Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Small Boy is away on a rugby tour.
I never thought I would see all of those words together in the same sentence. Small Boy does not believe in rugby. He is of the opinion that if he wanted to get his nose broken he would do it in a much more exciting way, such as climbing a tree to inspect his bat boxes before falling face down to the ground whilst doing an impression of a bat.
Most of the time he does a great job of avoiding doing any actual rugby by running very fast up and down on the wing and waving his arms about. This way the teacher cannot accuse him of not trying, while he can use the time to count rabbits, pretend to be a buzzard, or daydream about owning a tortoise.
I am a little anxious as I wave him off and tell him I will miss him.
He puts on his man-of-the-world expression and says wearily, "It's too late for regrets now, Mum."
Daughter snorts. "I won't miss you," she says with feeling.

I miss Small Boy for lots of reasons, obviously, but the main reason is that I find myself now in sole charge of the chickens. This is an onerous task. I end up doing little or no work on day one, as every time I walk past the window and look out at the chicken run, I am convinced that I cannot see Titch, the Lavender Pekin. I spend more time checking on her than doing anything else as I cannot bear the thought of having to announce her demise on Small Boy's return.
However, it's not just the care of the chickens that has fallen to me during Small Boy's absence. The other animals usually fall under his self-imposed jurisdiction, too - before school, that is. Small Boy is the first to get up and always immediately runs down to let out the dog, check on the chooks and feed the cats. He also lays the table for breakfast and then wolfs down his food so that he can spend the next fifteen minutes yelling at the rest of us to "Get a move on, or I'll be late for my morning meeting!"
Since going into Year 6, Small Boy seems to have an alarming amount of morning meetings. More even than Husband, it would seem. I am beginning to wonder if he is running a small business on the side. I can only hope it's not illegal.
So the end result of Small Boy going away is not, as I had hoped, that getting ready for school is made easier by only having one child to chivvy. On the contrary, due to the animal-related tasks that now fall to me; the fact that Daughter thinks "laying the table" means "getting myself a piece of toast and ignoring everyone else" and the fact that no one is shouting at me to hurry up, I have been late out of the door every day this week.
Even Daughter has begun to miss her brother. "At the beginning of the week I thought it might be quite cool to be an only child," she says, wistfully. "But now I think I could do it for a few days, and then I'd get bored."
I think that's the closest we'll get to hearing Daughter admitting any affection for her younger sibling. Not that he'll care much. The first members of the family to get any attention from him on his return tonight will be the chickens, I can be sure of that.