1.  A Storm In The Night

2.  A Storm In The Morning

3.  Sunshine

Mighty thunderstorm in the night. Great big crashing cracks of thunder, sudden bright-as-daylight flashes of lightning. No Von Trapp children skidded into bed with me. I peeked in the bedrooms to check on Son 1 aged 4y 9m and Son 2 aged 21m, tiptoeing carefully, not making a peep with the doors. KER-RACK BOOM. Someone lifted up the roof of the house and let it slam back down again. The children didn’t stir. The storm went on and on. The rain drummed down. i had to close the windows, open against the stultifying heat, to stop us all being washed away.  The storm passed. I went to sleep. Son 1 arrived, at 4am. I took him back to his bed.

Son 1 insisted on taking his Dinosaur Bone to Nursery.  “Ok,” I said. “For a start Miss Lovely won’t let you have it. It’s too big. If she does let you have it, you will hear people all day long telling you it’s not a dinosaur bone, it’s a twig - ” ” - It’s NOT a twig. You can smash it on anything and it doesn’t break. It’s a bone, a leg bone -” “- and when you tell them that they will try and break it and they will succeed. It will be smashed to smithereens. And Mummy will be right and you will be wrong.” “I don’t want to listen to you anymore.”

The Dinosaur Bone went in the car boot. “It stays there. We will ask Miss Lovely if you can bring it in.” Son 1 wouldn’t even come in while I checked. “We have an issue. Son 1 found a Dinosaur Bone on the beach. Son 1 has always wanted to find a Dinosaur Bone. I have said it is Too Big For Nursery. I have said everyone here will say it is a stick, because it looks like a very ornate stick which has been worn down by the sea.   I have said it will get broken. ” A small, expectant face had appeared at my elbow, gazing up at Miss Lovely. ”I’d love to see it,” she said.  Back to the car I trogged. Back to the Nursery. “Oh that looks like a bone from a very scarey dinosaur.” “It’s a leg bone,” said Son 1, his eyes shining. “I can see that. Do you think it’s from a Tyrannosaurus Rex?” “Yes!”

I was back from The Office Very Late. Son 1 was just about in bed. “How was the bone?” “All right. No-one said it was a twig.”    Traitors.