1.  Harvesting

2.  Irrigation

3.  Threshing

Nanna’s garden is blue-marbled with slug pellets. Son 2 aged 23m picks up big handfuls and puts them in his mouth, along with the melted-insides of dead snails.  So we can’t use slug pellets in our garden.  We have six sunflowers, getting bigger, The Man’s now so tall that we can only look at the flowerhead from the upstairs window. We have two tubs planted with peas.  We have some organic slug repellent gel. You pour it around the plants and it’s supposed to make barrier. It looks like dying slug trail, which is probably how it works.  We put it round the pea plants when they first sprouted, and then we couldn’t find it any more.  The slugs ate all the peas in one tub. And Son 1 aged 4y 11m, and Son 2 and I caught a snail laying eggs in our other one.  But this morning Son 1 yelled “Mummy, mummy, come and see! We’ve got peas!” We did indeed. Little pea cases.  Son 1 gobbled one, Son 2 gobbled one. We had six altogether, which they ate instantly.  Son 1 found the case of one a bit fibrous and spat it into the ice cream tub in which we’d put three tiny snails we’d caught on the plants. “They can eat it.”  We were so excited we thought we’d plant some more. And then decided to plant a pumpkin for Hallowe’en instead.  Vegetarian depressive Mummy always has pumpkin seeds. We hunted through the cupboards. Mummy had pine kernels, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. ”Shall we grow a sesame?” I asked Wonder Nanny.

We planned to go for a swim, then come back and make fairy cakes after lunch.  Wonder Nanny’s mobile went. It was a Wednesday Mum, ringing her to arrange to meet with the children, so Son 1 could play with Best Friend. Wonderful Moments For Working Mothers, #149: When Your Friend Rings Your Nanny Because They’ve Both Forgotten You’d Be There.  We changed the plans. We would meet at The Beach Near The Garden.  It was sunny, warm-ish with a gusty wind and some clouds.  Son 2 and I walked down to the water’s edge, filled a bucket with water, walked back, and he emptied it. Many times.  Son 1 was over-excited and horrible.  The new fishing net was broken.  I left Wonder Nanny in charge and went Swimming In The Sea.  I have a new way of getting in. I walk a hundred paces without stopping.  Shoulders down, swim forward and cold, cold, cold.  I felt my rings loosen on my fingers.  The sea was flat, the beach was sandy, the water was turquoise and every now and then the sun broke through and warmed my face.  Son 1 stood on the shoreline, staring out after me.  I went back. Another family arrived to sit with us, Mother, Father and their three children.  Lunch, more play, splashing and digging in the low tide.  The Navy helicoptered by, low and loud. Play stopped, while the children waved. They waved back. ”Mummy, we got a wave!” bounced Son 1.   

Best Friend, Little Brother and Wednesday Mum left. I went for another swim.  The children made sandcastles.  Son 2 was hanging with tiredness when i got back. “Ah wanna bik bik.” The other mother was handing out iced rings.  ”Would you like one, Son 2?” “Es please.” Beautiful manners.  Gets them from his mother.  We packed up. “Son 1, where are your shoes?”  He looked blank. Wonder Nanny hadn’t seen them.  “Did you take them off in the jungle?” In the Garden, where he’d run off playing with Best Friend when we first arrived.  Yes he did.  In  vast mounds of elephant grass, the dried straw had poked his feet through his sandals. So he’d taken them off. I hunted through every bloody clump.  Gone.  There was no fairy cake making when we got home, although Son 2 got an ice pop.

1.  Party 1 

2.  Party 2

3.  Party 3

A two party day. On the calendar, it looks so achievable. The Nursery Party was at 1030, in the village hall favoured by Nursery Mums.  The Town party was at 2pm, in the church hall favoured by some Town Mums.  Party 1 had a cross children’s entertainer. A member of the Magic Circle, professional, funny, but bossy and hostile, obsessed with his line. “Don’t come in front of it. Don’t put your hands on it. Don’t move the line.” As far as I could tell he needed the children behind the line because, occasionally, he pulled his hat down over his eyes and moved around blind.  Er.. strike the hat pulling kiddo - this is a 4th birthday party and they’ve just feasted on sugar. He told Son 1 off for playing with the whoopee cushion Son 2 aged 21 m won in pass the parcel during his magic show. Imagine how well that went down with the mother who thinks her child should colour over the lines to show he’s not constrained by groupthink.  

Party 2’s entertainer was camper, warmer, with a better hair cut and had the saving grace that he clearly liked children. Before the show Son 1 fell over so badly he ripped half a toenail off on his right foot and grazed his knees and shins.  Before I got there, the Entertainer, heaving in equipment and out of costume, had stopped and bent down to see if he was ok.  Did I mention we were early for the party? Charged around like loons, two children off their trolleys from Party 1, The Man giving a commentary unstilted by drawing breath on the perils of over-scheduling, and me still struggling because Someone Lost All The Sellotape on the day we had two parties. Pushing Son 1, oldest child on Mumsnet still in a Pram, up the road, miserable because I’m Always Late For Everything, we arrived at 1420 to find the start time was 1500. Hooray. At the end, I had everyone turning the hall upside down looking for Son 2’s shoes.  I’d taken them off and put them on a radiator. Gone. Nowhere. One of the children must have tidied them up in an unrealising grown up’s bag. Yes I know they didn’t fit, but they were the only ones we had.  Back home we found the shoes.  I’d taken them off at the first party. He’d gone to The Town one in bare feet. 

After the children were in bed, The Man and I sat out back at the patio table, talking, drinking wine and dunking bread in microwaved camembert.  A neighbour has a pack of three pre-teen girls who were outside till late, clearly having some sort of sleepover.  “How many children do you think they’ve got staying?” I asked. “Just one I think,” said The Man. “It just sounds like a lot more.”  Next Door But One, who went on a Business Trip with The MAn, was putting down slug pellets and bantering back and forth with The Man.  Michael Jackson songs wafted over from somewhere else.  The light held forever.  We might do that again.