It's Much More Fun at Auntie's House

The kids love visiting my sister's. She lives in a beautiful brick and flint house near the sea on the north coast of Norfolk with breathtaking views across fields alive with wild-eyed hares and flighty pheasants. Wide sweeping skies capture the imagination with daily cinematic displays of sunsets and sun rises, awe-inspiring cloud formations and the heart-stopping aerial acrobatics of buzzards, kestrels and hawks.
"I love staying at Auntie C's," says Daughter wistfully. "She's just like you, except she's more fun. And definitely more relaxed," she adds, watching her cousins. My one-year-old niece is nibbling on a piece of coloured chalk and painting a chair with yoghurt while my five-year-old nephew snuggles up in the dog basket with the cat.
"Yeah, and she does better breakfasts," says Small Boy, snorting a line of chocolate croissants.
Even our dog is critical of me this morning. She is longingly eyeing her canine cousins' position of privilege on the sofa and shooting me reproachful glances which clearly convey the message, "You'd never let me do that at home."

We have a happy time on Blakeney Point later in the day, spotting curlews and oyster catchers, and eating ice cream before lunch.
"You'd never let us do this at home!" says Daughter, gleefully cramming in a strawberry Cornetto before I can comment.
The three dogs run riot, tails whirling around like helicopter blades. Our dog cannot believe her luck. She is not used to such open spaces. She is also not used to so much black mud. My sister's two Labs charge into a particularly boggy patch and luxuriate in an extravagant all-over-body roll, flicking ribbons of thick gloopy muck up into the air in great showers, their eyes closed in bliss.
Our dog makes the mistake of stopping and checking with me before following her cousins. "NO!" I yell. The image of an onward journey incarcerated with a stinking mud-caked hound has already formed in my mind. I grab her collar and keep her back.
The dog sighs loudly as she watches them. "You'd never let me do that anywhere."

We finish off the morning with a meal in a local pub called The Pigs. True to its name, the menu contains all things porky and the house speciality is a platter called "Everything But the Oink". Husband is very keen on ordering this. I am curious, so we go for it.
The kids, true to form, resolutely turn their backs on anything untried and untested, and choose fish and chips.
The meal arrives and our platter is just as described.
"Wow! Look at this," says Husband, eyes wide. "It really is everything but the oink."
"What is all that stuff?" asks Daughter, wrinkling up her nose in disgust. "It doesn't look like normal food."
Husband points to the various offerings before him. "Black pudding, sausages, rillettes, pork scratchings, crackling, ham, roast pork," he says, licking his lips.
"Where's the vegetables?" asks Small Boy.
There is no vegetable in sight, not even as decoration.
"Doesn't look as though we get any," I say.
Small Boy groans. "That's not faaaaiiiirrrr!" he wails. "We've got this horrible cabbagey stuff." He pokes at a mound of, to me, very tempting-looking curly kale.
Husband is deaf to Small Boy's complaints, engaged as he is in a full-scale battle with a pile of pork scratchings.
"Mmmm," he says, his eyes closed in an expression of bliss close to that of the dogs' earlier when they were rolling in mud. "This. Is. Delicious."
"Don't tell me," I say, as I watch him tuck in with relish. "I'd never let you do this at home."