June days

Summer is here. Don't let the fact that the Fosters have spent most of the last two weeks fighting the flu one by one disabuse you of this fact...

The Rover 25 has proven not so much a trusty steed at this point by blowing a head gasket. It has been hauled away for an indeterminate time period, forcing Wayne to cycle to school whether he likes it or not, and me to cadge lifts to town to get the groceries. Excursions are out of the question for the time being.

The children are out of the house most of the day, when not at school, untroubled by the lack of car. Emerging from the house for the first time in ages, I decided to find out what they were up to.

The answer is, lots. The netted trampoline in the high field near Mike's garden I knew about, for bouncing, lying in the sun or even kicking a soccer ball in. And Eleanor had shown me a little hidey-hole in the nearby hedge that she'd furbished up as a cubby, often joined by a cat.

Then there is the lane, and various drive-ways off it. The kids tear around them on bikes and scooters with young Will and Sophie next door, using which ever one happens to be lying about. The neighbours don't seem to mind their private drives being used. Kate down the road even took the girls up to one of the barns and showed them some kittens, just at the cute and fluffy stage. A teenage girl showed them how to feed the carp in a little pond behind one of the houses.

Eleanor and Sophie created a new play house with a tarp near the duck pond. I wandered down with Annie this morning to see what they were up to, and found them at the pond looking at fat tadpoles and tiny frogs. I haven't seen these since I was a little 'un myself in Australia. (It's a sad reflection that frogs are getting very rare back home.) A couple of ducks swam over to see what we were up to. There are two wild geese and there three half-grown goslings on the pond as well.

Jack and Will have a hide-out too. They just burst in for some masking tape, and back out again. The kids seem to have free access to all the surrounding houses, and it's not a bad system. Eleanor and Sophie spent a large part of yesterday at the wood down behind the cow pasture, too, although the bluebells are gone now. There's a creek down there as well.

So far Sophie has come a nasty cropper on her bike, and Eleanor has fallen out of a tree. They seem to be happy to be patched up and sent out again. I guess you can't supervise them all the time and perhaps you would be mad to try. At least you don't have to worry about snakes and branches falling down every time there is some wind...

I borrowed the children's classic, "Swallows and Amazons", from the library some weeks ago. The children in it were anxiously awaiting a telegram from their voyaging father to see if they had permission to sail out to a little island on the lake near their farm-holiday place. The answer came : BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN. The mother seemed happy to accept that as a 'yes'. I guess we weren't so precious about children in the old days!