1.  Like A Duck To Water

2.  Proud As A Peacock

3.  Eggs

4am. Son 2 aged 19m woke screaming.  I went down and got him back to sleep in the double bed. And went back upstairs to read Two Lives.  He woke again. I went down again. It’s His Teeth.  Fast Forward. The Hotel Pool.  Son 1 aged 4y 6m wanted to go the Hotel Pool because he wants to go swimming with Son 2.  The Man won’t go with us, and you need two adults for two children at the Town Pool.  Not at the Hotel.  Son 1 had the noodle, Son 2 was in foam armbands and a swimming costume wetsuit.  We played in the baby pool, we splashed in the fountains. We played Humpty Dumpty.  Son 2: (pointing) Dump! Dump!” We swam. Son 2 can float a bit.  Son 1can push and glide, do dolphin dives and do star, pencil and frog floats.   Only not in the Hotel Pool, which is four foot deep all the way through.  They both worked incredibly hard.

After, we drove over to the Farm Butcher to get a joint for tomorrow’s lunch. Son 2 passed out in the Hotel car park.    He woke up when we stopped the car at the Farm Butcher.   Peacocks wandered around the car park.  As we all watched, a male spread its tail, shaking and shimmering at an unconcerned female idly pecking by.  It was fantastic.  Amazing moving colours, brilliant blues and emerald and lime greens.  In the shop, at the back, there were scores of peacock feathers sticking out of a row of about 10 vases.  “Let’s buy one,” said Son 1. “I don’t think they’re for sale,” I said.  “Ask the gent,” he said.  I did.  It is apparently bad luck to take a peacock tail feather outside.  You can take them in to a building, but not outside again.   Many people have asked for a peacock feather, but the Butcher is superstitious.  The Butcher himself went out to look for new one.  It was left outside by the door for Son 1, who was truly delighted with it.  Back home, the feather has not come into the house. 

We went to Nanna’s for tea.  Nanna always comes to us.  It was easier. But after a particularly difficult teatime, we decided to try every other Saturday at her house.  I dropped off Lightning McQueen buckets for her to use in an egg hunt.  We arrived. The boys took their buckets and went into the garden.  Son 1 found one egg and started eating. Son 2 found one, I peeled it halfway and he started eating.  Son 1, squealing, found marshmallows and more chocolate.  Son 2 found a Creme Egg.  “Ur Ur,” he said, having bitten through the foil to eat it, the other egg still in a hand.  I removed the foil from his mouth.  Nanna has a tiny ancient bird pond full of dark green water.  Son 2 went for it.  So did Son 1.  Nanna gave them tubs.  They scooped and poured.  Within 10  minutes Son 1 had soaked his clothes and was stripped naked. Son 2 was down to his vest. It was freezing, the skies charcoal. Upstairs was a vintage tin bath which Nanna used to bathe us in, 40 years ago.  I put a kettle of boiling water in it, added cold, and put it in the garden.  The boys both went for it, and, spotting it as the only available outside warmth, wouldn’t come out. The Man brought out new clothes, and we had tea.  Nanna had bought oven chips. “They’re not as nice as I thought they would be,” said Son 1 casually.   Our chips start life as potatoes, cut into chips, blasted  in the microwave for five minutes, dried and then roasted off for 20 minutes in olive oil in the oven.   ”Delicious, yum, yum,” says Son 1. Now all we need to do is get his manners as refined as his palate.

1.  Rule Number One

2.  Rules Two And Three

3.  Rule Four

Yesterday I ordered from The Man: 1) A Lie In  2)  Breakfast In Bed (scrambled egg on toast.) 3) A Long Bubble Bath With No Children In it. 

Son 2 aged 18m woke up at 0530.   “Mama.”  I trailed downstairs, and Son 2 clung while The Man sorted him a Tub of Grub.   Son 1 aged 4y 6m came down. Cards from all three.  I had already been to the Boots Lancome counter and bought myself two items so I could also have a free gift.  Mother’s Day Rule Number One.  Avoid Disappointment, Buy Your Own Present.  We all went upstairs to the Big Bed and I got in, pulled the covers over me and lay down.  Son 1 stuck Ben 10 stickers,  Son 2 played  Duplo with The Man.   They all went downstairs.  I dozed off.  I was on The Beach with Son 2 playing at the water’s edge. A mist came in, and I said we’d better pack up. The mist turned to snow, everywhere. I couldn’t see  Son 2 but there were snow ploughs in the ditch where I’d last seen him.  An oblongy snowball was skidding down the road but he wasn’t in it.  “Mummy. Son 2 fell off the chair and you’ve got to come.”  A little head at the side of the bed.  I went downstairs.  Made my own breakfast.  I did get a bubble bath, but the children went mad because they weren’t allowed in it.  

I had booked lunch for us all at The Peacock Playground.  Complimentary skincare sample, organic fudge and free entry for mothers. Rule Number Two.  Avoid Disappointment, Make Your Own Lunch Arrangements.  We picked up Nanna, and took the boys to the playground.  They played; the peacocks patrolled.  The Man and Nanna sat in the sun.  I climbed up ladders, slid down slides, swung on swings, climbed through tunnels, lifted up, helped down and held on.  In for lunch.  It all took a while, but Son 1 dived in and out through the sliding doors next to us, checking his stick, chasing peacocks, sitting on a wall.  They stuffed themselves with their pudding, our pudding and the organic fudge.  The Man got very bored with having to look after Son 2 while he was eating his own meal.  Rule Number Three: The Mother’s Day is the only day you can act like Father.  All Day Long. 

We walked down to the lake afterwards.  Son 1 and I played Pooh Sticks every time a stream ran under a bridge.  He loved it.  Son 1 started off with the biggest sticks, and soon realised the smaller ones win.  He leaned over edges, through railings and off bridges.  Absolutely no concept of danger. I hadn’t been down to the bottom of the garden since I dropped Son 2 on his head when he was 4 months old.  (Laid him down in pram asleep after screaming reflux episode, didn’t dare strap him in case he woke up. 30 minutes later, had forgotten I hadn’t strapped him in.  Took pram up flight of steep concrete steps.  Baby slid out like he’d been fired from a peashooter.  Overnight in hospital.  His head was fine. But they got very tired of mopping up the sick, and they gave us a paediatrician and dietician who eventually sorted out his reflux.)  It was very strange passing The Steps, seeing The Tree where a pic of Son 1 had been taken afterwards, seeing the bench we sat on to peer at Son 2’s head… remembering the sick feeling inside as we marched back to take him to the MIU.  Son 1 walked miles, and was soon fast asleep in the car.  Son 2 stayed awake till after we’d dropped Nanna off.  We parked near the house, and The Man brought me a cup of tea and the Sunday papers to read in the car while the boys slept. Rule Four: When Opportunity Knocks, Ask For A Cup Of Tea.

1.  Reveille

2.  Rendezvous

3.  Muster

Hooray hooray. Both boys stayed in their own beds all night.  Son 1 aged 4y 4m lost a few points for waking up screaming at 11pm, but he’s still not well.  A croupy cough.  Severe nasal congestion.  And a temperature that shoots up suddenly and can barely be tent-pegged down again by big slugs of calpol and ibuprofen.  Son 2 aged 17m lost points for waking up when I tiptoed down at 5am for coffee, and then refusing to go back to sleep.  I put the light on to give him some calpol, and his eyes were wide open, his pupils huge and spookily darting back and forward in REM.  And at the same time he was gripping me so I couldn’t go.  He was instantly awake and alert.   I thought REM meant deep deep sleep.  Clearly Son 2 represents Man’s Next Evolutionary Leap.  Humans Who Need No Sleep. 

We decided on the Peacock Playground, and it was a Good Thing when I found the paperwork for the family membership after half an hour’s hunting. (Son 1, booted and coated and crunching on the gravel outside: “Are we giving up yet?” Me: “Of course not darling, it’ll turn up in a minute.”)  Recycling pile.  We arrived and played.  Weather fabulous.  Bright sunshine, spring garden.  Son 1 climbed and slid and rocked and rode.  Son 2 rode and tottered and crawled and swung.  Wonder Nanny had packed pitta, pepper and hummous, and the boys dived in.  A  beautiful peacock sauntered up looking for food.  We fed it pitta. Son 2 gave it pepper.  It was amazing in the sunlight.  Iridescent, shimmering blue, greeny golds, goldy greens, and on its back a fantastic vivid deep lime green. It wandered off, and our two slipped down from the table to follow it. Then a pack of eight year old boys chased it into the bushes.

We collected feathers.  Not the great big Event ones… but little ones, dotted and speckled in browns, greys and blacks, fluffy and white, very small with just a hint of brilliant blue.  We even have a couple of red-tipped ones from some Golden Pheasants/Lady Amhersts. Son 1 is going to make a peacock picture with them.  We have in fact collected enough for a New Hat for Mummy.  The peacocks were out in force. At one point there were nearly 20, mostly female, mostly young, on the lawn and moving like grazing animals.  “What’s the collective noun for a group of peacocks?” asked Wonder Nanny.  “A herd?”  A male suddenly spread his tail.  With his back turned to the girls.  “Mummy mummy!” Son 1 was jumping in excitement.  Son 2 ignored it all and watched a tractor and trailer.  He walked miles today.  Both boys slept deeply on the way home.  And as soon as we got in, Son 1’s temperature rocketed…