The great Prawn Race is on.

"Madam, I'll thank you not to insult the hot blood of Irish prawns" ~ the Spy who came in from the Cold.

The prawns are running.  They are arriving in my house by the bucketload & being fried up in a garlicky marinade.  Totally & utterly gross.  There is something quite sadistic about  tearing the head of something & peeling away it's skin before you eat it. So I don't.  Uh~uh, not me. 

Life as we know it has been turned upside down with both boys back in the house.  Even with all our busyness the girls remain serene but man~like the boys thump & bellow & make messes they fail to clean up & quite simply forget there are other people who also live in this house & do not necessarily appreciate their fishy endeavours though they are having some luck with the cats ~ if the prawns are cooked, scaled, de~headed & cut up into bite sized portions.

Then there are the things that go missing; like the egg flip & all my serrated knives.  So I approached Dino as the most likely culprit.  After all, the girls have been home on their own for years & my knives remained intact & the egg flip sat in it's pot. I was very polite.

"Have you seen my egg flip anywhere?" I enquired as nicely as I knew how because it is a well known fact round here the boys have thin skins & are easy to huff up.

"Why would I have seen your egg flip?  Why would you even think I had your egg flip?  You always say I've taken your stuff but why would I need your egg flip?"

"You didn't borrow it for camping?"

"I haven't been camping in weeks....Oh!" Yep, still at the bottom of his kit bag!  I didn't enquire what else was still at the bottom of his kit bag but I got  back a mug, a set of cutlery & one large plate.

A walk round the yard turned up most of the steak knives; don't ask ~ & Theo brought me my paring knife, found floating round the bottom of the boat.  It's not that they don't have their own stuff.  They do; they just can never find it.  Me, I put stuff back where I can find it,  [Yes, mother, there is a system to my chaos.] so the boys borrow mine because it is easily accessible rather than go look for their own.

I had quite a fellow feeling for Star when she enquired plaintively, "When is Theo going back?" working, I assume, on the assumption one is easier to deal with than two & Dino is far more susceptible to *The Look*.  Theo just declares war.  After all she is younger than he is, female, the baby of the family & this is his house too,  he is on holiday & entitled to the status of *House Guest*.  Hmmm.

At which point Dino arrives to take over the cooking before I charcoal it because he likes his practically still saying, Moo ~ a habit that does not endear him to Star ~ & Theo pauses on his way out the door to thank me for doing all his washing, bringing it in & putting it away.  In a century or two they may just have evolved into quite decent men.  What do you think?  Room for improvement but lots to hope for?