Domestic evenings - bats and fried rice

I took my evening glass of gin and lime outside and sat down by the pond.  One of the little self-lighting, self-powering lanterns hung over the pond was lit already (they light up when it gets dusk and extinguish themselves and drink up sunshine during the day).

My little goldfish pond is where I love to sit, mornings and evenings. It's thickly surrounded on three sides by plants of all kinds.  I had said to Rose last evening, "I haven't seen bats here for a long time" (twenty years ago, when our house was much smaller and no goldfish pond, we used to sit outside on an old coco log I had brought in and watch our cats playing chase among the bushes and scrambling up the ladder to the loft, until the bats came out.)

The rising almost-full moon could be seen through the trees.  Suddenly I saw a bat flashing across the dwarf coconut palm in front.  I called out to Rose, she didn't hear me but anyway in a minute or two she came and joined me with her drink.  I took her hand in mine and pressed it against me, she was responsive and felt friendly and loving.  I told her,     
   "I saw a bat just now!"  
Obligingly,  the same bat, and another, flitted rapidly across the piece of sky we could see.  I was happy to see them.  Rose could see them better than I could.

A moment later, Our teenage son Claude came out and stood near, I told him,
    "We are watching the  bats - can you hear them?" 
    "No", he replied.  I was a bit surprised, but maybe he's already too old at 16.  Or perhaps the bats were just too far away.  When I was ten, I could hear bats clearly, but at 16 - I don't know.

When I saw Claude standing near, I felt such a surge of happiness.  I love all my children, but he is here and is still young and the others are far away.  The last twelve months he has been so wayward, but this seems to have faded somewhat and he's been at home without a break for ten days now, voluntarily feeding our dogs and cats, getting up at 5:30 to do it; working at programming on the computer.  His "friends", that used to be so important to him, have dropped out of sight.  My boy, that used to be "my little lad" with bedtime stories and play before saying goodnight, suddenly four years ago became "my lad" then very soon "my big lad," and is still changing.  When he's at home for dinner, I often open a bottle of wine; but not if he's away.  Wine is to celebrate his presence. Yesterday I said to him, "I like it when you are here, Claude."

Rose went to neighbours to give mangoes (we have mango trees, very prolific), Claude asked to use the computer and I started to make fried rice for supper:  chopped an onion and some garlic, fried them and added cooked rice left over from lunch; chopped some ham slices and added them, shook in some cayenne pepper and seasoning salt, a couple of eggs, a capful of olive oil - a very simple supper.  I covered it and let it cook and meanwhile, to add interest, I chopped up and blanched a carrot (greedy dog Bonnie waited expectantly for the peelings, wagging her tail vigorously),  made a cheese sauce and mixed in the carrot chunks, serving them separately.  This way I get all of us to eat more vegetables.  I looked for cheese powder but couldn't find it so had to make do with grated processed cheese - all we can get here.  While looking in the fridge I did find a bottle of mustard so I squirted some  into the sauce, that improved it.

With everything ready I knocked on the workshop ceiling to tell Claude, then sat down.  Claude appeared, sat down and just in time Rose returned, with a smile and stories from the neighbour's house.