Читать книгу A Spoonful of Sugar - Liz Fraser - Страница 9

The first day of our holiday! And what a day – the sun has made the unprecedented move of coming out for a whole hour (no, really) and my children have missed it all by their own unprecedented move of sleeping until nine o’clock. Typical. I blame the mountain air.

When I finally turf them out of bed with the cunning promise of hot chocolate – if and only if they manage to get dressed in something moderately presentable without being asked more than six times – it is well and truly time for a morning coffee. And so it is that we make our first trip down the road to Granny’s house.

We have a somewhat perfect set-up here: we’re staying in my parents’ house, and my parents are not. Result. To cap it all, Granny only lives three doors down the road so we can see her as often as we like – without having to stay in her house. The reason this is such a good thing will become very apparent later. You’ve been warned.

By the time we get there, our children have already said their brief hellos and are tearing down to the bottom of the garden. I am so happy to see Granny, and to be back in the place where I spent most of my childhood holidays: falling out of trees, getting lost, terrorising the cats and getting into trouble. A lot. For her part, Granny’s broad smile and sparkly eyes show she is over the moon to see us too (can’t think why – we are nothing but noise and mayhem) but she looks frail, unsteady on her legs, and generally as though life has just dealt her a nasty few months.

‘Well you look great,’ I say, giving her a big hug. ‘I thought you were ill? Are you malingering, or is there really something wrong with you?’

She laughs, and prods her foot with the garden fork she’s holding. Why she has been gardening in her condition I can’t say, but that’s just the way she is. You can’t argue.

‘Oh well, it’s just my silly toe. Means I can’t walk, but you know, I’m fine apart from that. So who’s for coffee?’

Ten minutes later my husband has been discharged, caffeinated beverage in hand, to play with the little people, leaving me alone to have a good natter with Granny. Shrieks of laughter and excitement fly up from the garden every so often – and the kids seem to be having fun too.

Having fun: now there’s a thing. Surrounded by all of our incessant – and often quite unnecessary – rushing, working, worrying, buying, cleaning and general obsessive busyness, it seems to me that our children are left with remarkably little time for what being a child is surely all about: having FUN. Having the freedom to muck about, dig in the earth, find little bugs, stick them down their sister’s neck, and not worry about anything; being able to just BE.

Granny notices this too.

‘Just look at that lot – happy as ducks in water down there, adventuring. It’s beautiful. You don’t see so many kids these days just playing freely like children should, without an adult or a piece of silly legislation to spoil it all for them.’

There’s a pause, while I think of a neat way of asking the question that pretty much sums up the core of this entire book. Drum roll … Deep breath …

Splish! A suicidal greenfly lands in my coffee.

Fishing the squirming insect out with my little finger, I try again.