On the home front (I)

Before we moved from the small apartment, I wondered if maybe we would feel a bit lost in the big house, not being able to hear each other if we were in different rooms. I also wondered how I would maintain my supermummy ability of knowing exactly what my kids were up to all of the time.

I needn't have worried - the atrium does a very fine job of transmitting sound around the house. If the room windows are open, any sound made in one room bounces off the atrium walls into every other room, so you can hear what's going on as if it were happening right next to you.

This can be a bit disconcerting sometimes. We'll call out to find each other, but the answering I'm here! sounds like it was said a few centimetres away, no matter which room or what floor it came from.

And then today while I was on the toilet, I suddenly I heard the au pair and Téo speaking loudly just outside the door. Not wishing J to hear me going about my business I hung on... and then saw the bathroom window was open. Realising they were actually elsewhere in the house, I carried on... and then had the awful thought that if I could hear them like they were next to me, could they hear me like I was next to them??

C and I need to urgently do some sound checks.