Eric presented me with a “present.”

 Monday 20th October 2025

As those who read this diary know, Mum likes her plants — houseplants as much as garden ones. Anyway, to my horror (and regret), I managed to drown one a few weeks back. Mum sometimes asks me to give them a watering, which is fine for the most part, as all but one are in proper plant pots with drainage holes in the bottom. That way, any extra water drains out into the saucer below.

There is one pot, though, that doesn’t have drainage holes, so if anyone overwaters it, the poor thing just sits in a bog. I did this without realising. It was only like that for a few days before Mum spotted my mistake, but apparently that was long enough to kill it. Soon the leaves began to yellow and drop off, and then the plant rotted altogether. Not even William, the gardener, has been able to revive it.

Well, this morning over breakfast, Eric presented me with a “present.” I opened it to find a gadget for testing whether a plant needs watering. I think, like the bike present that time, it was meant as a bit of a leg-pull — but it’s actually quite useful. It’s a thin rod with a gauge on one end; you stick the pointy end into the soil, and the gauge tells you how wet it is.

There was a good deal of merriment about that over breakfast. Mum even tried to claim it at one point. In the end, we struck a deal: she can borrow my moisture meter if I’m allowed to use her new feather duster. That was agreed — with the strict proviso that I don’t take the duster out to use on my tractor.

“That sounds like you’re going to be drawing up plans to have the front door widened a bit then, Katie!”

That was Eric’s solution to my feather duster restrictions. You can always count on him to provide a sensible answer to any problem.

This morning I helped Mum with some housework — cleaning, tidying, and what have you. I don’t mind doing it, and my company seems to mean a lot to her. Then this afternoon we made marmalade. It’s the first we’ve made while I’ve been here, though Mum says she always makes her own. We ran out a couple of weeks back, so we’ve been using shop-bought, which Eric has found something to complain about almost every morning. So tomorrow, at least, he should be happy.

This evening the kitchen still smells faintly of oranges and sugar, and the jars are lined up on the counter catching the lamplight. Mum says we’ll label them in the morning once they’re properly set. For now, it feels like a small, homely triumph — the sort of day that ends with laughter still hanging in the air and everything quietly in its place.