Family bonds

Here’s the thing about family. They might drive you up the wall but you know you’re going to miss them when the holidays are over and everyone has returned to their nests. It’s taken me a few weeks, I have to admit, to realise just how important my siblings and their offspring are to me. As I sat listening to all the chatter and raucous laughter at a big family barbeque last night, I felt annoyed with myself. I should have spent more time embracing the crowd instead of wallowing in my own self-pity. As the old saying goes, you don’t know what you’re missing until it’s gone.

A couple of days ago, I got to spend some time with my sister, Kendra and older brother Simon with a trip to Narbonne. Simon had seen an apartment there that he and his wife were thinking of buying so wanted some sisterly advice. Although the two of them were regular visitors to Narbonne, it has a huge swimming pool complex, it was my first trip to this city by the sea. We did the tourist thing and walked around the busy streets and oohed over the immense organ in the cathedral (same make as Notre Dame apparently) before giving our thumbs up to the potential acquisition. As much as I appreciated having a day out ‘en ville‘, it dawned on me how much I missed the quietness of village life. Funny how much has changed in a year.

Naturally things always happen when you aren’t there so of course, I got back from Narbonne to find out that little Salome had had an accident. She had jumped out of my niece’s arms whilst Elise was putting her back in the pen and hurt her back leg. The X-ray showed three fractured toes so the vet immobilised the limb in lots of wadding and a nice purple bandage. I was rather proud at how Salome took the whole thing in her stride, never complaining and calmly lying down whilst being attended too – our lovely vet thought she was rather special. Sally now has a couple of weeks to heal, thankfully she isn’t going to the US until the end of the year so her training shouldn’t suffer too much.

The pool house is almost finished with just the concrete floor to go in and the roof. It’s much bigger than I thought it would be, I joked with Lionel that we could put a balcony on top and make a deck. With any luck we can now get all the technical bits in there, put the liner in and finally fill the bloody thing. Just when everyone is leaving. Having the pool to myself might seem like the ideal but I would have liked to share it. At least next summer, it’ll be full of the noise and chaos that only the Collins’ clan could provide and that is something worth waiting for….

“Families are like fudge – mostly sweet with a few nuts” (Les Dawson)