1,  Stealth

2.  Sea King

3.  Merlin

I was very pleased to get to bed without Son 1 aged 4y 9m padding upstairs behind my heels, and glad also to get through the night without being wakened by a little pale visitor clambering into the Big Bed.  I woke to the usual siren sound of “Mummeee, Mummeee” from downstairs. And was eyeball to eyeball with a little pale visitor.  No idea when he turned up.  He obviously didn’t wake me when he got in, and I didn’t wake him when I got up. 

The Rockpool Beach was just a strip of sand with great rolling waves reaching well up it.  “It’s going out,” said the Wednesday Mums.  They weren’t staying, they each had other things to do. I decided we’d hang around and see how we got on. I put Son 2 in his sunsuit and plastered him in Factor 50.  How British. Yesterday it rained on me so hard I could barely breathe… this afternoon I was gazing out to sea wondering how could I could go for a dip with two children on land.  Son 1 went in the sea up to his hips in his trousers.  i yelled at him and got him in his sunsuit.  The tide pelts in on that beach, and it raced out.   The three of us played at the water’s edge.  We had some lunch. Son 1 wanted to go home - he’d got cold but wouldn’t let me change him.  I span it out.  We took him to the loo and on the way back looked in rockpools for cowries. We found two.  Three children came up to us to show us the crab they’d caught.  They wanted ice cream; the cafe was shut. Son 2 understood the drift of the conversation, and went nuts “Ice Deam! Ice Deam!”  Embarrassed, I told their mother :”His brother was organic and sugar-free till he was two, but his favourite words are sweets, choc-choc, ice deam, bik bik and cake.” “Wait for the third,” said the mother. ”She was three at the weekend, and we gave her a DS. ”

Son 1 clambered in the Big Pram, fidgeted around to get comfortable and tipped it over sideways onto some rocks. The Big Pram is as sturdy as a small tank.  Maybe I should admit he really is too big for it.   We cleared up and went up the cliff to the car. The Navy flew by, very low, in a helicopter. We waved. They waved back.  Very exciting. I have for years told Son 1 that we have to wave at helicopters because they are waving at us, and now I have been proved right.  Back home we got a space outside the house.  I put the children in, unloaded the car, put Finding Nemo on upstairs “Fish! Fish!” and Nanna came round.   I made tortilla for tea. Son 2 demolished his in minutes, Son 1 sucked the butter from his hot baguette and said he’d finished.

1.  Blood

2.  Sweat

3.  Tears

Son 1 aged 4y 9m woke drowsily last night at midnight when I went to give him a goodnight kiss, and then followed me up to the Big Bed.  This morning I woke up and gazed across at his cherubic sleeping features… his long eyelashes still on his cheeks… masses of dried blood in his nostrils and on his lip and chin… and a great, dried stain of blood circled out from his nose on the changed-on-Sunday  sheet. He clearly still had bloody snot/snotty blood up his nose just from the sound his breathing was making, but I had Son 2 aged 22m yelling “Mummeeee” from downstairs so I just left him.  Does anyone know anything about  nosebleeds?  I think I’ll give him one more before I take him to the doctor.

All did not go to plan today.  Massively tired after yesterday’s excursion.  The car was booked in for an MOT and service. I turned the house upside down looking for my driving licence for the courtesy car. In the end I rang the garage: “Oh just come over, we’ll ring the DVLA.”  I did though remember to take my running kit to The Office. I’ve been getting good at going out again, and I’ve been enjoying it, and I didn’t want to let my fitness drop while The Man is away. Which means running at lunchtime. So, at 1330, I changed into bras, tee-shirt, shorts, socks… and then realised I had two left running shoes.  One from my old pair - which I’d used in the garden at the weekend - and one from the new pair. 

I worked like the clappers all afternoon so I could finish in time to collect the car before the garage shut, and let Wonder Nanny go home at her normal time.  At just the right moment to go there was a torrential rainstorm. Great cracks of thunder, whiteout lightning, hoofing it down. I waited and waited and waited. The sky was black, the air was dark, the traffic had stopped and there was water pooling and swirling in the car park.  I went for it.  It was 200 yards to my car.  I could not have got more wet if someone had stood emptying skiploads of water over me.  I took off my three-inch heels in the car and tipped out the water on the ground outside.  The rain was bouncing off the puddles like ricocheting bullets.  My mac was soaked, my skirt was soaked, my shirt was soaked.  My hair looked like I’d just come up from a dive.  The storm passed as I drove to the garage. As soon as I got out of the car there was another downpour.  I am, I suppose, lucky in many other ways.