Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Waking up to a house bereft of the small one wasn’t too bad – and I rolled over to find Mrs. Ottawacker had already got up and, in fact, gone for an early morning walk, taking advantage of a rare break in the thunderstorms to get some exercise. So, I made some coffee, emptied the dishwasher and got back to the translation.
 
In the end, the morning and early afternoon was no different from any other work day (the problem of the self-employed). Then, Mrs. Ottawacker having been with friends at the Great Alta Vista Garage Sale, she came back with news that she and her brother were “going to do the shed”.

Right, you wanted slices of Canadian life? Try this.
 
Since 2021, our shed, a ramshackle and rather decrepit building hidden in the corner of our garden, has been home to a family of groundhogs. Normally, this doesn’t bother me – they bugger off in the daytime and come in occasionally over the summer, choosing to reside there mainly in the winter. Fine by me. They attack the neighbours’ vegetables, not ours – and so it seemed like a decent quid pro quo for a while. Over the past 18 months or so, they have started to tunnel. They obviously tunneled into the shed in the first place, but now they have been tunneling alternate routes in an around the shed. Either they are digging for gold (unsuccessfully), planning a design feature for the shed (perhaps a maze, like Hampton Court?), or they are just making escape routes in case of attack from fishers or coyotes. Again, normally it would not bother me too much – but the shed is becoming a little fragile and wobbly on its legs.
 
So, as any sensible person would do at this juncture, I sat down and made a plan. This was a year ago. Having vowed to get it done “once winter had finished and I was back from Spain”, Mrs. Ottawacker has obviously had enough of my procrastination and decided to do it herself. Little did she know, but that was part of my plan. Thirty minutes later, John called round with his van, and off he and Mrs. Ottawacker went to buy some concrete slabs. Having decided that the strange sensation I had in my stomach was hunger and not guilt, I made some tea and grabbed a bowl of soup, then went back to work.
 
Well, what a job they did. I wandered into the garden at around 2 o’clock to find the shed had been emptied, the groundhog holes had all been filled and the floor flattened down, and a series of concrete slabs were in the process of being laid down on the floor. It looked a real feat of engineering. I congratulated them both on a job well (half) done, and wandered slowly back up to the office. I was just in time to hear the thunder clap and the storm break. Well, at least it would have cooled them down a bit.

Ottawacker Jr is still over at Lucas’s – and his mum called to say they had made plans for a second sleep over – did I have any objections? Being unable to think of any, other than the rather dubious one of my missing him, I gave her the green light and so Mrs. Ottawacker and I are faced once again with the prospect of being young and responsibility free on a Saturday night.
 
The storm finished and the shed once again stable, I couldn’t help but be impressed by their work. “Get into that now, you little bastards,” I said to no one in particular. The problem is, they will.