An Everyday Story of Half-Term

For anybody reading for the first time, this is a bit of creative writing!   I do not have any children or grandchildren.

Yesterday my four grandchildren came over for the day.  I was to entertain while their mother went to London for a school reunion.

The age range is 4 to 10 and they are all very good children.  They bought with them their own books and colouring sets for the day and the 8 and 10 year olds had a science thingy and a chemistry set.  The science thing consisted of bricks, a set square and a drawing box, or geometry set, and an exercise book which by the end of the morning was well filled with pages of architectural drawings rather than science.  The two older children get on very well and didn't argue  and were engaged in individual private study.  I asked what they were doing and one was designing a staircase and one was drawing restaurants.  He said he had been watching Gordon Ramsey's new roof restaurant and wanted to do something for him.  I was asked for jars of water and it seemed like some Archimedes Principle tests were going on in the breakfast room but I left them to it as they were well able to entertain themselves.   All four of the children are at boarding schools and the youngest, at 4, has just gone off to a Forest School where she sleeps four nights a week and comes back home on a Thursday night, returning on Sunday afternoon.  I am all for outdoor living and learning. My brothers all went to schools like this.

The 4 and 6 year olds preferred painting at the table and had paint boxes, brushes and more jars of water from Grandma.  I didn't have to do much as they all occupied themselves.   There were no gadgets or tablets as such and no phones.  All are at schools where these are not allowed.  The noise level was not deafening and the concentration was palpable in the silence.  

Lunch consisted of cold sausage sandwiches, cut like postage stamps for the two smaller children, and proper sandwiches for the two older ones.  We sat round the table with a water jug and glasses for drinks.  I do not do fizzy drinks and nobody asked for one so hopefully at home they have the same.   The conversation was around the sausages and I was asked where I had bought them.  I explained about the local butcher and then we got on to the journey of the piglets from the farm to the butcher via the lorry to the slaughterhouse.  I explained that grandma grew up on a farm where pigs were raised and supplied to the local butcher in the nearby town.  They appeared to find this of interest so I showed them some of the old photos of the farm that I had been looking through the other day.  There were lots of questions.

After lunch the three older ones went outside to play in the garden and remained within the area and collected wood for me for the fire which was a task I gave them to do.  There was wood from a fallen tree that had been sawn up by a neighbour two years ago and that needed to be brought down to the house.  They obliged without complaint.   The youngest one stayed indoors with me and had a rest.  

As my daughter was in London overnight all four slept here.  That meant I had to do tea as well so I fried up some white bait and buttered a pile of bread and put it in the centre of the table for them to help themselves.  There was also some scampi.   The white bait was popular and we all examined the fishes and helped with the frying.  We had fun with lemons and squeezing them over the white bait.  It is surprising how such simple things keep children amused.   That went down well and I had them all in bed and washed by 7.30 pm.  

They were in two rooms and covered in duvets with make-do covers made up of Moroccan throw-overs like the one making the door curtain that I mentioned at the weekend.  I told stories of Morocco and the Sahara desert and food in the open air in the Jemaa el Fna square in Marrakech and sheeps eyes and heads with lots of ughs and giggles coming from the children.  I told them of the snake charmers and the drummers that never stop and the donkeys and mules and the green tea and the carpet sellers.  They soon fell asleep happy and exhausted and I went downstairs and watched the Figure Skating. 

Next morning they all got up early and breakfast was an orderly regiment of porridge from the big pot I had made on the stove.  

Mum comes to fetch them at 11 am.  In the meantime they are playing around in the garden as the sun is shining and I am reading yesterday's papers. 

Their father is currently working in Siberia advising on oil drilling operations in the eastern oilfields.