227. The little house by the woods (2)

The gate is still standing. The second and third spikes are badly bent. I like to think the damage was made by some wild animal running away from hunters and making it to the safe haven of our overgrown garden.

Old habits come back right away: I stop the car and Baby gets out to attack the brambles and the nettles. I drive the car over the tall yellow grass and think of the African savannah. Yet I notice that all the way down to the front door the grass has been flattened. As if Maths-Head and her pals have been rolling around in the garden, the way kids roll down hillsides on summer days. I guess after two years of intensive Maths that was just the kind of relief they needed. I am pleased to see that an unkempt garden has its uses.

We get to the door and I hesitate. What if, after so mush fun, they forgot to leave the key for us? I roll the big rock back and … there’s the key. 

This is the moment I dread. The key has turned in the lock and the feeling of relief that we can get in the house is quickly followed by a shiver as the door catches and cobwebs stretch to let us in. As I step across the threshold I search for traces of various life forms that have decided to make the most of this neglected human nest and made it their own. Every summer a lesson on natural science for the kids: an incredible variety of spiders, furry, big-bellied, short-legged or long-legged, big, small, black as suit or see-through, hornet nests in the chimney one year, wasp nests under the eaves, and the crowds of martens partying all night in the attic … 

But this year should be clear. This year the luxury of coming into the house empty of life forms as the Party Kids have been here and have made a good job of scaring all wildlife away. Every single species of animal seems to have packed up and gone back to their homes in the woods.

‘I don’t know Mum!’ Party-Head tells me later when I phone her and ask if they’d heard any animals around the house. ‘Honestly Mum! Even if there were, Sam and Ben snore a lot, so … no, nothing to report.’

The house is surprisingly clean and tidy. I pour myself a glass of wine right away and Baby finds fruit juice in the fridge. The party kids can have the house again any time. 

We sit outside in the sun and rest from the long car journey watching the trees, the blue sky and the other old houses in various stages of disrepair. Seeing so much green around, so many trees and bushes and flowers is a powerful antidote to the greyness and dullness of town life. Hearing only the rustle of the wind, the bells from the cows, a rooster here and there, a dog maybe in the distance and the brain starts to unwind. I close my eyes and take in the smells of the countryside around me, a fragrant mix of rotting wood, cut grass and cow dung. 

We make the beds. Baby is thrilled to be on her own as she can sleep in the proper bed that is the single bed, not a bunk, not a mattress on the floor but a proper single bed complete with bedside table and lamp. Luxury around here. The bed they had a fight about every summer and every summer Miss Organiser won the fight and her parents - on holiday mode - always agreed that the eldest child should have the best bed. So Baby, being the youngest of the family, had slept on a mattress on the floor for many years until now. Now not only she gets the best bed but she also gets a room to herself. When I say good night to her she is sitting up, bedside lamp on, reading, feeling as important and as grown up as Miss Organiser. I go to our bedroom and open the window wide. It frames a life-size picture of a dense wood: lush green foliage against the dark trunks. At this time of night birds are still fooling around and now and then I can hear an animal scuttling in the undergrowth, or a squirrel flying from branch to branch. 

The world as it should be.