Normally, by this point in the school holidays, I would be stocking up on macaroni and cheese and wine (always a dubious combination) in the hopes of ending said holidays:
a) not so much cooking as heating-and-serving.
b) sane.
Things are a little different – or at least, they were – because my mother is still here and boy how I have enjoyed being able to say, “Kids! Stop bothering me. Go and see what your Nan is doing.” Then they go and flock to her like birds around Tippi Hedren and I get to sit back and cross my arms and smile. Like all good things this will come to an end tomorrow when she leaves town… but then it gets good again as Adam is off work on leave next week. High fives! Excellent.
I italicised the were above because the weather which started the week off nicely went and turned nasty yesterday. I say nasty but really I like it. Who doesn’t like sleeping to the sound of steady rain? My lucky streak of timing continues because it was only the other day we got out in the garden and started sorting it out.
These are but some of the weeds – two green bin loads full, in the end. In a devilishly sneaky covert operation, I put the first bin load up on the strip on collection day as usual. Then, when I heard the truck come past, I ran up there, brought it back down, dumped in the second load and dragged it back up to the top. I didn’t think it would work: in the past the truck drivers have smelled out my game and not stopped on the way back past. But this time they did!
Woo! I win!
When I celebrated this little victory to Adam his shoulders sagged in the ‘Oh, what the world could be like if she used her powers for good instead of trying to outsmart the council’ kind of way.
I’ve recently been involved in conversations where parents have been talking about how their children didn’t know what a sprinkler was – at least until some scarring experience in a park or a football field where suddenly the heads shoot up and the kids go “MY GOD! THE PARK HATES US AND IS SPITTING AT US TO GO AWAY!”
It’s true, we’re living in different times to when, say, I did in the eighties. So, yes, I do let my children let the kids use the hose occasionally – especially now the water situation isn’t quite as dire as it used to be.
Look at that hand on the hip. The boy moves like Jagger.
