The house is slowly winding down as the last geese leave for Winter.
My two brothers have gone to Canada and Melbourne and it'll be some time before we meet again. HS has been in Melbourne for several years anyway, so I'm kind of used to him not being around, but this is the first time HW is leaving home for so long.
On the one hand, the peace can be nice. I can spend the evenings doing work or reading with a very sleepy dog who constantly scratches himself.
One of my favourite ways to spend an evening, when I get the chance to stay in, is with a cup of hot tea, a biscuit and the time to while away the hours. My mother recently bought this amazing snack from Isetan - we'd had these biscuits once before and afterwards I went searching high and low but was unable to track them down till now.
The milky, white biscuit has a mild, sweet subtlety that goes beautifully with the darker, slightly salty headiness of the almonds and I love the crispness of the edges. I'm a crunchy cookie kind of person - I much prefer these to their softer, more doughy cousins.
The garden is also currently in full bloom. My father planted these Bauhinia about two years ago and they're finally flowering in balls of incredible colour.
On the other hand, I miss my brothers. Loads. The house is too quiet and while I used to rush into the room next door with news and giggles and youtube videos, it's now completely empty.
When we were children, my brothers and I loathed each other. Nothing delighted them more than stepping on me at bedtime (I slept on the floor) and dancing wildly round the phone and shouting "Pansy! Pansy!" when I was talking with my first boyfriend (the poor soul's name was Andy).
Because I grew up with boys, I was a lot more rough and tumble than many girls my age and frequently got into trouble at their behest. Instead of playing with dolls and plastic fruit, we played war games (I was the field nurse) and constructed makeshift gymnastics apparatus by flipping the couches upside down. It was always a frantic race to right them before my parents came home.
Once, we discovered that talcum powder on a parquet floor made the wood slippery and dumped an entire bottle of Carrie's Medicated onto the bedroom slats. My mother came home into a fog of white, only to see scarved skaters whizzing by in socks on the powdered parquet. Needless to say, the scolding was massive.
I'll never forget the time they thought it would be prudent to teach me to ride the family bicycle down the exceedingly steep ramp to the common carpark. "Don't be a chicken. Just don't brake," HS instructed with typical boy blitheness, "and you can zoom right up the ramp on the other side without any effort." I had never seen a wall come at me so fast. Horrified, the boys ran behind me screaming, "Brake! Brake!" and "Turn! Tuuuurn!" as I slammed full speed into the concrete and lay on the floor, seeing stars for a full five minutes afterwards.
Another time, we were playing at being war journalists and climbing up and down a high wall edged with razor sharp stucco. As HS tried to help me down, HW held on to my arms at the top of the wall, and I got stuck between them. Annoyed, I snapped, "Let go," which both of them promptly did. The sight of the blood streaming from a gash my leg alarmed HS so much that he tore his t-shirt off like Jacob Black, screaming, "Wipe it!" as he ran to get a first aid kit. I still have that scar today.
The violence wasn't limited to play time. We also got into raging fights involving punching and clawing. Once, HS had to disguise HW's black eye with my mother's concealer before our parents got home. As we got older, the stakes got higher, from hiding a black eye to the theft of the family car.
Somehow, as children are wont to do, we grew up and became best friends. Discovering that we have the same sense of humour and are united by our pasts didn't hurt. We told and kept secrets, gave advice and continued tossing around good-natured jibes. We spent hours and hours talking about everything - our parents, the future, our worries and dreams. Sometimes, we would even read each others' minds. Some people tell me they wish they had relationships like that with their siblings.
After HS left, HW and I went on long walks round the neighbourhood just so we could talk and each time we passed the gate of our house, he would look at me and say, "Come on, Che, just one more round."
I will miss that. I will also miss coming home and sitting with him watching youtube videos for ages and laughing our heads off at every silly thing. Just before he left, we formed a Nicholas Cage hate-club of sorts. I've never been a Nic Cage fan and when I was in the UK, a friend showed me just how bad his acting was from numerous clips on youtube. I shared them with HW and we were hooked.
One night, we discovered a particularly choice scene from a horrendous-looking movie, Deadfall. If you've never heard of it, I strongly advise you to check it out. I mean, this is a movie so heinous that people rate Nic Cage's hammy supporting turn as the most unintentionally hilarious performance in the world. HW laughed so much he started to cry.
We watched the clip one last time, all three of us, before they left. I've been overseas to study and I can only imagine how excited they must feel, starting something new. HS is going to look for work and start building a life and HW has years of learning ahead of him. I'm thrilled for them.
But it remains that I will miss them because home isn't the same without them. And that I already can't wait for them to come home.
In the meantime, I leave you with this. I hope it brings some laughter to your day too.
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Say your peace, yo.