A Birth day

"Well, if what I saw last night is accurate," Kate said, "she couldn't cast even the most elementary defense spells. Now, that could be anxiety driven if she wasn't really taught to fight. Or, without any sort of devices to correct some of her inaccuracies, she might honestly be really inept. I wasn't entirely sure last night."

"My vote is on idjit," Michael said.

"I did not say she was an idjit," Kate said. "I never said anything of the kind."

"Inept, idjit, same thing," Michael shrugged.

"Frankly," Robert said, "I don't think that woman could duel her way out of a paper bag."

"Agreed," Michael said.

"Well, my own feeling, for what little it might be worth," Kate said, "is that her real talent, if you can call it talent, is for 'entertaining,' and it starts and stops there. I think she uses that talent to make connections to higher powered wizards who can supply her with potions and devices to make her look far more powerful than she really is."

"I think you might be exactly right," Robert nodded as he and Kate went to fix their plates. "Angus deserves a lie-in today. He fought in the skirmish and then fought her in his sleep for hours before it woke us. When we left him, he was in a dead-to-the-world sleep, and Abbey was too."

"Do you think we should go check on them?" Kate asked.

"No, I don't think so. Edward will have surely done that by now, and I'm sure Ruby will be home soon. She and David are both early risers," Robert replied.

David made sure the place was secure when they got back, and he made a pot of fresh coffee, feeling that he would enjoy it and probably Angus would need it. He didn't see Abbey, but he saw the door was open between the two houses. David went over and looked through the doorway to see that Abbey and Edward were sitting at the table and they were working on a very basic jigsaw puzzle. Edward was helping Abbey to learn to observe and focus on her shapes, and she seemed to be learning quite a lot.

"Ah, so you're back," Edward said. "I take it all is well?"

"It is," David replied. "I was looking for Abbey since she isn't with Angus."

"We decided to let him sleep in. Simone is baking some cherry almond scones, so they'll be ready shortly. We'll bring some over."

"Sounds marvelous," David said.

"Sanks," Abbey said to Ruby. "Gram Cece maked 'nana nut eggy bread. It was yummy yummy."

"I had a loaf of banana nut bread that I needed to use," Simone said, "so I made a breakfast bread pudding with it, and just to be a little different, I took some applesauce, added some cinnamon and sugar and some chopped pecans and heated it up and used it on the top instead of syrup. I am surprised by how much this little one can pack away when she's hungry. Good gracious that child can eat."

"She had four slices of that eggy bread," Edward laughed, "and she ate every crumb."

"They should be out of the oven in another two or three minutes," Simone said. "I made extra large ones because when I used to make these, people were taking one and coming back and whacking another in half. So I just decided to make them in a much larger size. And, yes, I have a cherry almond glaze for on top as soon as they're cool."

"Papa Ed says we gots to fix the garden. Said the doggies tore'd it all up last night," Abbey told Ruby.

"They did do some significant damage out in our little garden. I haven't checked the kitchen garden at the main house, but I doubt it fared much better," Edward said. "I think that's where Simone and I might need to be most of the day."

"Papa Ed says I can help," Abbey nodded.

"I told her they chucked a lot of rocks in there, and she would be a huge help if she would pick out the rocks and get rid of them. If she makes a nice pile of them, maybe we can use them for something else later. I really don't think that anyone was hurt, but I haven't talked to Robert yet. The only thing I know for certain is that Robert was hit with a fireball and his shoulder was burned, but that really is not a big deal. We did not lose any of our men, not that I know of, but Gelding did 'permanently' lose some of his thugs." He did not want to specifically say that some of Gelding's men were killed in front of Abbey.

"They deaded," Abbey nodded. Edward look at Abbey and shook his head, laughing.

"So much for trying to protect little ears," Edward said.

"Aggie gotted three all by himself," Abbey said. "I can count to twelve, so I know."

"Of course," Edward said. "The more the merrier. There's more than enough work for all of us for a few days. I probably am going to have to replace quite a lot of the plants but it is still early enough in the season that I could do that without a lot of trouble. The ones that I have in my garden in Tuscany, I might go and get one from there to transplant here. That could save us quite a lot of money, actually. And Simone could do the same thing from her house in the Cotswolds that she is renting out. The lady that she's renting to would not have any trouble with that."

"Of course you can have the recipe," Simone said, taking the scones out of the oven. She had two full baking trays, and both trays were loaded with scones with just only a smidgen of room between the scones. "Oh, good. They didn't spread into one another." Edward looked at her tray.

"How did you do that without a microscope?" Edward teased. "There isn't five millimeters between them."

"Actually, I guessed," she shrugged, flicking her fingers to cast a wandless cooling spell at the tray. She picked up a cup with the cherry almond glaze and a fork, deciding to use the fork to drizzle the icing off the tines of the fork. "This won't take half a tick," she said. They heard a sudden pounding sound, and Edward turned to see Abbey was trying to pound a puzzle piece into a spot where, clearly, it wasn't meant to go.

"If you can make it fit that way, you let me know," Edward told Abbey, laughing.

"You can get much finer lines if you use a fork, dip it into the icing, and then just flick it over the pastry," Simone said.

"Well, I'm telling you the garden behind the duplex is in sad shape," Edward said. "I think of it as one garden, I guess."

"Oh, sometimes he's worse," Simone laughed. "There. That does it. Now, you lot can tie into them now or just give them a moment for the icing to set up."

"I'll have mine warm and gooey and now," Edward said, taking one off the tray and then refilling his tea mug. He took a table knife and cut what he believed was an Abbey sized piece from his and put it on a saucer with a fork and gave it to her. "There. Now, try that. Do you want some more of Gam Cece's cinnamon tea?" Abbey nodded. Simone got a child's size mug out and put some tea in it with plenty of milk and sugar and set it in front of Abbey.

"She saw us drinking tea this morning and asked if she could have some. So we gave her some in her little cup, and she likes it," Simone said to Ruby.

"I would too if I had a little tea in my milk and sugar," Edward teased.

"You know full well its an acquired taste," Simone said. "I think it's very adventurous of her to be willing to try it at just three years old." Simone walked over to the table and looked at the puzzle piece. "Abbey, does that piece really look like the same shape as the hole is?"

"But it's yellow, and I need a yellow piece," Abbey protested, frustrated.

"Look at all your pieces. There's a piece left in the box that you haven't gotten out."

"I putted it back," Abbey said.

"Why?"

"It no fit no place. It gotta be an extra one," Abbey said. Simone tried hard not to laugh. She kissed Abbey on the cheek. "Try it again, Sweet Pea," she said gently. "Turn it right side up and try again."

"

"This is her first tea ever," Edward said, "so I saw no harm in letting her have some extra sugar. Simone saw no harm in a bit more." He laughed. "No, he certainly won't sleep all day. He rarely sleeps more than five hours at a time at the most, even when he's completely knackered. Go tuck into your scone while Abbey pummels that puzzle."

Edward went next door, and he deliberately woke Angus.

"Look lively, Boy," Edward told him. "Day's a wasting while you're lollygagging around. Besides, Ruby's worried about you. Go hit the shower, shave off the peach fuzz and get out of last night's filthy clothes."

"I haven't had peach fuzz on my face since I was about twelve," Angus scowled.

"Yes, well it was closer to fourteen before it stopped being peach fuzz but who's counting?" Edward said. "Looks like David made coffee over here, and Simone made scones over at our place."

"What is that hammering sound?" Angus frowned.

"Abbey is wreaking havoc on a jigsaw puzzle," Edward said. "She's at our place."

"Oh. Thanks. I'll be over in a bit," Angus sighed. "Give me a bit before I have to face any more humanoids this morning."

"Understood," Edward said, as Angus got up reluctantly from his chair and headed upstairs to shower and shave. Edward sent a message through Angus's floo to Evan, asking what the weather was there at the estate today, and Evan sent a three word reply. It read, "Glorious! Come ahead! E."

Edward went back to his place.

"I sent a word to Evan. He says the weather back home is, in his words, 'glorious.' Perhaps we should go there this morning and take our pick of the plants and then com back and start trying to remedy the damage. What do you two think?"

"Can we eats basketti, Papa Ed?" Abbey asked pounding now as hard as she could on the puzzle piece.

"We can eat 'basketti, if you really want some, but Angus makes very fine spaghetti, remember?" Edward laughed. "I'm sure if you ask him, he'll make some today for us."

"I admit, I'm responsible for that. I found a children's book about some different countries and what they're famous for, and on the child's map of Italy it showed a cartoon drawing of a plate of spaghetti," Simone said. "Now she thinks the spaghetti there is going to be completely different than what Angus makes."