Naomi’s Herbology Shop

Near the water in Windenburg, you’ll find a quaint little house. It looks like a cottage and it has a vast garden full of exotic and rare flowers, herbs and trees.

This is Gram’s herbology shop, that she built after entering retirement, and where she’s been spending most of her time since my grandmas died. She takes care of her plants, and brews remedies from them in the back of the house.

Today, for Family Day, she’s proposed that the twins and I come join her. She would like to introduce her to one of her passions, and the thought of spending a day surrounded by greenery and hanging with our great-grandmother sounds pretty much perfect. Cyril is not really into the idea of gardening at first, since he’s not fond of dirt, and dirt getting under his nails. He also dislikes crowds — and people in general — so the clients scare him. Really, Cyril doesn’t care much for this holiday dedicated to gardening.

He loves Gram dearly, though. So he only pretends to complain for a while before agreeing to come with us.

So in the early hours of the morning, we join her at the shop.

Family Day — Morning

Around here we have a specific holiday. It’s called Gardening Day, and it’s a really, really old tradition that dates back to the very first members of our community. Gardening is how the first members of the Stewarts family made their first dime. Made their fortune, in fact.

It’s a holiday for everybody, but for our family, it’s the occasion to commemorate and spend time together. So we’re up at dawn and get ready to enjoy this time together.

Mom and Dad are living the spirit of Family Day from the start!

I woke up late and reaaaally didn’t want to witness that so soon after waking up.

Cyril and Cleo were smarter and took their breakfast in the dining room, like normal people. Mom quickly joins. We plan on spending the day outside, and she won’t be joining us until later, so she’s packing our lunches.

Cleo is already pretty excited about today, she’s dancing around in the living room.

Mom and Dad may not be into gardening at all, but that doesn’t stop Dad from being in the flower theme. He gifts mom a bright red rose for the occasion.

A Responsible Day

Cleo and I have plans to go work on our fitness together today.

I lead the way and she quickly joins. She’s gotten better and better, and now easily keeps up with my pace. She jokes that soon I’ll be able to take her on my travels to Selvadorada.

Or is she joking, really?

Not everybody can keep up, though. We meet a jogger who decided to walk instead.

To be fair, not everyone can keep going under the scorching sun. It invigorates me, though.

After a quick shower, I go outside again to sort the drying laundry.

Cyril’s grades have been menacing to slip recently, so before he even gets rid of the sweaty smell of walking around under the sun for too long, he kneels in the grass and works on an electronic project.

I should clarify that Cyril is a straight-A student. When he means “my grades are slipping,” he means he got a B in Science.

When my grades “slipped”, it meant I almost got kicked out of school for sleeping in math class again.

Dad’s clocked in a few extra hours at work today, too. Nounou is not the most expressive of cats, but Dad is happy to have him to cuddle after a tough day.