Sunday, October 16, 2011

A visit from the Cooks


The Cook family are staying at Pinetrees this week.  It’s a long family tradition.  The little kids, Edward, Alexander, Toby, Joel and Lizzie, are 4th generation Pinetrees guests.  Their parents came to Pinetrees as kids and their grandfather, the late John Cook, used to come with his parents for holidays in the 1950s.  John was an adventurous soul and I remember seeing his old leather photo album with photos of him fishing and climbing Mt Lidgbird and goat hunting with his friends on the island.   

John Cook was the central character in one of my mum's favourite stories.  Pixie loved to tell the story of how she and her sister Kerry once decided to short-sheet all of the beds in the guest house.  I suppose they were about 9 and 10 at the time.  It took them most of the morning, because they were laughing so hard and they had to sneak around and hide from the guests.  Unfortunately, they were discovered by John, who was a few years older than they were.  He promptly reported them to their father and Pixie and Kerry were forced to re-make all of the beds.  They vowed to get revenge and every time John came to the island after that he found a different surprise in his bed – dead muttonbirds, smelly seaweed, little white ghost crabs, buckets of sand…

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