Woke early to heavy footsteps, but didn’t want to risk disturbing the Easter Bunny, so rolled over and went back to sleep.
At 6am the girls excitedly unpacked their easter baskets - filled with chocolate bunnies and a giant malteseer egg. They ate chocolate, then dipped chocolate into hot chocolate. Then I made the Big Sister and Bearhands spaceship eggs. The Little Sister, of course, didn’t want one so Bearhands made her french toast instead.
After breakfast, Bearhands and I put eggs out around the farm for an Easter Egg Hunt.Turned around to discover Max was following us and was helping himself. Conscious that the dog has already expended several of his nine lives, I put my fingers down his trachea to try to extract at least one but I was too late. Banished the greedy hound and the girls came out to search for their eggs. It was a predictably one-sided affair.
My Sister in Law sent a video of my newborn niece dreaming. The girls and I watched it on repeat.
Bearhands did some farm work, I did some crochet, the girls watched the TV. Then my husband returned declaring it “too beautiful a day to spend inside”. He took the girls into the paddock where he invented a game around throwing golf balls in a bucket. Reminded me of walking through a market in Antananarivo, Madagascar and seeing a child playing with a potato nailed to a stick.
By the time we moved onto ping pong, Bearhands had well and truly lost patience with the girls, so he returned to farm work and I played table tennis with the girls*.
*90% of our time was spent fetching the ball from under farm machinery in the shed - we’re not very good.
Lunch was cheerios for the kids and lemon butter scallops for the adults.
After lunch Bearhands suggested I take my book and lay on the lounge by the pool. I picked up a novel I put down in Bali. Not sure if I arrived at the tipping point of The Cactus or whether it’s just more engaging in isolation than on a fancy family holiday. Regardless, it was a nice way to spend an hour.
Bearhands and I lit a fire in the late afternoon. More family table tennis. Watching my husband play ping pong is reminiscent of watching Forrest Gump convalesce in the military hospital in Vietnam.
Dinner was a homemade version of a chicken nugget pizza the girls have seen on a TV ad and have been salivating over. Bearhands and I had pepperoni.
After dinner, I went back outside and sat by the fire. Listened to the drone of the highway in the distance and the grumbling of Max’s gastrointenstinal tract at my feet. Tried to recite The Man From Snowy River but stumbled at the fourth stanza. The Big Sister came out to say goodnight and wound up curled on my lap, looking at the stars and chatting until well past bedtime.
Came inside to discover the Little Sister had made our bed before she went to sleep on her mattress on our floor.
Life lesson 20: too much chocolate isn’t good for anyone.
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