Finish Holidays!

As Diamond's Greek chums would have it, "Finish Holidays!" and our week of invasion is over. Our final afternoon / evening is spent relaxing with the kids all watching the film "Enchanted" after which young R (4) decides she is going to marry Dad. There are heated discussions about this as she has already promised herself to her beloved Tommo-the-Builder down in Silverwood's home town, so we wonder will she let Tommo down gently. Mum cooks everyone a lovely meal of pork in creamy mushroom sauce and there is some light packing and sorting stuff ready for the drive home on Monday. Mrs S must be home for Tuesday as she has to go on a training course.

And so Monday morning rolls round and Mum cooks everyone a huge fried breakfast; white pudding, black pudding, eggs, rashers, beans, mushrooms, toast, sausages. Stuff is hauled out of the caravan and the bedrooms and the car is loaded. It is only as the kids and animals are being loaded into the car that Mrs S surprises us by handing back the puppy Goldie and says "No, This one's staying!" It seems we are to have Towser's sister as a gift; Mrs S is not going to sell him after all. This is brilliant for Towser who has been playing really well with her all week, it's brilliant for me as the pups can plague each other and might leave me alone a bit to carry on being "Alpha Bitch" and top dog, it's good for the kittens as Goldie will take some of Towser's energies  and stop over-powering them with his 'lurve' and it's made Mum and Dad very happy too. Goldie, who was only ever called Goldie after her gold coloured collar to tell her apart from Blackie, Bluey, Silvery etc, is promptly renamed "Poppy" by Mum and enveloped in a hug bear hug. Mum is welling up a bit as the gang say their farewells and drive off down the drive.

And so to a day or so of blitzing the house and grounds back to 'normal'. Beds are stripped and a mountain of laundry is done. The house is swept, recycling bins filled, the corrugated iron sheeting is taken down from farm gates, where it was put to contain Max and Lily and keep them away from the rabbits, hens, lane-way and kittens. The tent, which was tired and old and was abandoned by the campers, has its groundsheets cut out by Stanley knife so that they can be used for weed-surpressing covers for the allotment. The badminton and other games gear is gathered up for storage till next time. There are only 2 packing failures - the guests manage to leave R's specs behind so we nip down to post them on and later we discover that 'Ducky', favourite night time cuddly toy of R and 'Sharky', favourite NTT of M have been left behind. We let them enjoy our evening with us and a glass of wine before posting them on tomorrow.

And so to reality.