1.  Them

2.  Vertigo

3.  True Grit

It was Early.  “Mummmeee.  Mummmmeee.”  Son 2 aged 22m. Standing in his cot.  “Boo.” He stunk. Son 1 aged 4y 10m slid out of bed as I picked up Son 2, and followed us into the Double Bedroom.  I lay Son 2 down on the Double Bed and got in. ”That gap is just the right size for me,” pronounced Son 1, squeezing himself between me and Son 2. They buzzed me like gnats.  I took Son 2 out of his sleeping bag; he wriggled off the bed and wandered off. He came back.  Son 1 went to get some toys.  He came back. The Man snored upstairs in The Big Bed. I tried sending them to see him. They came back. I went to the loo. They followed me.  I got up, and changed Son 2’s nappy.    

We are trying to make our five-level, up a cliff, concreted back garden a bit more child-friendly.  It’s lethal at the moment, blessed as we are with the vigorous, fearless and clueless climber that is Son 2. We have a patio table separated from a 20 foot drop onto a concrete yard by a rickety fence. We have flight upon flight of open concrete steps. We have loose flagging. We have rotten trellises. We have gravel, we have crumbling terrace walls. Low maintenance and perfect for the hugely-busy, child-free mostly-out couple we were when we moved here.  The Man pulled out weeds and woody clematis; I tried to keep the boys safe. Every time The Man put the secateurs down, they had them. I tried to clear the debris away from the concrete steps to make them safer; the boys followed me and tried to help.  Left to their own devices they made a snail fizz by banging on its shell with their trowels.     We marched them into the Town.

We went to a children’s craft session at The Art Gallery.  Our Neighbour The Dancer from down the Terrace greeted us. She is a volunteer, we discovered. And an artist. Two of her decorated fairground-style horses had prime exhibition space. The boys made felt hoodies. Cut out, stick on, pipe cleaners, animal prints, stickers.  Son 2 and I made a pig, but he wouldn’t wear it. Son 1 wouldn’t let me suggest what his was. It was like Boo’s monster costume in Monsters Inc. “Hers is purple,” said Son 1. His was blue. Back home we had tea on the patio. Sausage, potatoes and peas.  Further up the cliff, houses back on to us.  There is a bungalow where an ancient man used to live. When he died about five years ago it became a squat.  As we ate, the sound of loud drumming blasted across the air. “When are you going to stop?” shouted Son 1. “We are having our tea outside!  My Mummy is sitting down and having five minutes peace!  This is too loud!”  The Man and I sipped our Sauvignon Blanc.  We made a half-hearted effort to shush him. Next door but one got his lawn mower out underneath them. “When are you going to stop!”  bellowed Son 1. The drumming stopped.

1. Abstract

2. Beachscapes

3. Still Life

Charging out of the house to The Rockpool Beach to see the Wednesday Friends.  Well, that was the idea.  Son 1 aged 4y 7m was watching telly, I was making a picnic and Son 2 aged 19m was in his highchair eating his pancake.  He started to cry. And cling. And flop.  ”Son 2, would you like to go to bed?”  He nodded vigorously.   Son 2 never wants to sleep when I am around.  We lay down on the bed together.  Little arms round my neck.  A face wedged against my cheek. Fists in my hair. Adorable. When he was finally asleep, I went back downstairs.  Son 1, who at 7am had polished off half a can of rice pudding, was in the kitchen demanding a pancake.  I warmed up Son 2’s and gave that to him with a maple syrup dip.  It vanished.  “Can I paint my trains?”  Thomas Wooden Railway paint-your-own carriages.  A TK Maxx find.  We got out the trains and the red, yellow and blue paint.  He mixed red and blue to make purple. ”It works!”  And then blue and yellow for green, and red and yellow for orange.  “Does it always make green when you  mix blue and yellow?”  “Yes.”  “Why?”  “It’s to do with the range of frequencies of reflected light in the visible part of the spectrum darling.” “What, Mummy?” ”I don’t know, it just does.”  He mixed and stared, fascinated and delighted as his new colours emerged.   ”It’s very clever.”  He’s right. It is.  And the purple, green and orange Wooden Trains look great too.

Son 1’s new wetsuit fits, and he likes it. Key moment in life.  The Day He Wore A Wetsuit To The Beach for the first time.  It was much colder than I expected, so I put Son 2 in his swimming costume wetsuit and a sunsuit.  Son 1 ran off with Best Friend, his brother and the Three Year Old Friend.  Son 2 clung but got progressively more bold and wandered off to play in rockpools.  I followed him, knowing Son 1 would soon materialise.  The pack of boys leapt from rock to rock.  The Lady From The Beach Cafe came down with her camera and some photos. Unexpectedly, she is also an artist, and the photos were pictures of her work. Beach scenes with little figures in them.  Could she take pictures of the children to use when she does her beach scenes?  She finds it hard these days asking people.  We have known the Lady From the Beach Cafe for nearly four years. She works seven days a week from Spring till Autumn.  We knew she has Adventures in winter, but we didn’t know she was a trained and talented artist.  We said yes.  “I can’t do any painting till October.  And I’ll probably make it a sunny day.  And put them with different parents.” “Why, aren’t we photogenic enough?” I asked. 

Son 1 and Best Friend shrieked. They were standing on a rock and the incoming tide had cut them off.  Best Friend’s mother went to rescue them.  Best Friend couldn’t have got through the ten inches of water without soaking his trousers.  Son 1 could have waded through but wouldn’t.  And wouldn’t go to Best Friend’s Mum.  Wanted me.  So Son 2 and I tottered over to help him across.  The tide raced in at an almost menacing rate, and we moved up the beach several times. Eventually we decamped to the lower promenade, where Son 2 tried stealing all the Beach Cafe’s Toys For Sale. To distract him from the Lady’s large beach ball, I fished in the beach bag for ours, an ancient CBeebies comic freebie. I turned back and he was hanging over the edge of the 15 foot drop to the beach below, trying to throw stones down.  “Ball!” he said, tottering back for it.  War ensued as the bigger children removed it from him. Back home they watched Boogie Beebies while I made cauliflower and pasta in cheese sauce with leek, onion and garlic. We had veg box asparagus with it.  Wolfed.  “More,” commanded Son 2.  Son 1 ate his cauli cheese and had seconds of asparagus.  I felt like A Good Mother.