Photos Copyright: Maggie May
My son, Sam, often gets a run of school maintenance work in the holidays when there are no children around, so this is when I have my granddaughters for a day or two to help him out.
Last week, when they were at school, I was sitting in the sun in really warm summery conditions. However, this week, just because they are on school holiday, it turned out to be freezing cold, similar to early March conditions. It is a shock to the system of a human being to have such a contrast of weather, so Goodness only knows what it will do to all the flora and fauna that my garden sustains. There were bees buzzing about last week.
So what can you do with seven and nine year old granddaughters in such arctic conditions?
Well, apart from caging them with the bunnies, that is!
Most of our plans were ruined because it was just too cold to go on picnics or anything in the great outdoors.
The girls asked me to give them *points* for any good deeds that they did and that would go towards a Harry Potter game that their dad would buy if they really earned enough.
So a chart was drawn up by Amber and they had a *point* for making their beds because they'd stayed the night before. In actuality this just meant shaking their duvets out, so that was money for old rope. I told them they could have 2 points each if they collected dead twigs and branches from the garden and put them in the recycling bin in the front. This was met with wild enthusiasm at first and then shivering and chattering of teeth as well as some complaining about the cold. However, the job did get done and the points went onto the chart.
After lunch, we got on the bus to the city centre and visited the M Shed along our Waterfront. This is a small Museum about the history of Bristol that seemed to keep them occupied for a good while and I enjoyed it too, though I would have liked to look at things and not rush from one thing to another quite so quickly.
Amber and Millie were quite kind to each other throughout their visit and then they asked for points as a reward. I did tell them that I expected them to behave kindly without having to earn points, but this didn't go down too well.
By the time their dad picked them up to go for a communal meal with his girlfriend and Jessie and Ozzie, they were full of all the things we'd done and the points they'd earned.
"Points?" He exclaimed, "What points?" Apparently, he knew nothing about it.
Well I think its a good idea of Amber's and she obviously has her brain screwed on right.
My daughter is coming late on Saturday with the grandsons for a few days, so it will be a full house again. Sandy has invited us all over for a roast meal on Easter Sunday, so that is a very kind gesture, isn't it?
Plenty to look forward to. Lets hope the weather improves.
