No rules, no manners, no grace.

 Thursday 23rd October 2025

Today was whacky bin race day again — and that Eric was up to his usual cheating ways!

There’s no starting pistol, no countdown, no waiting for the red lights to go out. Perhaps it would be better if there were. As it is, the tension always builds toward the end of breakfast — each of us poised to catch the first sign of dismissal from the table. The race begins the instant we sense it’s safe to bolt.

This little bin-race ritual has survived several of Mum’s attempts to call time on it. After her scolding, one or both of us — but mostly Eric — will inevitably reply, “Great, that means I’m the overall winner then!”

What follows is an exchange of wildly inaccurate scores, numbers thrown around with great conviction but no record-keeping to back them up. Mum rises from the table shaking her head in dismay, Dad laughs at something nobody quite understands, and Eric and I take that as the cue.

Then chaos: no rules, no manners, no grace — just the two of us thundering out the door, before heading down the garden path bins in hand, vowing vengeance to the winner for next time.

And so it went this morning. We were both perched on the edges of our chairs when Eric suddenly said, “Since when did you allow muddy boots in the kitchen, Jan?”

He was pointing at my boots, placed neatly under a side chair by the wall. Without thinking, Mum and I both turned to look at once. The split second my attention slipped, Eric made his dash for the dairy door.

By the time I’d finished defending myself to Mum, retrieved my boots (which he’d sneakily moved), and got outside — he was already halfway down the garden path, bin rattling triumphantly ahead of him.

The only sympathy Mum offered was a dry, “It’s your own fault for encouraging him. You know what he’s like.”

And so another round goes to Eric — at least until next time. I’ll be ready for him.

This evening, the house still feels faintly alive with the laughter from breakfast — the kind that lingers quietly in the walls long after the dishes are done and we're sat snuggled up. Dad is always quick to point out that this is what I've brought to the house with me as it was never present until I arrived. He pulls my leg saying that they used to have a quiet life, now they enjoy a proper life.