I suspect that you either immediately recognize the title of this week’s random musings or it means absolutely nothing to you. For the benefit of those of you who belong in the latter group, let me explain that it is the text on the last page of what just might be the greatest of all picture books for young children – Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Let me sketch the context for this quote. Having been sent to bed without supper as a punishment for his wild behaviour, and having then sailed magically away to the land where the wild things are, Max has a wild rumpusy time but then realises he really wants to be “where someone loved him best of all”, and he returns home to his bedroom, “where he found his supper waiting for him and it was still hot.”

There are several reasons why I love this book. The text is like an early Mozart symphony: vocabulary and syntax are simple and direct, and at the same time lyrical. You feel that changing any one of the words would break the magic spell they weave. The artwork leads the reader almost imperceptibly from the world of everyday to the exotic world of the wild things, and back again. I think what I love most of all is the way in which all of the discord of the early pages, and the rumpus of the middle, melt away to the perfect peace of the ending.

I don’t think it is too fanciful to claim that “he found his supper waiting for him…. and it was still hot” belongs up there with “Reader, I married him”.

It is the happy ending that I want to celebrate this week, by recounting two stories from our latest trip to Portugal. Actually, if you are a regular reader you already know the stories, and I only need to tell you the endings.

Let’s start with the wood stove. You may remember that, during our trip, we bought one for the house, and it was fitted the day we left Portugal. Since then, the weather has turned much cooler there (as, indeed here) and the kids have actually started using the stove. I am very pleased (and not a little relieved) to report that they have given a glowing (forgive me) report of its efficiency, warmth and cosiness. Much less heat is escaping up the chimney, and much more being projected into the room.

Lighting a fire is no longer a mystic art requiring a whole range of skills: the twisting of multiple sheets of cardboard into arcane shapes; their precise placement among artfully stacked twigs and logs; prolonged prostration before the god of the hearth coupled with frantic blowing or waving of sheets of cardboard. Apparently more or less all that is now needed is a slight adjustment of the handle that controls the air-vent ensuring an efficient draw. The prospect of returning to Portugal in mid-January now seems even more attractive than it already did.

It’s fair to say that the success of the wood-stove was not completely unexpected. Plenty of people had assured us that it would make a tremendous difference. Eeyore, of course, wouldn’t believe it until it had been tested in situ, but even he wasn’t really surprised that it works so well.

The second happy ending is a very different kettle of fish. I told you, a couple of weeks ago, about the puncture we suffered on our rental car, and about Europcar’s complete failure to help us resolve the situation. When we returned home, I received a request to answer a survey about our satisfaction with Europcar, and I felt much better after venting my anger.

I then went online and submitted, through Europcar’s user-friendly site, a detailed account of our adventures, together with a photograph of the ripped tyre and a PDF of the invoice and receipt for the new tyre. I explained that I felt the only reasonable response from them would be to refund us the cost of replacing the tyre.

I received an immediate automatic response, acknowledging receipt, supplying a reference number, and informing me that “we usually respond within 4 hours, however, due to the current situation worldwide, we may not be able to respond within this timeframe.” I decided I was prepared to overlook the sloppy punctuation. I also found myself wondering what they gained by boasting of their impressive response time, since they then went on to say, effectively, that they weren’t going to meet it. Still, an acknowledgement, even an automated, ill-punctuated, under-promising one, was, I grudgingly conceded, better than no bread at all.

Then, three days later, I received a further response, requesting that I attach the receipt. I had, of course, attached the receipt to my original email. However, there was nothing to be gained by arguing, so I dutifully attached the PDF again and sent off my reply.

Six days later, I received an email stating, very undramatically, that “Following your e-mail, we have proceeded with the refund of €124.99 for the tyre you had to replace during this rental.” This was such a matter-of-fact statement that I had to read it twice to confirm that it actually said what I thought it did.

When Bernice and I had finished the bottle of champagne we opened to celebrate, we both agreed that now we would wait and see just how long it took until something actually happened. We both fully expected that the something, if it did in fact happen, would be a voucher redeemable against a future rental.

The following day(!), we received two further emails. Unlike the previous correspondence, which I believe came from Europcar’s centralised customer care section and which had been in English, these were in Portuguese, and came from Europcar Portugal. I was able to see that they both contained invoices, one reversing the original invoice, and the second a revised invoice, including a credit of €124.99.

Having reached this point in the story, I was about to tell you that the reversal and the final charge have not yet appeared on my credit card account online. However (hands up all those who could tell there was a ‘However’ coming), I have just checked again, and I see that the final charge does now appear. Curiously, the refund does not yet appear, even though both invoices were generated on the same date. So, at the time of writing, we have now paid twice for the rental (less the cost of the tyre), and it is with a sinking heart that I realise this particular story has not yet reached its happy ending. Max’s dinner has not yet materialised in his bedroom. You, as we, are going to have to watch this space. I anticipate there may still be some rumpus in this story before we achieve perfect peace.

Meanwhile, it already seems long ago that we spent our last couple of days in Portugal: last visit to the land, including Tao showing us the pomegranate tree planted in March to mark his second birthday; last sunset; last breakfast with Nana.