Week Four – Day 7 Easter Sunday dawned bright and beautiful and, after a hot cross bun in bed for breakfast, I set about hiding the eggs for the Easter egg hunt. It was a little surreal watching a 55 and a 20 year old dash round the garden (and on a couple of occasions knock one another out of the way) looking for small, brightly coloured objects, but we never grew out of the tradition. We reach a point after about half an hour when they count up their haul and yet again my inability to remember a number above 20 for more than two minutes is exposed. I always count the eggs out and then count them in again, but somewhere in between I have a Dory moment and the number is gone forever.
We usually stumble across the odd egg in about August and it never seems to bother Nick that it had been out in the wind and rain for 6 months. He would give a delighted yelp and quickly consume it before I could get to him and throw it in the bin. We had a true day of rest, no chores, just a lovely walk in the evening and then drinks and dinner outside. Another perfect day in pandemic lock-down.
Week Five – Day 1 Easter Monday The weather has changed, still bright but a bit nippy and really windy. A perfect day for household chores so the bathrooms were cleaned, dusting and hoovering took place and a small pile of ironing was dispatched. The smallest boy went for a run and came back unimpressed with the stiff breeze he had encountered, apparently it made his hill sprints impossible. I didn’t like to point out that the late night Zoom chat and many pints may have had a greater impact on his athletic capacity.
Robert kept me company on my wander, which was a nice change, as it becomes a much gentler-paced affair. I usually walk during my lunch break and so it is always a bit of a dash. The weekend removes the time pressure and company slows me down and makes it much less of a route march.
Mummy Duck is still sitting on her nest and there is no sign of hatching, but it must be soon – Nick has been home since 21/22 March so 23 days ago and she had already been in situ for 2 -3 days, so if ducks’ eggs take 28 days to hatch (I Googled it) they are due any day now. Very exciting.
Week Five – Day 2 The return to work was a bit of a shock to the system, which is a good thing because I think it means I had a good break. I pushed the boat out on the hat front for today’s fundraisers’ catch-up and am now not sure where to go from here to up my game.
Someone asked me why I call Nick the smallest boy, when he clearly isn’t, so by way of explanation I will bore you with the details. Many years ago, we lived in Tokyo and for the first time in my life I was unable to work (dependant only visa). This caused more trouble that I was prepared for (I was not used to asking for money and Robert was not used to giving me money, it led to some interesting conversations) and so after a few months I decided I needed something to keep me occupied – enter Alexander and then Nicholas. It was a time before email (imagine that), and I used to write to or phone friends & family in the UK and would refer to Alex & Nick as the small boys e.g. the small boys are revolting, the small boys have been particularly testing, I fear the small boys are driving me to drink etc. At some point Alex (who has always listened way more that was good for him) must have picked up on this, because when he was still quite young, he announced henceforth he was the biggest boy and Nick was therefore the smallest boy. Alex refused to answer to anything but his proper name, but Nick seemed happy with being the smallest boy and so it remained.
Still no sign of ducklings!
