The simple life

Shark insists that now we have arrived to stay with Big Bro in Suffolk, she must live in a tent in the garden.

This involves mama in horror movie mode, thrashing around in the wild outside at dusk, wrestling a blow up mattress. By dark she is crawling about on hands and knees, desperately bashing grass with a mallet.

And all the time, the stormy grey clouds glower in the skies, the wind howls, and Shark stands impatiently over me demanding sleeping bags, wind-up torches, morning alarm clocks, cushions, extra blankies, books, and a sister who can interpret the many bird sounds of the dawn chorus.