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.

1.  Gardening

2.  Dancing

3.  Running

Son 2 aged 15m slept till 8am.  A record.  Which we expect to stand a while as Son 1 aged 4y 3m is back in Nursery tomorrow.  Oh and we’re back at work. So we have to get up early.  We went out in the garden… The Man in and out of his sheds, us clearing up leaves.  Son 2 played on the ridealong car.  Son 1 got the noughts and crosses out.  He lay across squares to stop me putting my noughts on them… and then he ran off with all my pieces.   I took lots of pictures of the boys, and may have got one or two half decent ones.  We are rubbish at pictures.  There is still not a single picture of Son 2 up in the house.  And the pictures of Son 1 stop when he’s about 2, when we bought a digital camera.  New Year’s resolution.  I will make an effort and get some printed.   

After lunch we walked to the Discount Store at the other end of The Town.  Son 1 pestered for a Ben 10 annual. I said “no,” he melted down, I removed him from the shop.  We trudged back, him Very Unhappy Indeed.  In Tesco, Happy Feet was cheap, so I bought that and we watched it when we got back.  I went down to the kitchen with Son 2 to make a stir fry… after a bit The Man came down to fry some chicken.  From upstairs came the sound of an elephant stomping.  The ceiling shook and the plates rattled.  “What was that?” asked The Man.  “I think you’ll find it was a penguin practising his tap dance,” I said.  At bathtime we asked Son 1 if he’d been dancing like the penguin.  “Yes!” he said, casting off his towel. ”I’ll show you!”  We suggested he wait till tomorrow so he didn’t get Son 2 over-excited.

The wind has changed.  Definitely a Good Thing.  We ‘re usually pretty weather-proof and Do Outdoor Stuff in a hardy, British way through rain, hail or storm.  But the Easterly has beaten us back inside all week.  I went for a run and it was Northerly.  Still cold, but crisp and fun, instead of downright unpleasant.  Oddly, the wind is no longer blowing from the East, and Wonder Nanny will be back tomorrow.  She was supposed to be on holiday, but she was probably riding ponies through pavements somewhere.

1.  Never Land

2.  Creative Conflict

3.  A Whole New World

Son 2 aged 15m woke when The Man went up last night.  I couldn’t get him back to sleep.  Son 2 went in with The Man.  Son 1 aged 4y 3m woke screaming in the small hours I went downstairs and got in with him.  He still soothes himself by stroking my eyebrows and/or eyelashes when he’s tired, and I have to lie on my right side with my face towards him so he can reach them.    He slept, I dozed, until a whispered: “Mummy.  I need a poo.”  We read his new pop-up Peter Pan book till next door woke up.  The Man and I competed over who had had the worst night’s sleep.

The Man went shopping, I put Son 2 down for his nap and went up to where Son 1 was watching telly.  “Shall we paint your Power Rangers now?”  “No, I want to watch this.”  I got my paper.  “No.  No newspapers.  Watch telly with me.”  “Your telly is your fun, my paper is my fun.”  “Reading papers isn’t fun.  It’s stupid.”  We went downstairs and started to paint the Power Rangers.  Every time I mixed a colour for Son 1, he painted the plate we were using with it, rather than putting it on the Power Ranger.  After the third or fourth time of telling him, I started to get annoyed.  “Stop doing that. You’re wasting your paint and I just have to mix even more colour.”  He got cross with me for getting cross.  “Stop it.  You’re a grown up and I’m only a little boy and I don’t know.”  I was forgiven very soon.  “Mummy I don’t want to grow up.”  “Why not?”  “I want to stay with you forever.”   After our artistic differences and deep meaningful exchanges about our relationship, Son 2 woke up.  We had painted one Power Ranger blue, and the other… er… red.

I gave the boys lunch and let them have chocolate cake for pudding.  Hell unleashed.  Every atom in Son 1’s body zinged up and down, back and forth and round and round.  Son 2 juddered about shouting and falling down.  And they fought.  Stepping over the contents of the recycling box - Son 2 is enjoying putting lids on and taking them off milk bottles - the crayon pack from the bottom of the pram, and the bits of washing they’d dragged away from the laundry pile, I packed them up and took them out in the freezing Easterly.     Later we went down The Terrace to see some friends.  The Ones With Girls.  The house was tidy.  The toys were wooden.  Son 2 dived into the olives thinking they were grapes, spat one out, picked another, spat it out, picked another and then gave up and started stuffing them into my mouth.

1.   The Din In The Dark

2.   Sale Rails

3.  The Lunchtime Lull

Oh. What. A. Night.  The Man was already in with Son 2 aged 15m.  Son 1 aged 4y 3m arrived… whenever… clambered over the top of me and plopped in the Big Bed on the other side.  At 3am Son 2 started the loudest screaming fit yet.  Louder, louder, more and more hysterical.  Code for: I WANT MUMMY AND IT IS THE END OF THE WORLD GET HER GET HER GET HER.  It must be an evolutionary thing.  If he makes that noise just because he’s got the wrong parent in bed with him, he’s got to be able to fell bears with a shout under real attack.   I went down.  It took 15 minutes to calm him down; he had so completely lost it.  I slept with him, and he spent the next five hours waking every… whenever… and sobbing his heart out till I soothed him back to sleep.  I planned to get him back into his cot as soon as he went into his deep sleep - he didn’t.  Every time I moved away even an inch he shot out a hand to find me.   I vaguely heard Son 1 and The Man upstairs with the telly, and eventually went up.  It was 0830.  The latest I have slept in a very long time. 

And of course today was the day I wanted to be out of the house at 0830 to get to the Big Town for The Sales.  I skipped the books, skipped the shower, skipped breakfast, skipped dressing children, did my hair, put my make up on and left in 15 minutes.  I called into The Hotel to get Granny’s jumper which needed taking back.  Granny came too.  We did Monsoon - little boy trousers, little boy tops, odds ands ends, we did TK Maxx, we did Jaeger, we did Lakeland.  And we were back within an hour and a half. 

After Son 2’s lunch we packed up the boys and set off for The Square.  It was brutally, bitterly cold, with a gale force Easterly freeze-blasting skin and clothing.  “I’m getting draughted everywhere!” complained Son 1, so we rolled him up in his blanket and sat him in the battered MacLaren.  I tried to  pull the blanket down over his face so he could see.  “Leave it,” he said. “It’s cosy in here.”  By the time we got to The Square we had both boys asleep.  The Man, Granny, Granddad and I had wine, starters, pizzas and coffees while both children slept on.  Never in our Family History have we achieved this.  Granddad paid.  The waitress said they’d box up Son 1’s meal for him.  As we left, they made him a new pizza because his other one had dried out.  When we got home he ate every scrap, including his dough balls.  An honourable mention for PIzza Express.  They didn’t have to do that, but it made a big difference.