After our exciting holiday, and then working last night, it was late morning before we stirred, and lunchtime before everybody was out of bed and assembled around the kitchen table, having drunk enough coffee to be civilised.
Oliver doesn’t drink coffee, of course, but is not really going to be civilised whatever he drinks. Mark took one look at him this morning and observed that he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. Oliver explained that this was because he was on holiday, and opening the drawers was too much like working.
Despite this reasonably compelling evidence to the contrary, we had somehow thought, incorrectly, as it turned out, that the children might like to help us with some of our jobs for a couple of hours before we went to work.
We reminded them that we were going to pull together as a family unit during this holidays, and were sure they would feel satisfaction at pulling their weight and being valued and useful members of our small household, so eventually they reluctantly accompanied us up to Booths for the shopping and then put some boots on to help with our stone-removal project on the allotment.
I think it is reasonable to say that they were not very enthusiastic. Certainly satisfaction at their useful contribution was not greatly in evidence. Lucy got dirt down her fingernails, and shrieked in horror, and Oliver lasted for about half a bucketful and then somehow sloped off unnoticed and had to be summoned down from up a tree later when we finally noticed that he wasn’t there any more.
Also there were spiders and slugs and ants and it turned out that Lucy was not able to tell the difference between weeds and strawberry plants, despite the fact that the strawberry plants had helpfully grown large red berries in clusters all over them which I had expected might aid in the recognition process, silly me. It also turned out that Oliver was a bit of a novice at anything whatsoever to do with plants and had every intention of staying that way.
When Mark discovered that the wheelbarrow had got a flat tyre he got a bit disheartened with the whole thing, and in the end we thought that we would fix the tyre and try again tomorrow, at which point the children disappeared as if they had evaporated in the sun, only to reappear at home ten minutes later when they felt reasonably sure that the coast would be clear.
After that we unloaded Lucy’s suitcase, which was a bit revolting, imagine an enormous red suitcase full of very smelly teenage clothes which somebody had stirred up with a stick and then tipped in a bucket of mud and wee, and you get the general impression. I put the washing machine on, and left it on, leaving Lucy in charge of bringing things in off the washing line whilst we were at work should it rain.
We had lunches then, and Mark and I went off to work with some relief, leaving the two of them in charge of the washing not getting wet, emptying the dogs, and washing up the pots from lunch. They protested loudly about being exploited as slave labour but capitulated in the end, and we went off to earn a crust confident that the hearth and home was in safe hands.
We got home at midnight, and everything was tranquil and mostly tidy, although we thought that we might have to look in some unexpected places for the things they had helpfully washed up. This is because Lucy washes and Oliver dries and puts away, and not only can he not reach above the work top, but he has a gently chaotic approach to putting things away, in that he just puts things wherever he feels like, which can lead to some frustrated searching afterwards.
It was lovely have finished so early, but also to think that we don’t have to get up at seven for school runs.
We can have as much sleep tonight as we would like, which is a glorious, unthinkable luxury, and is entirely due to the wonderful school holidays.
School holidays. How marvellous they are.
