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Afissiparous, centripetal day as most of us go off in different directions.  Five of us need to do laundry, the exceptions being Dave and Sally who are both too fastidious to allow dirty laundry a half-life of more than about two hours (in other words, they had no dirty laundry to wash).

Everyone does what is most typical for them:

• Miles is feeling under the weather and spends most of the day in his room.  This is typical because Miles somehow always manages to get sick on holiday.
• Sally sleeps until noon and then… no surprises here… goes for a walk.  She likes to sleep in, but a day without physical activity is anathema to Sally. 
• Dave is out and about with his camera, meeting people and talking to them (especially those of the female persuasion), being as he is your quintessential suave and debonair bachelor. 
• Oliver goes people-watching in a pub or a café.  A gifted and (eternally?) budding writer, Oliver has his best ideas when he observes other people interacting.
• Russ buys and then writes a dozen or twenty postcards.  He is by far the most gregarious of the three of us, and Miles and I rely on him to stay in touch with absent relatives and mutual friends.
• Dad and I wander over to look around the local church (shared in these ecumenical days of dwindling congregations between the Catholics and the Church of England) and then later we meet Russ back at the B&B and play a few games of Scrabble.  It is a testimony to both how tired we have been after hiking each day, and also to the congeniality of the company, that we have hardly played a game of Scrabble since leaving St. Bees.

As dinnertime rolls around, we congregate in the living room of the B&B and I lay out the plan:  fish and chips.  Mutters of discontent from a couple of those present are heard and ignored.  We head out, but the muttering continues.  At the chippie it breaks into full-fledged mutiny:  it seems as if some don’t want fish and chips or anything else fried (which is all you get at a chippie) and the balance are inclined to humor them.  But not me.  I’ve been looking forward to fish and chips all day and announce that I’m staying.  It is a fateful moment:  who will they follow?  They all leave.  It is a sad moment.

Sitting alone in the restaurant a few minutes later waiting for my order to arrive, Dave (of course) shows up to tell me where they are and that fish and chips is on the menu there too… but it is too late.  I am committed both to the chippie and to sinking further into a pit of resentment.

After I am done I go over to their restaurant and sit sullen and reproachful at the dinner table while they eat.  I am outside and determined to stay that way despite various attempts at reintegration.  My baleful presence has an effect.  The conversation doesn’t seem to flow as smoothly as usual.  There is not as much laughter.  It seems as if the poison of discord is loose and the fellowship is broken.  I leave early and go to bed. 

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