With the holidays coming up and good weather on the way, it’s time to get the chilly bin out and head off into the wide open spaces with picnic blankets and plenty of yummy food.
I’ve always loved picnics. Listening to The Teddy Bears’ Picnic on National Radio as a child, reading about Ratty and Mole and all those Famous Five feasts with lashings of lemonade, gave picnics an aura of sumptuousness and magic. Sand in the sandwiches and sand flies never really managed to dent their romantic appeal.
Our forebears loved them too. Take a look at these two:
Our adult cultural icons don’t seem to be quite as enamoured of them though.
Omar Khayyam loves them …
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou
But what about Picnic at Hanging Rock and A Passage to India? They’re hardly likely to tempt one into the countryside.
In Emma you get a great feel for being stranded miles from anywhere with a group of people you desperately want to escape and there’s a fairly uninspiring one in To the Lighthouse. D.H. Lawrence likes them, but then it’s hardly the food and the scenery that matter in his case. I can’t really think of any that work out well in literature. Can you?
Christchurch City Libraries Blog 
How about the picnic in the italian countryside in A Room with a view? What happens at the picnic is the mainspring of the events of the book. If there was no picnic, there would be no kiss…….