Anyway, now that Sweep was awake, he could hear the other sounds of a country morning on the North Cornish coast - the gentle scream of children in nearby tents as they were told they couldn't have sweets for breakfast; the sound of couples having intense debates about the best way to tidy up a campsite, and about whether his father and mother were married; the dulcet roar of motorbikes passing on the road outside at 100mph; the shriek of children as they spot yet another blank-blank wasp, and so on.
Sweep realised that he was going to have to get out of bed and accept that morning had arrived. This was for several reasons. Firstly, everyone else on the site appeared to be up already, and in no mood to keep their noise down. Secondly, Auntie Angela announced that the kettle was boiling and would anyone like a coffee - Sweep was in dire need thereof. And thirdly, Sweep had reached that critical point at which there needed to be a visit to the loo imminently or there would be consequences.
Sweep wriggled out of his sleeping bag and sleepily wished everyone good morning on his way out of the tent and towards the toilets. Lots of people seemed to be packing their tents away and getting ready to leave today - Auntie Angela explained that because today was Saturday, lots of people had to go home to get back to work. Sweep thought that was hilarious, and promptly wet himself anyway.
After cleaning up, and getting back to the tent, Uncle Bill and Auntie Angela and the Cubs all agreed with Sweep that it was a bacon butty kind of a morning - so out came the bacon and the bread, on went the grill, and butties were made. And eaten. Then more butties were made. And eaten. Sweep reflected (for it was a reflective mood in which he found himself today) that bacon butties were mighty fine, pardner. (He was also, but only momentarily, in a cowboy kind of mood).
Everyone had a chat over their butties about what they should do for the rest of the day. Uncle Bill said it seemed like a kind of sitting-around-doing-nothing-very-much sort of day to him, and the others agreed. Sweep was quite relieved - yesterday's adventures had worn him out a bit, and he liked the idea of a quieter day today. He liked it even more when Uncle Bill explained that on Saturdays, all the families for miles around would be bringing their little kids out so they could get all whiny and screechy and sticky and obnoxious in the fresh air instead of at home. Sweep thought that perhaps, they were best avoided.
Sweep settled down to read his book - he was busy with some engaging and exciting contemporary theology by Peter Rollins, which he was currently recommending to everyone. Lots of people got surprised when they found out about the extent, variety and scope of Sweep's reading, but he did like to remind them that even glove puppets like to take a keen interest in the great issues of life, and he was presently intrigued by the dialectical interplay between concepts of Christianity and the Church. It was just his thing. After all, some people like Corrie and Eastenders, which Sweep thought far more worrying as an interest.
After they'd all been reading for a while, Auntie Angela said that there would have to be a little trip to the shops to get some food for lunch and dinner. She thought perhaps pasties might be a good idea for lunch, and Sweep decided that he'd been fancying a trip to the shops all day. He also remembered that he'd promised Uncle Dave back home in Jarra, that he'd do some research about pasties, so he'd better get onto it really.
They went off to the supermarket down the road - there was an advert on the side of the petrol station telling someone called Miles that there was better value - Sweep didn't know who Miles was, but he thought it was nice of the supermarket to do personalised messages like that. Anyway, in they went and bought the few things they would need for the day. They went to the bakery, and the lady there said that she had some pasties just coming out of the oven, nice and fresh and hot. "Ooh yummy", thought Sweep. Uncle Bill asked the lady if they did any pasties without turnip in them, because one of the cubs wasn't keen on turnip. "Oh yes", said the lady. If you look at the pasties, you'll see that some of them have a little " T T " on them, for "Tis Turnip" - and the ones with no turnip in have " T T " on them, for "Tisn't Turnip". "Thanks", said Uncle Bill, "that's very helpful".
Back they all came to the tent, where they sat and had their lovely lunchtime pasties. After much research, Sweep decided that he liked the Traditional Cornish the best, although the Cod and Tarragon was a close second, along with the Chicken and Chorizo. He wasn't too sure that he liked his Rhubarb and Custard in a pastie, but he wouldn't refuse one of them either. All in all though, he had to agree that the Traditional Cornish was the one that came closest in satisfaction levels to the proper Greggs Corned Beef pastie.
Sweep knew that his Uncle Dave was worrying about his wellbeing in addition to wanting to know about the pasties, so he decided to ry something he'd seen on those news reports about people who are staying with friends in another part of the world, where they show their family and friends back home that they're OK - so he had his picture taken with his pastie wrapper showing today's date on it. He was pretty clever, was Sweep.
Come back for more adventures later...
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