November Update (no.1)

I’m either the best aunt in the world, or the worst!  This all depends on whether you’re a kid or a grown-up I suppose. 

Last weekend, I was ‘aunt-in-charge’ - of my niece and two nephews, dogs, cats, ducks and chickens.  The combination of the weather being so awful and the fact that I was absolutely shattered and had some [volunteer] work to do, meant that we battened-down the hatches and stayed in, with the kids being perfectly happy to just potter about at home.  In actual fact, this meant they spent most of their day playing games on ‘switch’ or X-Box, or watching programmes about how to play games on switch on YouTube!  

​Well, the boys concentrated on these tasks, whereas my niece worked on her Graphics homework and designing a cover for a portfolio.  However, everyone was pretty content and the boys collected logs and walked the dogs as instructed, and they each have various tasks, like feeding the cats, or letting the chickens out in the morning, and they just need a little prompting, but got on with it without any argument – so that’s good. 
 
To be honest, I always feel like I’m on a bit of a holiday when I stay at my sister’s house.  That’s because it’s a big, comfortable and warm house, and I like the dogs and going for walks down the coppice and over the fields.  It’s a proper “home” and – in my mind – rather “grown-up”.  I know that sounds weird, but it’s because our cottage is SO small it is a bit like being in a doll’s house, when all the furniture has to fit carefully, and there is no extra space to just leave out, for example, painting or drawing stuff, or lots of paperwork or whatever.  Ideally it would be good to have just one more room – but that will never happen so it’s no point even thinking about it.  Although, earlier in the week, I came home and was herded up the garden, with a cup of tea, by Paul who wanted to show-off the planning he had made with regard to ‘staking out’ the garden house.  We have decided that we will get a corner-shaped one (probably 10ft by 10ft) and it will be tucked away at the bottom of the garden (and therefore losing bed no.1) so looking up beyond the apple-tree towards the veg patch, trellis and greenhouses.  This means it will get the afternoon and evening sun (in the winter as well) and we will be in the perfect position at that time of the day to relax and admire the hard work we may have done earlier – and all over a couple of glasses of wine and a few nibbles, of course! Well, that’s the idea.