For Lois and me, our 16 days in Headley, Hampshire, our 16 days of house-sitting and pet-sitting for our daughter Alison and family are fast coming to an end. We've got 24 hours to get the house back to what we call the "factory setting" - so the family don't notice the things we've broken, or the things we've moved into the wrong room - you know!
We've decided to have one more go at re-sticking the suction cups of the two shower caddies to the wall of the shower - the ones we knocked off when trying to grab things during our shower, causing so-called "suction cup rage". Oops !!!!
a typical instance of "suction cup rage"
And we've got to make sure we haven't left anything embarrassing lying around where it can be spotted - you know the kind of thing I mean, I expect you've got things like that that you keep hidden! [I can't imagine what you're talking about here! - Ed]
I start packing away the things we won't need tonight - then I can load these into the car boot, which will cut down the work tomorrow morning. Makes sense to me!!!
I start assembling some of our things that we won't need
tonight - we've got one more night here before going home to Malvern:
we can do some pack these away in the car, just leaving the overnight stuff
- makes sense to me anyway!
And, to spur us on, very early on today we start getting progress reports, with photos, of Ali, Ed and their 3 teenage children as they travel north by train from Geneva, where they spent last night: destination Paris. The continental countries are normally an hour ahead of us, so it starts pretty early.
Our granddaughter Josie (16) looks at her phone
as some river or other flashes by the window
Later they have a mad dash across Paris to get from the Gare de Lyon to the Gare du Nord, to catch the Eurostar to London. Then a mad dash from the Eurostar Terminal to Waterloo by tube, train from Waterloo to Haslemere, Surrey, and then, retrieving own-car from the station car-park and driving home to Headley.
And that's the way you do it! Simples, really, isn't it!
Meanwhile Lois and I are worrying about exactly what time they will arrive and whether they will want feeding. Luckily, they tell us, by text, that, while on Eurostar, travelling "standard premier" - whatever that means - they ate what was described as a snack, but which Ali says was more like a 4-course meal.
What madness !!!!!
18:45 Sika the dog starts barking - a car has arrived in the yard outside.
And suddenly the quiet of this massive, but crumbling, Victorian mansion, where Lois and I have been rattling around like 2 peas in a drum, is suddenly shattered with the sounds of non-stop chat, and teenagers listening to "streaming pop music" from some mysterious devices, dotted around the house, devices that Lois and I don't understand about.
Yes, life has returned!!!!
19:30 While they were all away in France, Spain, Italy and Switzerland, one of Ali and Ed's 3 children, our grandson Isaac, turned 13, and so officially became a teenager. They were all in Madrid on his birthday so Isaac, who is soccer-crazy, was treated to a tour of the Real Madrid Stadium.
Have you ever seen pictures of a 13-year-old boy with such a beaming smile as Isaac's was, that day?
Our grandson Isaac on his 13th birthday tour of Real Madrid soccer stadium
Just to show that Isaac isn't an empty soccer-head of a boy, how about this present from his Auntie Sarah, our other daughter?
What red-blooded 13-year-old doesn't want a Mandarin primer for his birthday? Well, probably most wouldn't, but Isaac is getting really enthusiastic about the Mandarin course at his school, so fair enough!
Other presents follow, tee-shirts, sweat-shirts, trainers, drink bottles etc.
But there's one present in the pile that looks wrong for Isaac, and it IS - Lois and I mistakenly added it to the heap of Isaac's other presents when it arrived by post a few days ago, but when he opens it today, the snafu is quickly obvious: it turns out to contain a tin of tropical fish food, the one Lois and I ordered online after Sika the dog managed to open the old tin and eat the whole contents, the crazy dog!
Oh dear - a tin of tropical fish food. Shome mishtake surely haha!!!
a nice surprise - a box of individual chocolates
for Lois and me, to thank us for looking after the house and pets
during the family's railway adventure on the Continent
The rest of the evening dissolves into a de-brief of the family's holiday. Lois and I thought that, although they obviously had a very good time most of the holiday, they returned with some mixed feelings: not really surprising because it's a style of holiday - travelling by train - that they were trying out for the first time.
Later, when we're in bed, Lois and I try to work out what this was all about.
The very hot "scorchio"-style temperatures in Spain, and the crowds in the Italian tourist hot-spots were sometimes a bit much for them maybe. The accommodation varied in quality, and maybe at times it was too much of a whistle-stop holiday, with a couple of days here, a couple of days there. And, overall, but particularly in Switzerland, the prices for the simplest things like a cup of coffee were incredibly high.
Still, on the whole, it was great experience for all of them, no doubt about that: at the same time, however, they say it'll be nice to be back in their own beds tonight. Lois and I know that feeling, that's for sure!
22:00 Zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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