“Are we going to the house today?” asked Ruth. I expected my reply to elicit a groan of complaint as she’d just popped down to show Granny her tooth, now in her hand after a morning of grotesque twisting, and returned with two brand new books. She grinned, “Can we swim?”
I told the girls to wear old suits. The ones they usually wear are thicker fabric and despite it being a bright and sunny day might not dry in time for their lessons, or worse, might get left behind. Coats and wellies are forever in the wrong house now.
The next thing I knew the girls weren’t packing swim suits, but wearing their threadbare favourites, long since banned from public outings.
After all the excitement of getting ready, they showed no interest in swimming once we arrived, but instead scooted and biked round and round outside. Oriana shouting crossly that Ruth was in front of her. Mum cobbled together some lunch and we basked in the sunshine. But then they remembered the pool. Open the doors and the pungent sweetness of the horse chestnut hits you.
It was about 68 degrees in old money (20º celcius) so not as cold as we might have feared, but the girls thought it was freezing. Ruth leapt in and out with shrieks of delight. An audience preferred. Oriana couldn’t quite bring herself to go all the way in, but got up to her middle. Perhaps I should have left the cleaning for another day and joined them… next time.
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