she had got it into her head that she and Stan would take the children on a lovely picnic, and she’d tried so hard to pretend they were a lovely picnicking family, but something inevitably went wrong, there was always someone in a bad mood, or they got lost, or it rained just as they arrived, and the drive home was silent and resentful, except for the regular sniffles of whichever child felt he or she had been unjustifiably admonished.
