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Whitby home swap: Jack and 'the stone museum'
"Following a rather disappointing year in 2020 we have had some excellent home swap holidays in 2021. We have been to Derbyshire, Suffolk, Kent, and Devon. All very successful home exchanges ...and the year is not over yet!
At the beginning of the holidays we had 5 year old Jack and his sister with their mum and dad swap to our home in Whitby. Jack's mum is actually the daughter of our neighbour, both she and her partner are hospital doctors and so have been extremely busy due to Covid. They loved their stay in Whitby and, at the end of the swap, dropped our key through the letter box along with a lovely “Thank You” card.
Weeks later we went away, swapping our house with a couple from Devon. On our return we were baffled to find a plastic bag of "stones" had been posted through our letter box. There was a note from Jack’s mum. Weeks after their home swap in our home, she had looked in his toy bag and found what he said were just some stones he had found on the ground.
We have tradition at the Whitby house of when you find an interesting stone or fossil on the beach you put it in "the stone museum" on the veranda. Kids love to look and play with them, especially the fossils. What we had not noticed was that the museum was very diminished in size after Jack’s visit.
Jack's mum realised what he had done and gave him a little telling off about "taking things that belong to other people". Part of the punishment was that he would have to return them to us... hence the bag through our letter box! We felt sorry for Jack and we would have happily let him keep them. However it was felt that was not an option as the lesson must be learned!
We wanted this story to have a happy ending and so, after a suitable amount of time had passed, we went round to Jack’s house with a little gift.
"Hello Jack. We have been talking to your Gran nextdoor to us and she said that you are interested in stones and fossils? When we last went on the beach we found these and we thought you might like to have them."
He was delighted! Especially when he realised how similar they were to ones he had taken from 'the stone museum'."
- Nick & Belinda
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