A postcard fluttered through the postbox in the porch this morning. The dog eyed it thoughtfully.

It wasn’t mine: but I recognised the writing and I knew it would hold surprises.

Its postmark was Le Sourn, France: its date the 12th August. It read: “Dear Phil, toured the U-boat bunkers at at Lorient this week: fab. Hope you’re all well, and you had a great birthday. see you soon, Ste.”

Resplendent on the other side was a big black beached U boat, gleaming malevolently in the sunshine.

Ste is one of Phil’s greatest friends. He was at the front of the line when they were handing out the wit, and also when they offered, as an optional extra, manic grins.

The former is razor-sharp, the latter very slightly unsettling, but in a manner so familiar as to be like some outlandish piece of furniture from a far-off land that one has long since ceased to question.

Ste and Phil are men in their forties, and lead full and accomplished lives. When they want to play, it is never the obvious pursuits that this pair chooses.

One blokes’ trip out involved the pub followed by a visit to the Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon in the Midlands, to marvel unsteadily at an E type jag.

They have also travelled by sleeper from Paris to Munich to check out the motor museum: and they took in, too, the city’s Olympic Stadium with all its poignant memories.

They sat in a Munich cafe, planning the day over breakfast, and marvelled at the bar maid who could not bear an untidy Englisher’s table, strewn with maps and pints, and who folded their belongings away without recourse to them,  in the interests of a little Germanic decluttering.

And now Ste has given the U-boat bunkers the once-over.

They share that indefinable something: a fascination with all things odd, defunct, out-of-place, iconic. Subversive.

And they seem to find themselves, wherever they go, surrounded by that which fascinates them.

And so while their jaunts are usually a strenuous business, their intellect gets a refreshing holiday. They are able to think, for a while, of odd moments in history and cars and trains and U-boats.

Mortgages and responsibility take a back seat, for a few precious hours.

This week, Phil’s eight year old son is relaxing in the most strenuous way possible.

Felix likes to run and run and run. Mainly, I think, because it’s fast and it renders him first; but also for the sheer joy of physical exertion.

When we’re in the forest I do a little run-walk-run exercise to keep hearts healthy. All along a main spur route there are telegraph poles marking the way.  Kids, I say, lets run for four telegraph poles.

Oh Mum, says Felix, can I run for five?

But now we’ve got him. We’re not generally holiday club types, but a place came up in a cricket club for four days this week.

The basic tenet is that from ten until four, Monday to Thursday, the club’s coaches teach meaningful cricket skills, and exhaust their charges so thoroughly that they fall into bed when they get home and are rendered immediately asleep.

Felix wakes every morning with a huge grin, and his humour demonstrates that he, too, has found the kind of R&R that floats his boat.

It’s not so much the coaches, he tells me, it’s the boys. They’re all so funny.

It does not take too much to have an eight year old convulsed in giggles. Felix’s newly-made acquaintance had the group in the palm of his hand after he found out one of the coaches was known simply by his initials. JB.

Justin Bieber, wisecracked this young jester.

Felix roared, even in retrospect.

Meanwhile my daughter continues to walk to the beat of her own drum. At ten, she has an entire parliament of cuddly owls. They all talk, courtesy of Maddie and her disconcertingly funny dialogue.

They all go to a school called St Hoots, a private owls’ establishment. Felix usually takes the role of the strictest teacher, a sort of thirties style housemaster complete with cane.

The naughtiest owl is her closest toy, Lulu. Lulu never does her work and always needs tutoring; she escapes from lessons and runs off with teachers in hot pursuit; she has recently staged a revolution. This outspoken small bundle of synthetic feathers is everything Maddie admires in an owl.

She adores that indefinable something: a fascination with all things odd, defunct, out-of-place, iconic. Subversive.

A chip off the old block, really.

Macaulay the dog  is one long, pungent, insanitary bundle of R&R. He is odd, and out-of-place. And in his own way, iconic.

Thus, each member of the Shrewsday household finds his or her restful, relaxing moments in life.

And me? For my R & R?

I write like the wind.