1.  Ghost Busting

2.  Crowd Spotting

3.  Crab Grabbing

I’m keen to watch Wall-E, which had fab reviews. Son 1 aged 4y 10m and Son 2 aged 23m have had it a week now. They’ve seen it, The Man’s seen it, Nanna’s seen it.  This morning I sat down to watch it with the boys. Son 2 stuck it for about half an hour and then started drifting about. He posted coloured craft lolly sticks and crayons through the hole in the side of Son 1’s bass drum.  He spread small Playmobil pirate pieces all over the floor. He climbed the sofa, the Man’s chair and my chair. To the top, scaling the summit of the seat backs.  “All right,” I said “I’ll get going and have my shower.”  Son 1 tried to persuade me to stay. “You haven’t seen the ghosts yet.” “I can watch them next time.” “Do you know what you need if you see a ghost?  A magnet. Did you know that?” “No, I didn’t know that.”  Son 1 nodded. “And it has to be a strong one.”  I can only assume this is something to do with Scooby Doo.

We took the boys out. To the library to change their books, and then down to a cafe to give them chips for lunch. We picked up Glamorous Young Friend, who we’ve not seen for a while.  She’d been in The Town working on her fancy dress outfit for the Festival finale. We sat outside at the front of the cafe so we could people spot. We usually sit in a great big area at the back, usually empty, where small children have no impact on other people. The change was enough to send Son 1spiralling off into orbit. He was awful. He knew the cafe, he knew where he sat.  “Oh come on Son 1, sit here, watch the people and let’s see who’s the first to see someone we know.” It was me. Thank God our friends and his little 3 year old friend headed past. They joined us. “Rude not to,” said the Dad. Little 3 year old is so delighted because Son 2 says his name. 

We bought crabbing lines at the Discount Store, and went down to the riverside at the end of The Terrace.  We’ve had various comedy fishing trips on The Boat: “Omelette again, Mother,” and we’ve had the odd successful crabbing session on assorted quays and jetties up and down the river.  This afternoon though it was like we’d Cast Our Nets On The Other Side. The crabs almost jumped out of the water into our buckets.  Little 3 year old’s Mum was the champ - she caught a whopper.  Which did in fact jump out of our bucket into the water.  Son 1 was leaping around with excitement, barking orders, spotting crabs, tugging at lines. Little 3 year old was casting bacon with a fishing rod. Son 2 was sliding around on the slippery green river wall trying to be Big. I caught a few tiny shrimp with him and put them in a bucket so he could look at fish. The Man caught a couple of huge shrimp, which he put in our bucket. I’m pretty sure his shrimp ate our shrimps. It’s a crab-eat-crab world.  It was brilliant, but Son 2 was very hard to handle.  He wanted to lean into the water, he wanted to grab the bait hooks, he skidded and stumbled on sea weed and limpets, he wanted to carry the buckets. He wanted to catch something himself.  With a score of well over 15 crabs, not including our escapee, and two shrimps I declared for tea.  “Can we go fishing again tomorrow?” asked Son 1, as I got tea ready. I said we could. “Can we got straight after breakfast?” I said we could. I have a feeling tomorrow’s may turn into our earliest family breakfast since December 25.

1.  Red Blooded Male

2.  Mummy’s Boy

3.  Big Brother

Son 1 aged 4y 9m came screaming up the stairs at 0030.  “Mummeee. I’ve got a nose bleed.”  Blood everywhere.  All over his face, his chin, his pyjama top.  “Oklemmeclearitup…”  He flopped down on the Big Bed, a great slimey smudge of blood all over our White Company duvet cover.  The Man said nothing, and padded off downstairs like a sleepwalking bear.  Son 1 snugged up against me and passed out instantly, leaving a red slug trail across the pillow, and a blazing poppy-like stain on my silk TK Maxx nightie.

We were unambitious today.  The boys were knackered… Son 1 could not behave.  Son 2 aged 22m played in the garden in his swimsuit and then pulled at it, and came and cuddled me. ”Would you like to go to bed with Mummy?” “Yes.”   He didn’t want his sleeping bag, he wanted to sleep in the Double Bed, under the quilt, in just his pyjamas. We had a heavenly cuddle. Sometimes there are lovely advantages in the way it takes Son 2 forever to go to sleep. When he’d dropped off, I sorted out the bloody carnage that was Son 1’s bed.   A blood-soaked tissue taken from the box on the side of his bed gave me a pang.  The little treasure had tried to sort himself out before coming upstairs wailing.   

I walked Son 1 to The Discount Store, and he complained all the way, the little lardy lump. He wanted a carry, he wanted the Big Pram, his legs hurt.  Later in the afternoon we all went through The Town, Son 2 on the reins “Walk! Walk!” and Son 1 in The Big Pram. It Happens To All Mothers, I told myself.  A wail from Son 1. He’d been playing with a Gormiti and dropped it down a drain without a cover. The Man fished it out.  When we got back there was a text from one of the supper party couples.  Out having drinks by the Waterside.  ”Are they cooking?” I texted back. “No but they are pouring.”  Invitations cannot be turned down.  Bad Manners.

1.  Outbreak

2.  Outside

3.  Outcast

Son 2 aged 19m has had a pimple on his chest for the last four days.  A red, acne-style beacon, sitting there, shining, glowing. “If there were any more of those, I’d think he had chickenpox” I’d vaguely thought.  Son 2 has had odd spots before, none of which have turned out to be anything other than odd spots.  Yesterday, Son 2 was scratching behind his ear like a flea-bitten dog.  This morning, Son 2 had: spots behind his ears, spots in his ears, spots on his chest, spots on his head, spots on his back, spots on his upper arms, spots on his baby thighs and a big, horrid one right on his willy.    I texted Wonder Nanny, to tell her that the person with the NNEB training was in charge of putting calamine lotion on the wrigglest child in the world.  She rang back. On Friday, with still, just that lone blister, she’d stripped him naked and checked him all over, so sure was she then that he had chickenpox.

Son 2 slept.  We got the paddling pool out.   Son 1 aged 4yr 7m checked with Next Door to see if they’d managed to borrow a pump. Nope. But Next Door did know how to get into a coconut, so Son 1 scampered round, and sat out in the yard with Next Door Neighbour and a hammer.  They smashed it.  He brought it round our side, testing it. “I don’t like it. It’s like the milk.”  He went inside, I stayed outside to try to blow the pool up.  I managed, but it’s already got a hole in it.  From where i folded it.  After 15 minutes I went back into the house.  It was strangely quiet.  “Son 1!”  No answer.  “Son 1! Where are you?”  “Mummy I’m here,” came a strange, faraway voice.  Upstairs?  I went to the bottom of the first floor stairs. “Mummy!  Mummy!”  He sounded scared, which made me scared. “Where are you!”  “Out here!”  I peered downstairs.  A littleface peered in at the front door.  He’d gone out the front door and shut it. ”How long have you been out there?”  “Fifty years.”  Stuck.  Which, coincidentally, is a word Son 2 has started using only today.   Falling between the legs of the upturned toddler chair.  “Stug!  Stug!” 

After lunch, we went down to the Discount Store in search of a puncture repair kit. Stopping off for Nappies.  The Discount Store had sold out.  We headed back, past The Church, where it was Family Tea Time service day.  ”We can’t go,” I told Son 1. “Son 2 will give the other children chickenpox.” “I want to go,” said Son 1.  He scampered up the steps while I battled with the shopping and The Big Pram.  The Vicar and His Wife came out. “It’s good to see you. We don’t know how many others there’ll be.” Code for: No-one Else Is Here. As we went in, a few more families headed in through each door.  Enough for it not to be embarrassing.  The theme was Fish.  Right up Son 2’s alley.  Son 1 fished for magnetic fish in a (puncture free) paddling pool.  Son 2 made Hand Fish.  I drew round his hand, cut it out and then he earnestly squidged gold glitter paint on it.  Then we did Casting Your Net Over The Other Side.  And then tea. Fish Fingers.   Son 2 tipped a beaker of squash down his front, soaking his jumper and vest.  ”Oh dear,” said the Vicar’s Wife.  “Have you got any other clothes with you?”  “Just his coat,” I said. “I’ll change him when I do his nappy.”  “Oh you can change him here, no one will mind,” she said.  They will if they see The Plague Of The Boils, I thought, and retreated to the privacy of the tiny loo.

1.  On The Rocks

2.  Tell Tales

3.  Anchor Rope

We woke up to a wild wind. Down the chimney, against the windows, blasting in through the letter box.  I opened the blind in the Big Bedroom to see the tide at its highest, white horses rolling across the river, heaving waves crashing into the riverbank walls and spray punching up over the top.   Boats come off their moorings when it’s like this, I thought, my eyes following the path of the white horses.  And down below, by the dinghy park, was a little fishing boat getting smashed up on the rocks and jetty.   Son 1 aged 4y 4m and The Man came to watch.  Son 2 aged 16m could see over the bottom of the window by standing on my huge pile of ironing.  We considered Doing Something.  The Harbour Master doesn’t work on Sundays.  Coastguard?  “They won’t do anything till the tide goes out,” said The Man.  He and Son 1 settle down to watch telly.  Son 2 and I went downstairs to read.  A few books in and ”Here comes the rescue!” I cried, as a launch chugged in.  Up we all went again.  Son 2 was brilliant.  Straight for the ironing pile, pulling himself up with his two little fists gripping the sill… hanging on so he could see.  The Man wasn’t sure the launch should try it.  Depth/rocks/current/cold/wind issues.  But one man reversed it, the other popped a rope on the stern and they hauled it off, dented and holed, woodwork in shards, mast broken and its gear splayed out like mangled ice hockey goals.  From up top we could see the Inshore Lifeboat pelting across the river. “Someone must have called it in,” I said. “Nah, they train on Sundays,” said The Man.  The rib zoomed in but the launchmen gestured they didn’t need help, and off it went again.  The wind howled.  In the garden the shed roofing felt flapped like sheets on a washing line.

We needed a trip to the Discount Store to get stuff to mend the shed roof.  The boys played in the lounge while The Man got ready.  Son 1 was playing pirates, Son 2 was sitting in the window seat sorting out chokeable Peter Pan pieces.  I’ll have a look at the paper, I thought.  Sunday Times.  Front page.  Having more than 2 children destroys the planet.  Review section. All children are destined to be pyscho killers because parents work and are too selfish.  I put the paper away, and went to talk to Son 2.   If I stop getting The Sunday Times I can have an extra two trips to the hairdresser a year.   

Freezing cold out, so we stopped at The Square and had coffee and biscuits.  Back home the boys stood on chairs at the sink and helped with the vegetables.  Son 1 made a pretty good job of scrubbing the carrots, parsnips, potatoes and swede.  “See Mummy, it’s perfect!”  Yes it was.  No mud on the veg.  But mud in the sink, around the sink, on the walls, on Son 1 and on Son 2,  on the microwave, and the floor was flooded.  Who cares.  Not us.  Son 2 played with the carrot peel and plopped the veg back in the sink one by one.  They went upstairs to play.  I peeled salsify, feeling guilty that I wasn’t going with them for quality time.  So everyone.  Make your mind up.  I can play with them and they can eat Turkey Twizzlers, or I can cook organic veg from the local box scheme and we can have a sit down meal together.  Whaddya want.  The other salsify paradox is how you’re supposed to cook it.  I roasted it with the root veg.  Nope.  Like chewing the sort of mooring rope that wouldn’t have broken in last night’s storm.