Category: Love your family

While there are many parents who may dread the summer holidays, I actually love it because – gratefully childfree – I get to be Super Fun Aunt Mimi and hang out with my gorgeous Niblings while my sister is at work.

At nine and seven her children are at the brilliant age of engaging intelligence and curiosity, with a huge amount of energy and enough independence to clear the table, tidy away games, create treasure maps and manage their own ablutions. This past week has been an utterly exhausting but wonderfully rewarding week of lessons for all three of us:

• If you get them to choose their favourite tune to get dressed to, you can have both of them with teeth brushed and ready to go in the three and a half minutes of Ride by Twenty One Pilots.

• The prepacked trays of sushi in Waitrose are excellent (but wincingly expensive) idea for lunch. Make it educational by watching the chef roll and chop the seaweed wrapped maki rolls.

• The library is an amazing place for kids – full of cute reading nooks, a table with a chess board, plenty of computers, an imaginatively decorated children’s section and a thousand piece jigsaw in progress for anyone to join in with. We just popped in to see what we could do and ended up there for more than three hours, leaving a very triumphantly completed jigsaw on the table.

• Sushi can only be left out of the fridge for two hours.

• The walk back to Waitrose for a second attempt at a food-poison free lunch will induce a significant amount of whiny protest. 

• The helpful orange line on the Strava map helps motivate them to keep moving (and running around in massive circles if you need a bit of that too). 

• Now the boy is 9 years old, he refuses to hold hands with a grown up when crossing the road, but will hold his little sister’s hand so you can still manage a fully attached crossing.

• The ‘Shadow bus’ is an unbelievably annoying game in which they both try to ‘ride’ your shadow on the pavement, which is all very fun and manageable until the sun is directly behind you. Try not swear at that point.

• It takes 51 of the girl’s hiccups to walk across the park, not the measly 30 that I had guessed. 

• Materteral means ‘Pertaining to, or in the manner of, an aunt.’

• Make a visit to a cafe more interesting by getting the kids to write the TripAdvisor review.

• A small errand at Timpsons can become an exciting adventure in which the kids choose the design of the new key and watch the lovely man take a ‘photocopy’ of the old one. 

• Take great care in agreeing who will use the new key upon arrival home because being the second person to open the door once they key has already been used DOESN’T COUNT Aunt Mimi! 

• Jigsaw races. Such a genius idea. Get two equally sized puzzles, create sufficient space for both and set each child puzzling against each other. 500 pieces each takes a splendidly focused three hours. 

• Kenilworth Castle provides a whole day’s worth of energetic and educational entertainment. We were told stories by a lady dressed as a bear (with her ragged staff), explored the red stony ruins, ate English Heritage cake, ran among the gorgeous gardens, watched the cute little partridges and spent an animated hour in the games room of the gatehouse compete with an exact replica Minecraft version of the castle, plenty of royal fancy dress options (for adults too) and a royal ‘guess who’ (in which I was momentarily alarmed to see a KING CNUT’ in a children’s game). 

• There is a free dice app you can download in case a game is missing its dice (the boy will find it on your phone for you).

• Most Studio Ghibli films are weirdly unsettling – what the actual fuck is going on in Spirited Away? – but Totoro is safe.

• The kids love hanging up the laundry as a team, with Donovan’s ‘I love my shirt’ as an appropriately enjoyable soundtrack. 

• There is a magic and wonder that creeps back into your adult mind while hanging out with children, and you will share in their curious exploration of important matters like how much a live pig would cost (£60 in fact), your nephew’s favourite bone on his body (collarbone naturally), how long it takes buddlia buds to bloom, the exact height of a castle wall, if there is such a thing as a pescavegan (there is now), how long a nettle sting lasts, why Merlin didn’t just tell Arthur that Gwinevere was under a spell when she kissed that other guy, and how much of the dining room would be taken up by a walrus.

• Hand sanitiser is a good thumb-sucking deterrent. 

• Children don’t understand that adventures can only begin once Aunt Mimi has had coffee. Try to gulp one down before they wake up.

• By far one of the most adventurous and satisfying activities you can do with a nine and seven year old on a rainy day indoors is make a mini action movie on your phone, complete with villain (in a Halloween costume), dungeon (the garage), evil weapon (a lava lamp) and quest to find the kidnapped sister (sprints around the garden). Allow half an hour for arguing about plot and casting, three hours for filming multiple takes around the house (including a lunch scene crow-barred into the plot to make full use of toast and cheese time), two hours of editing with all three of us huddled (and arguing) around the laptop and six minutes to beam at the excitement and pride in everyone’s faces as we played it for their parents.

• You will spend all day looking forward to 5pm when the parents will return but you’ll find you don’t really want to stop hanging out with your amazing niblings and will curl up watching cartoons with them instead of taking the nap you have needed all day. 

• Do not think you can do anything else during a week of childcare. You might receive a text message at 9am and realise you still haven’t replied at 11pm, once dinner and bedtime and tidying up is complete, and you also won’t really care. 

• You will be joyously surprised by just how much your heart can spill over with a fascinatingly intense and beautifully energising unconditional love for two small and miraculous humans. 

Thursday 18th

It is my brother’s last day on the island. Tomorrow he flies to Korea for a show that he has been preparing and rehearsing for this week, and I have two more nights on my own in Ko Samet before my flight to New Zealand. I feel so at home here that I’m fine on my own. 

Last night we went to several bars, including to the flourescently graffitied Audibar where the inviting little pots of paint sit on the bar for anyone to add to the thousands of messages, initials and drawings on every available surface. Walls, speakers, tables and the well tanned chests of the many topless Thai men who will oblige. I found a small patch of wall by the door to add my mantra ‘All I know is love’ which does look like touristy cheese I know, but comes from a song by Sivani Mata who helped me reach a place of peace and love that enabled me to let go of a bad thing before. 

The accompanying gin, the warm night breeze and the banging dance tunes meant we were soon dancing on Audi’s beach, while huge illuminated jellyfish twirled and swayed from the trees, happy tourists sipped their luminous cocktails and motorbikes and trucks sailed past with their gleefully shouting occupants. 

It was a very happy night. At one point we were leaving Lima bar and a bottle of beer needing finishing off. ‘Take it,’ the owner said, so I was suddenly that annoying girl on the back of a motorbike, swigging a beer and shouting ‘Fundeeeeeee!’ as we cruised away from the bar. How many rules of England could I break in one moment? I did make my brother stop and look for a glass recycling bin though. 

Bottle properly disposed of, late night noodles purchased, we sailed back thought the dark, with him driving extra slow so he could savour the moment. With him leaving Thailand tomorrow, he was as mesmerised by the beauty of it all as me, and with the warm night air washing over our faces and arms, he marvelled at the beauty of the high jungle either side of the road and the sound of a thousand night creatures chirping and singing and croaking. 

Lessons:

*That alluring fluorescent orange paint that everyone gets creative with on the walls of Audibar does not wash off your hands, clothes or phone case. But that is totally fine 

*Thai people don’t swim in the sea until the sun starts to go down at about 4pm, so you can have an entire bay to yourself most of the day. 

*Sunrise is 6am, and is just glorious over the Sangthien beach, and there is not a single human around. 

*If you see what appears to be a fucking DRAGON leisurely walking along the empty beach at 6am, it is in fact a Thai water lizard and although as big as a deckchair, is not dangerous, but you’d be right to keep your distance because apparently it can bite, or smack you hard with its tail. I was so scared I hid in the empty bar (with a broom for protection) googling ‘massive lizard thailand’ until it disappeared. 

Friday 19th. 6.49pm

My brother is leaving in a minute. He’s just having a last meditation and then we’ll go down to town on the bike and I’ll say goodbye at the pier and then I’ll hang out a bit and get myself a taxi back at some point. Of course I’m scared. And sad. And suddenly lonely. It would be easy to stay here in my little room and – Ooh shall I take an anxiety pill? 

Look, I get to have another bike ride with my brother, I get to wave his boat off the island, and I get to experience Ko Samet at night on my own. Could be awful, could be amazing. Could be just boring. I’ll be fine. 

19.27

Oh my heavenly father the tears. Such a streaming sobbing mess of tears right now. Sitting at the pier on a bench under a streetlight trying to work out what that’s all about. 

Lonely. Very much that. Love for my brother. Loads of that. Grateful. Yeah that’s not what the tears are about. 

I was crying as soon as we got on the bike. He said, ‘You nervous?’ I had to pause to steady my voice. ‘Probably,’ I said. ‘Part sad, part scared’. Voice already cracking.

‘You’ve done so well to overcome your fears,’ he said. ‘I know. I have.’ 

Tears on a bike are great cos the wind just pulls them away from your face as you fly through the night and no-one can see. 

I wanted to take a picture of us, our last bike ride through the Ko Samet darkness, but it wouldn’t capture it. I saw the shadow of us as we went under each streetlight, the shape of us two, him holding his luggage and me holding his shoulder, safe with him, listened to and looked after by him. So relaxed and peaceful, hair blowing, bare tanned arms loving the warm air, orange-paint-spattered trousers rolled up to let the breeze get to my heat swollen mosquito bitten legs. Him with headband holding back sunbleached hair, laptop bag over one shoulder, necklace from mum round his neck. Barefoot, earnest, fearless, my brother. 

Tears tears tears. 

He started talking and I was glad I didn’t need to speak as my face was screwed up in tears. He drove really slow, several bikes overtook us, as he started saying, ‘You need to not settle for even an inch below your greatest dream. You can be whatever you want – don’t say I don’t have faith in myself, that doesn’t make sense.’

‘Uhuh.’

And I don’t want to sound too negative but some of the people that you tell me about, it sounds like they are not great for you, and will hold you back. They won’t understand that you need to do something totally far away from their priorities.’ 

‘Hmm’

‘And you can have wisdom like how to overcome fear or how to cope with anxiety or all these techniques but that’s just tricks to play the game, when really you can step out of it and realise it’s a game. And that you don’t need to play. Reality is more than the tricks of surviving the game. I know I can’t explain it but once you realise it, once you feel it, you will know that’s what I was talking about.’

At the pier a private speedboat was waiting for him, of course. He hugged me and said I love you. I said I love you too – ooh so many tears now – he said, ‘I have enjoyed serving you and seeing you be so brave. I’m very proud of you.’

I wanted to say ‘me too’ but had no voice. He jumped on the boat and as it left the pier he shouted ‘Bye!’ 

‘Bye!’ I tried but it came out broken. 

And his boat disappeared into the dark sea and I have been sitting here for half an hour now crying and typing and catching all my tears in my filthy tank top. No bloody sleeves in Thailand. 

Need to drink a lot of water now, that is very dehydrating.

And here on this empty concrete pier out of Ko Samet, as a bizarre white girl is crying on her own on a bench, someone over there is gently playing a guitar in the darkness. 

Thank you my crazy little brother. You are something magical. It has been a privilege to have a week with you. I hope I remember the wisdom and strength you showed me.