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Healthy Competition

I’ve never been what you might call a natural born leader, so with my nephew and niece staying with us and the Boy King his usual lively self, it hasn’t been easy. In desperation I took the advice of many child care experts and devised a competitive points scoring system which has proved amazingly effective.

Making a bed is worth 7 points, sweeping the kitchen 10, taking a bucket of water over to Roly Pig or feeding the chickens is 5 points. It’s great, as there is always a willing volunteer for even the most menial task.

A couple of days ago my nephew was enthusiastically hanging out the washing (for 15 points) as I watched from the kitchen window.  Later that day, as I retrieved my smalls from an orange tree and a sheet from a clump of brambles (well, it had been quite windy) it suddenly occurred to me that I don’t know how to end the whole thing. They will be back with us in the summer and I can’t imagine how I will cope if I don’t have my system. The competition between my nephew and niece is huge and who ever loses will not be interested next time. A draw is out of the question, so what to do?

CG came up with an idea of declaring a winner only if he/she was clear by 10 points, and then engineering things to end up with a 9 point difference. It sounds good in theory but I’m not sure quite what an 8 year old will make of it.

I have until next Thursday to come up with the solution.

In the meantime, life goes on. Roly came into season again so we took turns to climb on her back and press down on her shoulders, as instructed by our farmer friend Miguel. In fact we did this almost every time we passed her sty, just to make sure (she doesn’t seem to mind and we really want her to have piglets) but so far no sign of her ears pricking up………

It was a great source of amusement to our young guests however, who are now beginning to grasp the basics of procreation. Who needs an expensive private education?

Pew Pew the turkey’s days are numbered. I did a bit of research on the internet and discovered that he was the perfect age to ‘go to market’, so as soon as all our visitors have gone back to England we will address the situation. So far we haven’t actually killed anything, so it will be a real test, but CG says he is confident that he can handle it and as I once helped a friend’s mother pluck a chicken (I was about 11 and we had just moved to Somerset) I feel qualified to do my bit.

My sister and brother-in-law arrive on Sunday for a few days with us and then take their children back to London and ‘real life’. My sister is one year older than me and throughout my whole life I have looked up to her and considered her near perfect, so I cannot tell you how much I have to do before their arrival. The spring cleaning that consumed my life for a week recently may as well not have happened. So not only do I have to clean the house, I also have to cook a few meals and put them in the freezer (in order to appear relaxed and casual when they are here), find matching bed linen, polish the children and lose 20 pounds – all in two days!