Small interruptions!

So, it's the school summer holidays and in [new] gemmak's-ville that means but one thing....the invasion for a week of a small child.

It has become family tradition here that my nieces, on alternate years, take it in turns to spend a week here on holiday with my parents, their grandparents....and this year it is the turn of the eight year old to turn the place and our reasonably quiet haven into a mad house have her little holiday.

Life is just not the same. From the outset each day things begin to be 'testing'. There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that my much required and revered early morning routine will go as planned! It is usual that I rise before the rest of the inmates here, creep downstairs and enjoy at least half an hours solitude with a very necessary cup of strong coffee and a cigarette or two in the garden (weather permitting), whilst my mind and body attempt to prepare themselves for another days assault and I muster myself from the oblivion that is the 'Oh Jesus is it morning again already' state of mind.

Oh no, none of that. This week I am woken from my slumber (assuming I got any in the first place) by the particularly brutal sound of said small child enquiring at high decibel level as to whether I am still asleep...um...well I was! This decibel level is of course designed to make sure that sleep rapidly becomes a thing of distant memory and we have to trail downstairs within a moment or two.... already in deep conversation. Heavens above, it's just not normal!

Once arrived at the kitchen she also requires a cup of coffee, though of course she doesn't really like coffee and certainly doesn't drink it but apparently there is something very 'grown up' about sitting in the garden in ones pajamas at 6.30 am, pretending to enjoy coffee!

From this moment on in the day this child talks nineteen to the dozen...non stop, no let up, question after question, statement after statement, request after request...on and on and on it goes....by breakfast time my first headache is already well entrenched! ;o)

The next test of our stoicism is to see if we can maneuver her through breakfast and her ablutions in something less than a three hour period and in time to take her for a day out somewhere, apparently if one is eight years old the distractions from these necessary tasks are many and various and all way too tempting to even consider displaying a modicum of resistance.

The remainder of the day usually passes in reasonable normality, my parents whisk small child off for a days entertainment and I go about my usual business, or lack of it as the case is recently.

The evening once again becomes 'interesting'. I am required to listen to chapter and verse of her days outings at least seven times, play with any newly acquired toys, read leaflets and books aplenty and come up with believable answers for her myriad questions.

The later evening (for this is a holiday, no early bedtimes this week, godamn) presents yet more new challenges. This eight year old apparently requires nail extensions to be applied and manicured (is this a usual holiday treat? it sure as hell wasn't when I was eight), software of various descriptions to be installed onto either my laptop or my fathers pc (at such a tender age she has an uncanny knack with a mouse and the navigating of XP) to provide entertainment yet later in the evening or in preparation for the following morning, a wardrobe for the following morning also has to be selected with care and CD's have to be listened to avidly....if one can listen to such 'noise' ok...I'm old with any degree of avid interest!

By this point I am beginning to feel my patience becoming just a tiny bit frayed, suggestions of fifteen minutes 'reading time' usually fall on deaf ears and whilst I try to bury myself in my book she fiddles with the pages I'm attempting to hide for fear of her reading any 'inappropriate' vocabulary. So I give up and instead revert to answering questions. How exactly does a child of eight manage to string together sentences that most of us at well above the age of eight would struggle to compose? My experience of children is obviously severely limited and I have nothing with which to make a comparison but hells bells, are all kids nowadays so unnervingly articulate?

There is one saving grace in all of this....somehow, somewhere she has learnt to give the most amazingly professional full body massage which she is only to happy to practice at the latter part of the day....it's just a damn shame I have to get back onto my feet subsequently for the bathing and bedtime story reading malarky......oh, and she does of course charge 50p per massage!

Hey..... how do people do this 24/7? Much as I love her to bits, give me a cat any day!