You are on the beach. The sun is hot and the sky is blue. Your skin feels warm. You lie on your back on a large bath towel, stretch out your arms and legs, and wiggle your toes in the hot sand. The wind blows in from the sea. You taste its salt on your lips. You look up into the sky and watch white puffy clouds float by. Their shape reminds of picture books you once read as a child many years ago. Bronzed beauties walk by looking in your direction. Through half-closed eyes you gaze after them as they wander off into the distance, waves crashing onto the beach beside them.
You feel happy. There are no trains to catch, no telephones to answer, no colleagues complaining about all the work they have to do: it is just you and Mother Nature. You have all the time in the world. You begin to feel hungry. You look into your bag. Inside there is something wrapped in tin foil. It looks like a silver rugby ball. You touch it. It is pleasantly warm. You take it out of your bag and squeeze it gently. It feels nice. You peel off the tin foil. Slowly. Taking your time. Bit by bit, the silver is pulled back to reveal the golden inside. It is the golden pastry of a golden pie.
You nibble the corner of the pie. Inside the crisp pastry there is juicy beef, potato, onion and turnip. You can smell the parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. Steam rises up into the air, here one moment, gone the next. You reflect on how short and yet how sweet life can be. But more than anything, you take care not to get sand in your food.
You open your ice-box and look inside: there you find one can of beer, two cans of beer, and just in case you get thirsty later, a third can of beer. Or who knows, you might get lucky. You might meet someone. They might want a cold drink, too. Sweet dreams are made of days like these.