Long Distance Love

Hooray hooray Wildchild has phoned from Trinidad and all is well. Horrible life stopping moment though – phone rings – Wildchild's voice the other end . . . gulp . . .wildly beating heart in mouth muffling voice and hampering attempts to act casual and cool . . . eeeeeek I'm talking to my child half way across the World.

'Hey Wildchild brilliant to hear form you (super causal). . .howareyouiseverythingalright . . . gasp . . .?'

The reply is the unconcerned

'Yeah everything's great!'

And breathe . . . yeah it isn't just animals that can crank up the stress factor.

Whoop whoop . . so no broken legs, yellow fever, bitten by vipers blah blah and they have chocolate . . . In fact the worst problem apparently was the heat . . . very hot yesterday (remember heat) and the electricity had gone . . . not a problem except the fan wasn't working and neither was the fridge – so the chocolate was melting . . . berlimey. Not had the melting chocolate problem for a while now. Left a candle on the lit woodburner once that melted . . .

Wildchild is up at 5.00am each morning and spends her days putting up large bird nets to catch . . well . . . birds . . . which she and the team ring. She is enjoying the work – although disappointed that they won't be working with Blue and Gold Macaws and Manatees as thought. She has caught several species of Humming bird . . . wow. NB all the birds are handled swiftly to cause the minimum of stress and then released.

How about this . . .Wildchild has WRITTEN us a letter . . on PAPER . . .yes PAPER . . . with a pen . . . really impressed . . remember when we all used to write like that . . . She is going to post it – stamp and EVERYTHING and it will be here in about three weeks . . . .hmmmmmm . . . remember that as well . . . snail mail . . .

So all is well in Trinidad . . . The leader of the field trip has a mobile phone so each student is allowed a ten minute call home each week . . . Something to look forward to once I have get over the heart in the mouth bit.

Here at home Robot Boy and Geek Girl came to stay. Too much excitement. Cesspit Cottages had a week free – so Robot Boy and Geek Girl had the cottage to themselves for a few days..

HS and Robot Boy went for a long local walk in the hills surrounding us – spectacular views now that the trees have gone. On Tuesday we went to a tiny island just off Oban. The ferry across only took about five minutes . . . barely enough time to go a decent shade of green. Gorgeous little island – chatted to one of the locals about the pleasures and problems of living so cut off. We spent a couple of hours on the island walking and talking (both boys and girls multitasking here) and taking pictures. Then wandered around on the beach and found sea glass and rescued a stranded eel. No that really is eel and not seal . . .

At the end of each day we cooked and spent the evening together . . . sigh . . bliss. And guess what – Robot Boy - the child that refused to eat anything except baked potatoes, or chips now eats curries – yes curries and and on Tuesday evening he cooked us a really spicy chicken fajitas. . . .sigh . . .

One of the highlights for me was a long chat with Robot Boy . . . just the two of us, we talked and I mean really talked. Robot Boy has always been quite articulate with his feelings. I won't embarrass him by writing here what we talked about (well only a little bit) – but it is so good to know that he is happy and where there have been problems he has been able to work through them. One thing he did talk about, which I hope he won't mind me mentioning – was a school parent evening – a few years ago now. During the evening he got a lot of positive feedback from his subject teachers . . . except his maths teacher and apparently rather than dwell on the positives HS and I zoomed in on the maths 'problem' and lectured him all the way home (half hour drive) about the need to do better . . . which he resented. Squirm! Having said that he went on to raise his game and did very well at maths . . . smug.

Robot Boy and Geek girl make a wonderful couple – they seem so happy together. She is lovely and has a really wicked sense of humour and can hold her own with us any time. Yup . . .she didn't flinch at the fart machine taped under the table, or the laughter machine hidden in the fridge . . . or the vibrating cat in the bag . . . although my Furbies irritated her – but then they irritate everyone – no point in having them otherwise. Geek Girl ( her choice of name btw) is every mother's dream – someone who makes their boy happy and someone whom they actually like. Plus when they arrived she had brought chocolate . . . .lurve that girl!!!!!!

So all is well on the 'long distance love' front. You never stop worrying about your kids – but ours do seem to have acquired a lot of the right 'tools' for building a good life. HS and I are very proud of both of them.