When the kids were young the sheds, pigsty and chicken sheds were grand places for their games of 'Hide and seek', 'Tin-can Tommy" and 'Cowboys and Indians'. Now with the older ones in their 'teens' the pathways make a super cycle-track. The compost heap has been ridden on so frequently that instead of being light and loamy, it's as solid as concrete, and no doubt in years to come will form the nucleus of a coal-mine.
Because of the many trees each Autumn a great pile of cuttings, prunings and dead branches accumulate and have to be burnt. One year Ron decided it was time for a bonfire and lifted up the base of the heap with a fork so as to put paper underneath to start the blaze. He saw two worried eyes looking at him. It was 'Titch', our hen mallard setting on a clutch of eggs. Well, that was the end of that plan, so we left her alone until one day 'Titch' proudly led fourteen baby ducklings, just hatched, straight across the potato patch and into our little pond, where they all swam around like grown-ups. They developed a path of their own across the vegetables in the next few weeks and were getting too big for a town garden, so Paul took them in the back of his car to a large pond in a farm near Felixstowe. He had rather a hectic time because they were fluttering about all around the car seats.
The ducklings' father was 'Quackers' a very handsome mallard some kind person had given us as a pet for the children. He became far too interested in another hen mallard in a neighbour's garden, and in the end 'Titch' chased him away over the fence, never to return.
During the school holidays the boys get together with their school friends and renovate one of the sheds, a brick built air raid shelter with bunks and an iron door, as a 'gang hut'. They beg tins of paint, old curtains, mats and any spare seats. To them the result is magnificent, so I'm obliged to praise their ingenuity when called upon to inspect the premises.
Term time comes along and the East Anglian wind and weather take their toll of all the hard work, but undismayed they look forward to their next vacation when they'll start all over again as if their previous efforts had never existed. The Scots compare the birds and bairns, and so do I.
The largest lawn used to be a tennis court, but is now used in winter as a football and rugger pitch, with cricket in summer, when Gay and I play tennis of a sort, necessarily a 'sporty' game because we mark out the lines very roughly, with flour. Ron is rather disappointed with the boys' lack of real ability at cricket, but at least they do play other sports, which pleases us.