1.  Watching The Clock

2.  Losing The Way

3.  Finding The Time

I always try never to wish my boys’ childhoods away, but when they are grown I will not miss day after day after day of mad, face-heating, lip-biting, traffic-cursing, watch-glancing panic trying to get Son 1 aged 4y 8m out of Daycare/Nursery/Tea Club by closing.    He was sitting on a  little plastic chair, knock-kneed, clutching his schoolbag, his swimming bag and his blazer, watching telly while a couple of teachers stood chatting in their coats.  However. He had a big Well Done sticker on his jumper, and a certificate proclaiming him “Star Of The Week.” For Being A Good Friend, A Good Worker and A Good Boy.

I’d bought him an ELC golf set at lunchtime, because he won both his races in his swimming gala yesterday.  25m butterfly and backstroke.   Oh all right then, they do half the pool, four at a time, on noodles helped by teachers. But he did win, and he of course has his present for Trying Hard rather than Being Clever.   The ELC was giving away balloons, so the backseat toy tally on the way home was two plastic golf clubs, two plastic balls and two green balloons.  Wonder Nanny was helping out her Other Family, looking after their boys while the parents were at a wedding.  I was driving to theirs to pick up Son 2 aged 20m.  I’ve never been, and had arranged to ring Wonder Nanny to get directions on our way over.  I fished in my bag for my phone.  Couldn’t find it. Stopped at a garage. Took the bag, the front seat, and the car to pieces.  No phone. In another panic, I slid the car seat back. There was a loud explosion and a wail from the back seat.  I’d reversed over an Early Learning Centre balloon.   

I drove all the way home. Rang Wonder Nanny from the house phone. Checked the house answer phone. Rang the mobile, no reply.  Went out to the double-parked car, where Son 1 had fallen asleep.   Rang the mobile.  Heard the mobile. Inside an envelope in my bag. Into car. Out to Other Family’s.  When Son 2 saw me he laughed and laughed and clapped his hands. That’s what I needed.  A round of applause just for turning up.  On the trip back, Son 1 spotted a playground, and from then on, all the way back whined and whinged to go there. I have bought a new childcare book. I used all its techniques at teatime, and although it went on forever, and although Son 1 had three lollies for pudding… it was a lot easier than normal and I didn’t need a glass of wine. 

Last night, desperate to get out to Book Club, I told Son 1 “I’m going now, but tomorrow, you can have as many books as you like, and I will read them all.”  Subtext. He’ll fall asleep in the third one. 12 books.  I didn’t get downstairs again till twenty to ten…

1.  Pool

2   Party 

3.  Playtime

Bloody paddling pool. When I got to bed, well after 12 last night, I thought “At least we can have a lie in tomorrow.”  0615.  Son 2 aged 19m wailing.  I ignored him.  He quietened.  A face appeared in mine. “Son 2’s awake.” “No-he-isn’t.-He-went-backtosleep.” Brightly: “Can we get up so I can look at that paddling pool?”  Son 1 aged 4y 7m and Son 2 pulled it out.  The box is size of a chessboard.  The deflated, folded-up pool is size of a parachute.    The Baby Was Born and could not be shoved back in.  One glance told me I couldn’t blow it up on my own. ”I think we’ll need a pump.  Next Door might have one. We’ll ask when they’re up.”  Son 1, still in his pyjamas, put his shoes on. ”I’ll go and see Next Door.” It wasn’t yet 7am. I blew a couple of inflatable toys up and they played with them.  “When can we put water in it?” “At Nanna’s.  Although you might not be able to go outside when we get there.   The forecast is for very heavy rain.”  “I don’t mind the rain,” said Son 1.

We went to a Nursery Fancy Dress party.  I had a good time and I think the children enjoyed themselves.  Son 1, who’s serene and unselfconscious about fancy dress and wanders round in pirate or Power Ranger gear when there is no occasion at all, refused to wear any of his costumes.  I didn’t question it.   A children’s entertainer, balloons and many many children.  The entertainer had apparently been doing children’s parties for 20 years.  Son 1 and Son 2 sat in for Pass The Parcel.  Son 2 got a lolly.  I could almost hear his brand-new teeth dissolving in the sugar as he crunched.  Their lunch consisted of:  the chocolate icing off the top of several fairy cakes, a chocolate biscuit.  Some iced biscuit rings.  Orange squash.   A dentist mother told me one day wouldn’t hurt, it was when it was spread over many many days that the damage happened.  I spoke to another mother who, it transpired, lives within a mile of us in The Town.   And she has A Girl!  Son 1’s new best friend,  I instantly decided.  As we walked back to the car: “Guess what, Son 1?  X lives very near to us!” “I don’t like X.”  “You probably don’t know her very well.  You can invite her to the house to get to know her better.”  “She’s not my friend.”  “Not yet, but - ” “I don’t like her.” “Why not?” “She’s a Gal.”

We got to Nanna’s via a Wednesday Friend to pick up their electric  pump. I stood outside Nanna’s house in the Arctic wind and lashing rain, pumping up the paddling pool from the cigarette lighter. Son 1 was beside himself with excitement.  They both went outside with it, we added water and stood back.  The sky was black with great heavy clouds rolling across without a break. It was very cold, very wet and very windy.  Son 2 burst into shivering tears and I took him inside.  Nanna had prepare a tea which was waiting in the kitchen.  Son 2 just pointed at it all and demanded to eat.  In the end we moved tea early, and they went back in the paddling pool after.  And then real, heavy, horrible rain came in. “Rain,” said Son 2, as it hammered against the windows. ”Rain.  Rain. Rain.”  After they’d gone to sleep I had to go out to the car in a cold monsoon and gather up the damp, half-deflated paddling pool, and a couple of bags I’d left.  within two trips I was soaked and freezing.  “Rain,” I thought. “Rain, rain, rain.”

1.  Words

2.  Pictures

3.  Action

I woke at 4am and couldn’t go back to sleep.  At 5am I went downstairs with Vikram Seth’s Two Lives.  A Wednesday Mother is running her book club this month and we are all reading it so we can go along.  A Suitable Boy defeated me.  I can’t remember why, especially as I’m really enjoying this one.  And I’m usually good at persevering.  I think the only other one I abandoned, bored, baffled and bewildered, was Ulysses.  One miserable summer when I decided I would only read mind-enriching work.  I escaped into  Harlan Coben and wouldn’t come out for months afterwards.   The Man came down at 0530, and then decided he’d have another go at going back to sleep.  And next thing I heard from upstairs was the shower running. 

Son 1 aged 4y 6m wet the bed and Son 2 aged 18m did a mighty poo that went through his pyjamas.  The Man showered Son 1 and stripped the bed while I pressure-washed Son 2.  Into the bath together.  Two shiny wet faces, looking up smiling. They’re grrrreat.  Our morning routine destroyed, we ended up in the lounge.  Son 1 was pulling out the train track; Son 2 was pressing the button to make the DVD drawer come out and go back in again.  And removing the Sky card.  And taking the DVDs out and putting them somewhere.  Poor Cars.  We’ve only had it five days and it has been posted somewhere that only Son 2 knows about.

We went to a Family Fun Day at the local secondary school.  Loads of activities, all free.  Son 1 loved it. He skateboarded and ran round with Best Friend.  Son 2 was harder.  I spent a lot of time trying to catch up the others with the Big Pram in a school riddled with stairs. And then packed it up in the car and carried him.  Son 1 was playing on the skateboards, but Son 2 just wanted to run around.  In an area where 10 year olds on BMXs were swooping back and forth between ramps.  He was tired, strong-willed, deeply interested, not old enough and more than I could manage.  We went inside.  Son 1 waited for half an hour for a dinosaur balloon from the Balloon Man. And then we went outside and Son 2 ran around, picking daisies and crunching up fallen leaves.  The sun blazed down.  Son 1 stripped to his pants and played with Best Friend.  His Mother and I finally got to sit on the grass.  Until Son 2 spotted a gap between some classrooms and started his usual bid for freedom.  

I put Son 1 to bed, lying next to him.  And fell asleep.  The Man woke me when he went to bed at 11pm.  I still needed to work… and stopped at 1am.

1.  Sleeping In My Bed

2.  Banana Cake

3.  The Play Den

Midnight.  A stir in the air which means Son 1 aged 4y 4m is heading upstairs.  Son 2 aged 16m started roaring.  I sat up.  Son 1 crawled into bed behind me.  I waited to see if Son 2 would settle, but he wanted someone to come, and he was doing his shouting-so-angrily-you-can-hear-his-throat-strain thing. “Did you wake Son 2 up?” I asked Son 1. “No.” “Did you peek in his room at all?” “I didn’t go in his room.”  Son 2 was using everything he had, heels upwards, in his yelling.  I went downstairs to him.  The quilt of the bed in his room was turned back.  Son 1 had obviously got in the bed, snugged across unsuccessfully looking for a parent, padded away upstairs… and set his brother off.  By 0130 Son 2 was back in a deep sleep.  I plopped him in the cot, and went next door to sleep in Son 1’s bed.  I was freezing and needed an extra blanket.  Ah.  Son 1’s broken nights have coincided with this cold snap.  We are indeed Terrible Parents.

In the morning I told Son 1 that someone had, indeed, been into Son 2’s bedroom in the night and woken him up.  Son 1 laughed.  “It was me.”  Son 2 wanted food.  I took him downstairs while I made drinks and snacks.  He stood on dining chairs propped up by the worktops.  Direct line of sight to  the tub containing banana cake made by Wonder Nanny on Friday.  “Aahhh,” points Son 2.  I don’t think it’s possible to deflect Son 2 from a food mission once he’s got an idea in his head.  He ate two pieces.  And another piece for breakfast.

Son 1 had an invitation to a joint Nursery party at a Tourist Attraction 30 miles away.  The day was planned.  Son 2’s sleep.  Lunch. In the car and off we go.  Son 2, bunged up with banana cake,  wouldn’t eat an atom of lunch.     We walked into the Tourist Attraction. “You know Mummy, this isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” said Son 1, taking in the slides, the soft play, and the Big Uns’ playstuff.   Half the size of the Bird Park play area, with four times as many children.   He sat on the sides, swinging his legs, and trying to get me to ask his Nursery friends to play with him.   He got there in the end.  Son 2 loved it.  Ball pool, play with the air jets.  Slides.  Climbing over the Big Uns’ playstuff. 90 minutes of heaving Son 2 up and down, round and along… sometimes checking on Son 1, sometimes playing with him, and it was time for Party Tea.  I tried to get Son 2 to eat a ham sandwich.  He settled for a chocolate doughnut.  At last I could go and get a cappacino.  The coffee machine was out of order.  Twenty minutes later, an announcement.  The loos were also out of order.  Tea over, more play, and then we rounded up our balloons and headed home, listening to Peter Pan and (one of us) munching cake and eating lollipops all the way.

1. Beach Babies
2. He Be Bees
3. Oopsies
The Beach and The Garden. I asked Son 1 aged 4y 2m to keep Son 2 aged 15 out of the way while I took the Big Pram through the kitchen. He led him by the hand to the door. A little figure in a dark blue parkha, holding hands with a fat round anorak half his size, tottering ahead of the Pram. So sweet. Fantastic weather, blue skies, clear air, no wind, crisp and cold. Except on the beach, where Son 1 was running around in his sweatshirt and I took my jacket off. Son 2 walked a bit and played a bit, and then insisted on eating his way through the lunch box.

One of the Wednesday Mums has married in secret. At Halloween. I am absurdly pleased. Hardly anyone we know is married. although Wonder Nanny has just got engaged. Wednesday Mum says it was a necessity - like going for a smear. She asked the Registry Office if she and her partner could have a Civil Partnership, but apparently not. On the way back to the car there were about 20 bees on the flowering Hebes in front of a hotel. Honey Bees and Bumble Bees. Whoops there go the ice caps.

Back home Son 2 fell flat on his face. Nosebleed. Ibuprofen. I sat with the howling child on my knee, dose of ibuprofen in a hovering teaspoon, waiting for breath to be drawn so I could pop it in his mouth. A great globule of blood landed in the teaspoon, turning the cloudy white liquid red. Nice. I put Son 2 to bed and Son 1 and I watched Shrek 2. Then we played with the balloons we blew up for Wonder Nanny’s birthday. They were weasels. They had to be captured, fought, rounded up, thrown downstairs and chased. Son 1 barked orders; I obeyed. Nanna arrived. She too had to obey. I got Son 2 up. He burst a balloon with his toe nail. Mmmm. A little sign that Mummy’s been skiving one of her jobs again.

1.  Three Good Things

2.  Bright and Beautiful

3. Moonrise

Son 1 aged 4y 2m is on holiday.  Hooray, no early morning chargearound to get to Nursery.  Wonder Nanny’s birthday, and we’d got balloons and cakes to celebrate.  And a visitor from HQ at The Office, nice to see them, seemed to go well.  So I had Three Good Things… but it’s been a hard day.  Son 2, after his learning-to-walk triumph, tottering confidently here and there for a week or so, has started to fall over again, or plop down on his bottom.  He did it yesterday, he did it today.  Wonder Nanny has noticed it too.  It didn’t happen with Son 1 and I don’t like seeing him do it.  The Man wonders about an ear infection maybe affecting his balance.  I am hoping it’s just stuff babies do.

This afternoon was the funeral of a colleague.  In her early sixties, cancer.  Someone who smiled and laughed always, who adored her family and who helped others the whole time.  She was fantastic to Son 1.  A simple service, hundreds of people there.  I walked back with another colleague and we were in adolescent mood.  It was so unfair.  She would have made so much difference to so many people if she’d been given another twenty years, yet there are people who do get those twenty years who do nothing with them.   We decided she would want us to be positive, and cheered ourselves up.  And then we went to the Wake, where the pub was full of people chatting, and her poor broken-hearted husband who’d given up pretending not to cry.  It was still unfair.

After the children went to bed I posted some Christmas Cards, just to go for the walk.  On the way back, across the river, I saw a faint light on the horizon.  Oh good, I thought, a moon rise.  I’ll stay and watch it because it’ll be quick and it’ll make me feel better.  The smoky cloud was just at hilltop level, and light spread behind it.  Then I realised that the moon must have risen already behind the cloud, because there was only light diffusing over a wider area, with no sign of anything causing it.  And then a molten gold ingot appeared on the horizon.  Fiery, far brighter than before.   A round orange face inched over the hill, a part golden coin gradually appearing,  It was amazing.  The water was still, the cloud was in charcoal smudges across the brightening sky.  Within minutes the gold coin had separated from the horizon, and was slowly lifting off into the sky.  The higher it went, the whiter it became, its reflection shimmering on the still river.  A last message from my late colleague.

1.  Getting A Goal Back

2.  The Hall in the Squall

3.  A Lovely Boy

Grim, grisly, gruesome night.  I went to bed late and Son 2 aged 14 months woke howling at around 2am.  Around because I knew he was crying, but thought it was the morning and The Man would get him.  The Man snored by my side.  At 2.30am I snapped awake, looked at the clock and went down.  I think Son 2 is still suffering from the MMR - he’s still got his rash - so I gave him calpol and water, cuddled him, put the fan on and then did head-in-the-cot.  At 0310 I gave up.  Too tired and needed to go to bed.  I called The Man down, he got into bed with Son 2, I went upstairs to sleep.   One to Son 2.

Son 1 aged 4y 2m had a 4th birthday party - a child from Nursery - 20+ miles away on the other side of The Big Town.  We arrived at the Village Hall as a freezing squall blew in.  Two other families there, and no other cars.  In the (empty) hall, we compared notes.  I had the invitation in the car.  Back into the squall.  Son 2’s thin wisps looked Brylcreamed to his head.  We needed the Church Hall. Off we went, us in the front of the convoy.  Into the right Hall.  Say hello to Birthday Girl’s Dad.  There’s the changing bag, there’s the baby food bag.  Where’s the present?  Son 1 went in, Son 2 and I went back to the car.  Back at the Village Hall, there was a Mother, on foot, with small daughter, looking for the party.  I explained.  ”I thought it was strange,” she said.  “There was nobody here, but there was a present on the table with Birthday Girl’s name on it.”  The squall whipped our faces.  They got in my car.  Sand. Feathers. Pine cones. Leaves. Dried out baby wipes. Breadstick crumbs.  Two pairs of posh pointy shoes for The Office.  Hell.

Back at the party I took Son 2 to sit on the side, at the front, thinking he would enjoy the balloons.  There was a magician, with 15 small children sitting on the floor gazing up at him.  In the front row was Son 1, the only child in fancy dress. Captain Hook.  The Magician asked for a helper. Up shot Son 1’s hand.  Up he went.  He laughed, he giggled, he yes-ed, he no-ed, he laughed again, spellbound.  Back he went.  I watch him in profile for the rest of the act.  Face tilted up, eyes dancing, smiling, laughing, calling out.   “A lovely boy…” clad in a red tailcoat with lace at the sleeves, “but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth.”  That first teeth smile in profile, backlit from the windows high above him, was heaven.

1. One Year

2. The Event

3. Birthday Tea

Son 2’s first birthday.  The year has whizzed by.  The first three or four months in an up-all-hours washine-machine-non-stop blur of reflux… then two months of preparing to go back to The Office… then six months back at work.  Son 2 is a delight; determined, opinionated, joyful, adoring, and independent.  Almost mobile - he was tanking up and down the kitchen on the pushalong trolley today, solving all his falling-down problems and getting up again.   We gave him a little wooden music centre with an inbuilt drum, chimes, xylophone and other rattles, cymbals, scrapers and bells.  Son 1 aged 3 y 11m gave him a plastic ambulance.  Two books (from last night,) a crocodile castanet and a drum with clacky beads on it, and a little woooden tool kit. Son 1 could not help unwrapping the presents.  Wonder Nanny gave him a little remote control car - in the hope that his very own remote control might stop him from pinching ours all the time.

We went down to the Festival again.  Again, with Son 1 in his Captain Hook outfit.  We queued for 45 minutes for one of the attractions, and then were supposed to wait even more while they let a school party on.  I complained, and we were allowed on with the school party.  I had to bribe him to smile nicely for a picture.  Yes I know that’s the road to early death. The wind again was wild, which made everything cold and difficult.  Son 1 got quite into it, and then ran up and down the tarmac jumping in and out of puddles.  We gave Son 2 his lunch, and pushed the boys back, stopping off for balloons on the way back.

We had a birthday tea, the Wednesday friends, Nanna, Younger Sister,  Son 2’s Godmother and the Godmother’s son.  At 20 past 3 I remembered I hadn’t picked up the cake.  It was very good, little building blocks with the letters of Son 2’s name on it, icing, ribbons, writing.  Son 1 couldn’t keep his hands off it.  We had the candle moved and a little fingerprint scoop.  The Friends turned up on the dot of 4 o’clock, when Son 2 and I had barely finished making the Get Well Soon card for Nanna who’s got an angiogram tomorrow.  Which meant the carrots weren’t washed.  Which meant the only vegetable matter served was red pepper and grapes.  Son 2 had: an octopus bath toy; some Peter Rabbit books.  A singing robin.  A squirty bus. Some wooden diggers.  Six Fisher Price building blocks.  Some Nursery Rhyme finger puppets.   The Little Friends trashed the house and toys; the grown ups chatted, and occasionally wondered who was upstairs In Goal.  Champagne was drunk. Happy Birthday was sung.   The Cake was devoured.  Six building blocks, six small boys.  I put the one with Son 2’s initial and “1″  on his highchair tray and he had reduced it to its atomic components by the time I’d finished giving the other five out.  We lost the brother of the child we lost yesterday.  Only this time he’d shut himself in the loo and was just taking a very long time indeed to do his stuff.  Fathers arrived, had beer, ate cake.  It wasn’t a party of course, because there is a joint party a week on Saturday.  But it was an event.  Because Mummy wanted an event.

1.  Supertramp

2. Ice cream

3. An early night

We aimed at a slow day after yesterday’s epic.  Son 2 aged 10m played with the helium balloons.  Son 1 watched telly and played with his Scooby toys.  The Man and I got up slowly.  Son 2 was exhausted, and had his milk feed, played, did a couple of books, ate his breakfast, and then went back to sleep.  The Man proudly put the iPod in its stand.  Supertramp.  It really has been rather a while since we did anything about our CD collection.

He took Son 1 aged 3 y 10m off to look at The Boat, and they came back just after I’d finished giving Son 2 his lunch.  Son 1 had been promised an ice cream, so we all walked into The Town.  We were thinking dish of something additive free in a cafe that would sell me a nice coffee.  Son 1 wanted a Fab from the ice cream van.  We saw 2.5 and his family  in the cheapo toy shop.

By tea time both boys had had it.  Son 1 was off like a firework, Son 2 was loud and whingey. I did everything early so we could get them to bed earlier.  Son 1 was bouncing off the walls. He lay down naked on Son 2’s nappy mat to stop me putting Son 2 on it.  So I plonked Son 2 on Son 1’s bare tummy, and both of them giggled and giggled.   We got them down in the end.  I went for a run, then when I came back, The Man went off to work for the evening.

1.  Birthday presents

2.  Birthday tea

3.  The Parade

4.  Peter Pan

5.  Birthday meal

It’s The Man’s birthday. Son 1 aged 3 y 10m opened all the presents, Son 2 aged 10m scrunched and ate the paper.  Son 1 unwrapped an iPod and various add-on bits,  clearly having no idea what they were all for.  A bit like his parents.    Another part of The Man’s present was when I took both boys into town in heavy rain to buy snacks and drinks, so he could read his iPod instructions.  We bought bread-and-cheese-straws-and-grapes-and-ham-and-smoked-salmon-and-quiche-and-garlic-bread-and-juice-and-milk.  But then Son 2 wanted his lunch, so we had to start back.  Son 1, acted up at the idea of skipping the balloon shop - for him the entire point of the trip into The Town.  So, despite a laden pram and a loudly miaowing infant, we dripped into the balloon shop.  Son 1 chose a farming Happy Birthday balloon for him, and a Thomas the Tank Engine one for The Man.    The balloons were filled with helium, and then we started up the hill home.  It rained and rained.  By the time we got back, the balloons had so much water on them they were floating only hip high.

A two and a half year old, and his parents, and Friend aged Five, and his parents, invited round for cake and snacks.  My idea was the children would sit down and have an early tea ahead of The Parade, while the grown ups drank Buck’s Fizz.  The boys ran riot on floors 1 and 2, while the adults and Son 2 sat downstairs and ate the birthday tea and gossiped.  They returned only for the lighting of the 12 candles on the Caterpillar Cake.  Son 1 and 2.5 year old were being lobsters in The Parade - the startlingly good, funny and very realistic costumes made by 2.5’s mother.  We were all supposed to be meeting at 5.30pm in The Park.  But it rained, and rained and rained.  The mist rolled in over the river so we could barely see the water… it rolled out again.  “It’s clearing,” we all said. It rolled in again.  And then it bucketed down so hard the rain bounced 8 inches high back off the shed roof.

2.5 year old’s parents took Son 1 and me to The Park while The Man pushed Son 2 in the buggy.  It was still very wet.  We dressed the lobsters, and they looked fantastic.  We were walking in front of a giant octopus.  The 2.5 year old’s mum decided against wearing her limpet headdress - she thought it would come to pieces in the rain.  In front of us was a group of French revolutionaries, with pitchforks and guillotines.  Every so often during the parade they would stop and have someone’s head off.  Son 1 and the 2.5 year old were cheerfully shouting “Off off off off off” with the rest of them.  A kind revolutionary always positioned his fake barrel organ so they couldn’t quite see what was going on.  “Why are they waving those buns in the air?” asked Son 1.  Marie Antoinette.  With a plate of cakes on a bricklayer’s hod.      

The rain petered out, and the French Revolution stopped to cut off the head of someone in the crowd.   While we were waiting, five children plus grown up attendants stepped out from a shop porch  in front of us.  Wendy, Tinker Bell, Peter Pan, Tiger Lily, and, very small, and in an impeccable costume, Captain Hook.  How does that happen to me?  Son 1 has a lovely pirate captain’s outfit which he has already practised wearing for his Peter Pan birthday party. The only child in the land with a Peter Pan fixation, and behold! 5 perfect costumes sashay in front of us.    It started to rain again.  The Neverland team drifted off into another shop overhang and we were back with the revolutionaries.   Too late.  Son 1 had the poop-poop expression of Toad when he first sees a car.  “Mummy I want a Captain Hook outfit with long hair and a feather and a glass sword.”

Neverland aside, Son 1 made a great lobster.  Both of them were pointed at, waved to and aaaah-ed at.  He waved back like he was in a boy band, he splashed his tail and wellies in puddles.  He ran full pelt down the street to catch up the French Revolution when we had to wait for repairs to the Octopus.  He held out his collection bucket to everyone.  He blew his whistle in time to the Revolutionaries.  He danced to music from the barrell organ.   The costume-making genius and I had discussed how she could sell such outfits online.  After a cry of “Oh look at the little lobsters, I want one,” we realised we could sell the children too. 

Both lobsters were worn out and clingy by the end of The Parade, so we went straight home.  The Man and I just about got the boys to bed in time for the taxi to the restaurant where we were having his birthday meal. The other couple we were meeting were waiting for us, him in chatty NBF conversation with our ex-MP - unseated last time.  Great meal, good wine, a lot of fun, and a very nice evening.  The friends had bought me a birthday card.  Just a minor detail to get wrong.