Summer. Perception Vs. Reality

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We have been particularly lucky with the weather these last couple of months.  It makes everyone happy and we tend to do things we wouldn’t normally do.  Things like not turning on the oven and slowing down considerably because it is impossible to move fast in the heat.  I intend to kick back over the next while and actually enjoy life. 

I have serious perceptions for the next few weeks. 

Long evenings playing in the garden.  Because we are going to be gifted with the type of weather that compels us to fire up the BBQ and everyone is going to be positively balmy themselves as a result.  Adults and kids alike will be watered and fed; juice for the kids with wine and beer for the adults.  Everyone relaxed in their preferred method.  The kids will tear about like creatures possessed due to the aspartame in their cheap juice but the adults won’t bat an eyelid.  They will be too busy supping wine from garden loungers, doing their best not to get too comfortable lest they fall asleep in a drunken stupor and forget to put the kids to bed.

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Lie ons.  See above.  Due to the drunken balmy evenings it will be after 10pm before the kids are put to bed.  Covered in grass and the souls of their feet thick with dirt.  The adults will fall into a very pleasant, slightly tipsy sleep and all will waken at 9am the next morning.  Taking at least an hour to wake up properly before a still slightly hung-over mother calls, “anyone for pancakes and maple syrup?”

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Camaraderie similar to the Famous Five and Secret Seven.  After the pancake breakfast, everyone will be dressed (still filthy mind you) and head off outside for the day, arms slung casually around each other to play in the meadows and forage for wild fruits to stave off the hunger pangs that otherwise would drive them home.  They will return at the sixth sense time of dinner, pleasantly hungry. Lightly tanned and just bursting to get back to the water hole.  This time they will take a tightly rolled up towel in which to dry themselves, a bag containing apples, some flapjacks and a large bottle of homemade ginger ale.  What fun!

Healthy picnics.  It is forest day where everyone will enjoy a trek under a green canopy to shield from the sun.  The dog will gambol on ahead and sniff out the best places in the undergrowth.  Not once will she jump up on or hump an innocent stranger.   No one will get lost.  There won’t be a single complaint about sore, cramping legs.  No-one will need to take an undignified pee or otherwise in shrubbery. There might be the odd sing song, definitely a few jokes and someone will always point out a fascinating fact of nature that no-one else knew.  Who says a forest walk with four kids is not fun?

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Then there’s the reality of it all.

Boredom.  It is day one and not even 10am.  There has been a Netflix embargo and it is not going down well.  In fact the neighbours can hear how ill received this decision is.  They are bored.  They hate this.  They want to know what can they do?    They don’t want to be outside.  There are things to be spawned on Mine Craft and Zen gardens that need visiting.

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Cooking meals that will not be eaten.  It might be the summer holidays but the little blighters still have to eat. Who knew?  In my house I like to get the main meal out of the way by 1pm so I can forget about it!  They all like chicken so a roasted one with all the trimmings is on the menu. But apparently it’s too hot to eat it.  Little bastards.  They ask for Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, Weetabix and one demon requests a chocolate sandwich.  I give it all to them.

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Loud demands for bicycle rides and trips to the swimming pool.  This ties in with the boredom thing.  The not so amusing fact about four boys is it is so demanding.  Everything is physical be it pulling them off one another, running to a bathroom assist, helping them up onto and down from trampoline/swings and then tidying up.  Relentless I tell you, relentless.

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Refusals to go to bed.  They spend all afternoon lounging on and fighting over couch rights but once 8pm hits, they morph into sprites and off out the door.  This is all good but it doesn’t mean they will lie on the next morning.  Instead they waken at their usual hour and as a result are cranky little fuckers for the rest of the day.  The only other person whose nerves are in shite is their mother.

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But I am determined to be chilled and bronzed by the end of it.  Now, it’s wine o’clock somewhere in the world, right?