
Or the endurance of picnickers

The first use of the word pique-nique referred to a meal to which the diners brought their own wine. It was more to do with each guest contributing to the experience — meaning no one held the role of 'host’ — than the experience of eating outside.
But to me, a picnic is not truly a picnic if it isn’t eaten outdoors, and it is more properly a picnic if enjoyed from a picnic blanket — probably tartan, definitely covered in crumbs. A picnic blanket gives you the freedom to enjoy nature without worrying about nature leaving its mark on you.
Eating outside has its difficulties — balls of ice cream plop onto tarmac, sandwiches are stolen by seagulls, mud manages to make it into places it really shouldn’t, and grass stains are inevitable. And how often is it really warm enough to enjoy eating outside in the UK?
This does not stop the picnickers though, stalwartly sheltering under trees, tents, walls, each other, cramming each morsel into their mouths. Nothing can put an end to lunch, not even when crisp packets start blowing halfway down a cliff.
Today I have been for a picnic with my family, using a picnic blanket that holds many memories of our picnics of yesteryear, memories that are held in the sand on its surface, refusing to be shaken away. As we looked out over the lake we made our new memories, of a girl in a buggy with ice cream all over her face, of making sure the passing dogs didn’t pinch over lunch. Back at my flat, I have my own picnic blanket. A recent investment, it has only had one outing, but seeing it curled in the corner of my room, containing all of the above possibilities, I am already imagining the excitement of picnics yet to come.

