Cubbies & other strange games.

My oldest son has a terrific imagination. He was much in demand as the istigator of ideas as between the 3 houses in our neck of the woods there were 10 children & they invariably ended up at our place, our place being the most relaxed & having the largest number of children to start with. However my oldest is something of a recluse. He would much rather slink off with a book than play so he invented these complicated games with complicated rules & then abandoned them to his siblings & their friends. One morning I poked my head out to find a wig~wam made of she~oak saplings decorating the next door paddock. It came with a picket fence & a half dozen minature sized hay bales & it was shower proof, as the kids discovered in the first rain. Over the months a complete city emerged in our bushland, complete with roads & paths, up in the trees & through the undergrowth. My son was happily upstairs reading in peace while the rest of the neighbourhood waged a complicated war.

However Jossie was a rather strange child. Having not seen him for several hours one day I went looking for him, He had made himself a ''nest'' under the outside stairs. It was thick with died grass. Several large round stones huddled amongst the grass & my son squatted begninly over them on his haunches staring vacantly into space. What was he doing? Hatching eggs! I have yet to see a chick hatch from a stone but whatever.