The 446-year old man with the quill pen said: Parting is such sweet sorrow.

Actually he had a teenage love-lorn lass say it. And for more than two score years I have perceived that phrase as part of life’s wallpaper, and never before thought, hang on, sweet?

It took a bulging suitcase and an argument about whether or not to bring the pitiful amount of washing liquid back home, to make me turn round to those words and think mightily about whether parting is really sweet.

For parting is a sorrow, for she who packs and co-ordinates a family out of their holiday home.

It means early rising, motivational techniques beyond the dreams of Charles Handy, a democratic sharing and re-sharing of the timetable and its limitations, not to mention negotiations about what should come and what should stay.

The dog took one look at the military commander in full delegatory mode and took himself, leadless, off to the car. He wouldn’t get out, no matter how we coaxed him. You’re not leaving me behind, he emanated.

His reluctance wasn’t altogether unwarranted. We did have a close shave yesterday when Felix, Maddie and I pottered off with him to the shell shop to spend holiday money from Granny.

As I have always done, I tied him up outside the shop and then went in with the kids to supervise the money burning a hole in my childrens’ pockets.

Felix had been eyeing a slightly alarming air-powered rocket launcher all week and he made a beeline for it, hardly containing his triumph when he had it in his arms.

But being a canny lad with a head for numbers, he knew he had change, and hovered around the little shop taking in the wonders it had on every shelf: tiny boats strung with rope, balls made to look like eyeballs, lighthouses, buckets and spades. It is a very good shop indeed, crammed to the rafters with wonders worthy of Aladdin’s mythical cave.

Time ticked on. I poked my head outside the shop to see the dog waiting, always with that query floating just above his head: Are you totally sure this is all under control?

Head back in, I focussed on Maddie. Jewellery is her current preoccupation. She is engaged on Project Necklace. She stood in front of the necklace counter for interminable minutes until she had reached a decision, and came out with a rather lovely cord adorned with shells. She put it on, and she did indeed look rather nice.

I was getting jumpy by the time we opened the door to leave, wishing Mr Shell Shop Owner well until next Spring.

And as I walked back towards the dog, towing the kids, I became aware I was walking in on something.

A lovely Polish girl and her partner were crouched by Macaulay with an almost proprietorial  air. Even I wouldn’t be that close, and I own him. I don’t drape myself over him because I know he smells like a barnyard.

The couple must have had an appalling cold, because they seemed not to be able to smell anything at all.

I walked purposefully up to Mac and untied him, and immediately the poor girl was covered in confusion. She muttered something along the lines of, Sorry, He is your dog, is he ? Sorry…

She seemed embarrassed: and I realised that a large ribald group of builders from the quayside development opposite were laughing wickedly.

I did my best to put her at her ease, but our peep-cheeked friends opposite were not making it easy for her.

I did not ask; I just walked, Mary-Poppins style, away. But it looked for all the world as if the builders had been selling my dog to the lovely Polish lass.

Consequently, this morning the dog holed himself up in the car and he wouldn’t have moved if Harry The Dirty Dog himself had appeared and asked him out for a matey little walk.

Best out of the way, I concurred, as I flew from room to room, and the children reassembled the toy bags and carried packages out to Phil to load up.

Felix stood by his bedroom door, in a moment of stasis: and said, “It’s been nice to have a change…”

Bless him. For Felix, life is pretty much all good. He’s just that sort of person. And while Folkestone is simply glorious, he’s looking forward to seeing his mates and getting back into goal.

Meanwhile, as all of us hurtled about, he had finished his chores, and set about firing up his Ian Fleming-style rocket launcher.

He constructed it right by the front door, so it could be fired along the hall into the sea-view lounge. It boasted it could shoot forwards, con brio, 50 feet. I hoped fervently it could not.

We all stepped across the launcher every time we went out to the car with anything, and we all stepped across the rocket launcher every time we came back in to collect something new.

To this moment I do not know why we didn’t simply say, Felix, will you please move your rocket launcher. I think he was so quietly and unassumingly happy, we didn’t have the heart.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the house, Maddie had finished her chores and was writing a thank-you note to the housekeeper. I do not jest when I say I live with Snow White.

Everything, for once, went like a well-oiled clockwork time machine, and the car stood stacked and ready in good time.

Getting the dog out of the car to take him for a walk was a challenge. Not blurry likely, his body language chuntered.

But leads can be attached and pulley systems constructed, and we prized him out and headed out for one last turn of that great golden beach.

It was lowish tide, and we walked to the mouth of the harbour and then along the line of surf. The dog attempted to eat some foam. He never learns.

The moment came when we were at the end of the waves, and I must turn my back on the waves and walk towards my winter.

And finally, I understood. As long as one is in the presence of the thing one loves, one feels plaintive: but elated to be there.

CS Lewis once said :”Joy is a stab of longing”. I think that might be another way of saying the same thing.  It’s a bittersweet mix of adoration and the knowledge this thing will not be yours forever.

It appears Juliet was right.