Little Boys

Our windows have been leaking. Not all the time, I might add, mostly during rainstorms of the horizontal variety to which we are frequently treated up here in the Buda Hills. I may have mentioned one such storm that caught us all unawares last year, with me and Pickle in the my brand new (to me) Ford Focus trying to get through the flood waters that collect in a matter of minutes at the big dip in our road. Yikes that was a doozy. We had to drive up-river to our place and thanked our stars for the automatic gates and garage door.

Until we got inside the house and found the pools of water under the windows and eaves. Some of my least favourite towels have been perched in strategic places ever since.

Then the landlord called on Thursday to say that he was sending the boys round to replace the leakiest windows in the upstairs glass-area between the childrens rooms and could we please clear all the toys out of the way ahead of time?

Yeah, er, OK. Two years of accumulated toys and debris to be cleared in one evening - that particular area has been used mostly for dumping toys the kids don't play with all that often such as the baby-cots, prams and pushcairs, plastic Princess dressing table, 4 million soft animals, that sort of thing.

The quick option was to transfer it all willy-nilly into one of the bedrooms, using prior knowledge and good judgement to choose which child would make the least fuss.

Yup, we bunged it in Pickle's room.

Given Poppet's penchant for drama and anally retentive organising of her earrings and stationery, (despite the fact that she stores her clothes in a heap on the floor,) we figured that what with all the Lego strewn across the floor of Pickle's room, the half completed cardboard villages in the corners, the carpet of Beano comics and the recently re-acquired and reconstructed marble tower he was unlikely to even notice.

But notice he did and he protested as only a little boy can.

He built a camp.

There are blankets pegged to a strategically poised doll cradle, the plastic Princess dressing table and a wooden castle on top of a baby-bath. He's borrowed Poppet's sheepskin rug for carpet and furnished the den with 4 million soft-toy friends and a torch hanging from the blanket ceiling.

Tonight he announced he's sleeping in there. Oh to be a boy.

By the way, the new windows look great and it's raining cats and dogs tonight just to christen them properly. My towels are optimistically still in the cupboard.