1.  Peter Pan

2.  Baking Pans 

3.  Panic

Peter Pan was the DVD. Son 1 aged 4y 11m and Son 2 aged 23m were playing with the toy pirates. We bought Son 1 a new Captain Hook yesterday. He has got through 2 Disney ones, so now we’re on Toyshop Traditional.  The old Captain Hook fell to pieces.  Son 1had found a Peter-And-The-Children pin badge that I’d bought him. ”I’m a Peter Pan fan, aren’t I?”  Orwell fashion, I have come to love Peter Pan. Ignore the dodgy author and the political incorrectness, and name another children’s classic that’s as brilliant on Motherhood.  The Lost Boys and The Pirates who want Mothers, Wendy who doesn’t want to be a Mother to Peter, Mrs Darling sitting in the empty bedroom, and poor Peter, damaged by a closed window and another little boy asleep in his bed. ”If you find your mothers,” he said darkly, “I hope you will like them.”  I bought my copy new in 1972, price 25p.  And I grew up and had a son.  Who feeds pieces of broken Captain Hook to toy crocodiles. 

 A grey day, with two shattered children. We decided yesterday went askew because we got the meals wrong. We drove the Big Town to do a Big Shop. Son 2 fell asleep in the car, Son 1 was car sick. We went down to the River and parked. The Man and I had coffee, the boys ate peanut butter sandwiches for lunch.  In the supermarket, we bought heaps of cake and biscuit making ingredients. I have a week off, the forecast is not good, and I have much Uber Mother ground to make up. Son 1 longs for me to make a cake.  I find cake tins frankly baffling.  There are the ones with the clock hand things in them, presumably used for Getting Your Cake Out. And the ones that are rings with round circles at the bottom. Presumably also used for Getting Your Cake Out.  Greaseproof paper, baking paper, baking parchment. All for Getting Your Cake Out.  I’m only guessing, but is there sometimes a problem Getting Cakes Out?  But anyway. We can manage muffins. And Biscuits.  And Wonder Nanny will be here. I bet she can Get A Cake Out. 

We did a massive pile of shopping with loads of Sunday afternoon yellow stickers.  Son 1’s shopping treat was a Scooby Doo biscuit making kit. I thought it was going to be a box with biscuits for them to draw on with an icing pen. Oh no. Back home there was an egg and milk involved. I put too much milk and egg in the packet mix and ended up with gloop so sticky it glued my fingers together.  I finally fought my way out of the mixing bowl, and the boys rolled it, cut the Scooby shapes and we put them in the oven.  Son 2 washed green beans for tea.  They had roast lamb… I went for a run.

1.  Rhythm

2.  Blues

3.  Jeopardy

Wednesday is Friends’ Day.  So why oh why did I have to do painting, colouring and a long, loud session on the drum kit and ELC keyboard before anyone came round?  She is saintly, and will not  mind me crying Foul! Is That Not Why I Have Wonder Nanny?  Ahem. Excuse me.  One Wednesday  Mother had a hospital appointment for 3 year old’s adenoids and was Too Stressed To Come Out.  The other Wednesday Mother wanted to come here, which was fine. I am being unfair on Son 1 aged 4y 10m and Son 2 aged 23m.  Son 1 was up for painting. Son 2 really just likes stirring the dirty water from an upturned ramekin and splatting it on the walls with a paintbrush.  And the jamming session was great. Son 1 on keyboards “You’re too noisy! I can’t hear when I sing!” and Son 2, “Bang-It-Hard-Enough-And-The-Crayons-I’ve-Posted-In-All-The-Drums-Will-Rattle.”  Mrs Gallagher would have had this.

Best Friend and Little Brother at last came round.   Best Friend and Son 1 locked into a horrible axis and wouldn’t play with Little Brother. Little Brother, tired, rejected/dejected, was uninterested in Son 2, no matter how we tried.   Son 2 trailed after all three: “I’m 4! I’m 4! Honest!”  Son 1 and BF were in an elaborate game of pirates which involved caves, maps and treasure. LB, who must never be under-rated, was very often in possession of the treasure chest. And I was on his side.  Son 2 wore Son 1’s Captain Hook outfit, and was incredibly pleased with himself. Pa-ang.   Son 1 hasn’t worn his Captain Hook outfit since BF’s mother found him one at a car boot sale.        

The MAn came home with a Business Colleague and we all went crabbing. The tide was coming in, there was seaweed everywhere so we couldn’t see anything, all four boys stripped off.  I made Son 2 put his reins back on. “In years to come, it will cost him a great deal to walk around naked with a beautiful  blonde on the end of his reins,” I told Wednesday Mum.   Son 1 found something which i thought was a weathered old battery case with stuff growing round it. ”It’s a sea urchin,” said Wednesday Mum. “That’s its mouth.”  She did a degree in Marine Biology ahead of the PhD in Chemical  Engineering so I kinda believe her.  We still caught crabs. Big ‘Uns and Littl’Uns. Son 1 caught a whopper. Son 1 caught a titch - just by trawling his shrimp net he found the teeniest sideways-mover. We put them all in the same big bucket, worried they’d eat each other. But they all huddled under the Whopper. ”We’re running out of concrete,” observed BF.  Four-year-old speak for The Tide Is Racing In. We were also running out of bacon.  But we defeated our own record.  Twelve crabs and a sea urchin. We tipped the bucket out on the river wall so we could watch the crabs scuttle back to the water. Three huge seagulls appeared instantly.  We then had to prise the bloody crabs out of the gaps in the steps to get them safely back in the river.    It was supposed to be a race, but it turned into an airlift.

1.  Lies

2.  Damn Lies

3.  Statistics

Last night I worked late and went to bed very late.   Well towards 1am, I tiptoed upstairs, weightless, soundless, I did not breathe.  The Man rolled over, grumbled and switched off the telly.   I took out my contact lenses.  I peered behind me.  Son 1 had teleported in,  lurching round like a drunk. The Man was in the Big Bed, he wanted to lie down, but “Where’s Mummy?” “In the bathroom.”  Son 1 was still bothered by The Man in the Big Bed.  “When you’re not here, if I wake him up when I come to bed, he settles down in your side watching me while I take off my make up and do my teeth, and then I have a little read in bed, and then we both go to sleep.”  The Man harrumphed and  trogged off to the Blue Room.  Yes yes I know that Son 1 will one day be off with She Who Will Never Be Good Enough For Him and I should be Putting My Eggs In The Man’s Basket (this is going badly wrong) but what the hell. It was the way Son 1 just stood patiently at the bedside waiting for his space to become available… 

So this morning I was matchsticks-under-the-eyelids. Another oh God look at the state of the boys, never mind, Wonder Nanny can do it when she gets here, bye, sesh.  I am doing better though on reading to Son 2.  We did our five books.  Pinocchio, for God’s sake. He insisted.  This is Son 1’s library book, the Disney series that everyone has at least 1 of, somewhere.  I should be reading stuff that is Rooted In Reality.  About washing machines and buggies and looking at leaves.  So. Son 2. Gepetto makes this toy, and the only woman in the story, winged, badly drawn, wearing a pillow case,  makes it come alive, and it goes shopping and gets mugged - twice -  and then gets caged, whereupon Gepetto rescues it and they all live happily ever after.  Son 2 couldn’t give a hoot, and wanted it twice. He’s only really looking at the pictures of the nose getting bigger. “Wee wee,” he said, at the end.  I went all the way downstairs to get his potty. He rejected it, sat on Son 1’s old booster seat, and wee-d in the loo. PSB. “Bye bye Mummy,” he said, as I went off to The Office. 

At bedtime, Son 1 gets the book time. We took out 17 from the library, some for Son 2, but most chosen by him. ”Improving your fishing,” has been a bit of a challenge.  I always put at least one book about another country or culture in the pile. ”And the liberal, with a small ‘l’, cries in front of the TV,” sang Billy Bragg when I was Young. ”Coming Home” went in on the strength of a cover drawing of a black woman in a hijab with a small boy. Oh-Good-Islam-Portrayal-Not-Arab-We’ll-Have-It was the quarter second attention it got as I tossed it in.  Hassan is a Somalian refugee.  Son 1 and I have done Somalia, in answer to the “Mummy, are there any pirates now?” question. “There are some very poor people from a very poor country run by bullies and they steal other people’s boats and ships because they Have Nothing.” “What happens to them?” “President Obama (Most Powerful Man In The World.  In answer to: “Who’s that man on your book?”) sent a big ship and told them to stop. Now darling, let’s clear out Son 2’s old toys and take them to Oxfam.”   Hassan’s Uncle is killed by soldiers who burn his house down. Son 1 wanted it twice. ”Is his Uncle dead?” “What happened to the animals?” “Where are his cousins?” “Will it happen here?”  At this point my inner Nanna broke through and I couldn’t resist. “No. Because we are one of the richest countries in the world, and you are such a lucky little boy, and that is why Daddy and I get cross when you don’t realise - ” Son 1 burst into tears. “I’m scared of the soldiers.”  Gepetto was a woodcarver, I said, and one day he made a puppet. 

1.  Scrappy Doo

2.  Scooby Doo

3.  Scoopy Poo

Yesterday’s marathon gave me an afternoon off, and I took Son 1 aged 4y 10m to see Scooby Doo and the Pirates in The Big City.  I felt desperately guilty about Son 2 aged 22m… when I booked the tickets last October he was 13m old. Couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything.  Now he thinks he’s 4, loves Scooby Doo and can point him out on a poster, loves Pirates (”Arrrr!” and “Hook!”) and would have been devastated if any of us had admitted he was being left behind. Instead we pretended that I was taking Son 1 to school, and Wonder Nanny engineered things so Son 2 was asleep when I swooped in and out to collect him.

Great show and a great time.  Just as I fell in love with Anthony during The Wiggles, there is now Something There That Wasn’t There Before with Shaggy.  He’s happy and kind,  he loves animals and dancing and he adores food. We were in the second row. Son 1 kept hiding under the chairs of the front row when the pirates came out.  He seems so big when we’re with Son 2, but on his own, in a theatre with 2000 people he seemed tiny. “I know who the pirate queen is Mummy, the  lady who likes chocolate in the first bit.” 

“Do you need the loo?” I asked before we left the theatre. “No,” he answered crossly, as he always does. Then, two miles into the 70-mile trip home “I need a poo!”  “Can you wait a bit?” “No! It’s coming!”  We stopped in a supermarket car park.  Lidl and the Co-op. Not a loo between them. We asked in a community centre. No, the loos couldn’t be opened.  It rained.  I fished in my hessian shopping bag.  A printed out email from The Office and a handful of napkins.  I perched Son 1 in a corner by a hedge. “Have a wee and then go on that.”  He obliged.  I picked up the Matter.  And that is how I came to be walking around a shopping centre with a rolled-up email filled with poo in one hand and a four year old’s grasp in the other.  I found a lined bin and got rid of it.  Pre-children, pre-swine flu, I didn’t even know you could get small bottles of antiseptic hand gel. But as it happened, I had one in the car.   I cleaned my hands. “Wash your hands with this,” I handed the bottle to Son 1.  His small voice came from the back. “Oh. Missed.  It’s gone everywhere.”

1.  Pirates

2.  Lunch a deux

3.  The Cot

Back in with Son 2 aged 21m as I’m still not sleeping. Wakened by “Mummmeeee.” I peered round the pile of pillows I’d put between me and the cot to stop him seeing me. He peered back. “Boo,” he said.  I picked him up. “Wa-wa,” he said, pointing to the  glass on the bedside table.  I gave him a gulp, and laid him down beside me in the double bed. “Up,” he said.  Son 1 aged 4y 9m was already downstairs watching telly with The Man.  Son 1 has been busting for me to play pirates with him.  Pang.  I played it with him on Sunday but cannot remember the last time we played together before then.  He had the treasure, the monsters and the Tower Of Doom. My pirates were going to attack the castle. I put together an airforce of four Peter Pans and Tinkerbell, ready to attack his three-headed dragon. I took my eye off the Playmobil pirates for an instant and they’d been scalped, their earrings stolen. “Earrings are treasure,” I was told. Son 1 is Very Particular about how the Playmobil pirates are dressed - they can never vary from how they came out of their boxes. I’d put them together any old how.  Every now and then, during the battle, Son 1 stopped and looked at my efforts, shaking his head. “That is just so wrong.”  Afterwards, he and Wonder Nanny dressed them properly. She of course knows every set of cuffs and kerchiefs.

The Man and I left the boys with Wonder Nanny and went for lunch.  For us, a Good Thing.  We decided to move Son 2 into Son 1’s bedroom so I can read in bed if I can’t sleep.   We want them in together, and this week is a good time because I’m off and can sort/get up if things don’t work out.  

When we got back Wonder Nanny left for a doctor’s appointment.  The boys and I watched Ice Age.     ”Son 1, would you like to have Son 2 ’s cot in with you?” “Yes! Yes! Let’s move it now!” “Son 2, would you like us to put your cot in Son 1’s room so you can sleep with him?” “No.”  Wails from Son 1. Clearly, Son 2 hadn’t understood.  “Would you like to sleep with Son 1?” “No.”   I gave it one more shot. “Shall we put your cot next to Son 1’s bed?” “No.”  And yet it moved.  I really don’t think Son 2 was happy, but Son 1 was delighted.   I lay Son 2 down in the cot.  In the same position, in the same place Son 1 used to sleep, till he was about 2y 9m, when we moved him into his bed to get the cot clear for the arrival of Son 2.  Another Pang, and I don’t think it was back trouble.

1.  Fish Food

2.  Swimming Like Fish

3.  Schools

Son 1 aged 4y 9m can never pass a leaflet stand without helping himself.  He has been studying a favourite for weeks; a flyer for a holiday park near The Happening Town with a mega swimming pool. The forecast today was ropey, so I decided we’d go. We stopped off at Wonder Nanny’s new house to pick up her bikini.  The boys have been, I haven’t.  “Fish,” said Son 2 aged 21m. “Darling we’re not going in the garden, we’re just having a quick look round and then we’re going swimming,” I said. “Fish,” said Son 2. “Not today, Son 2,” said Wonder Nanny. “I’m just showing Mummy the house.”  Son 2 picked up a tub of fish food and headed for the back door.  “Fish.” We went out to look at the fishpond.  There are about 10 small goldfish, and one larger lighter one.  The boys sprinkled fish food.  “Where’s the Mighty One?” said Son 1. “I can’t see it,” said Wonder Nanny. “Fiance must have fed the fish, they’re not hungry, are they?” “That leaf on the bottom at the back looks like a dead frog,” I said. ”Where’s the big one?” said Son 1. “I don’t know,” said Wonder Nanny. “I suppose a cat could have got it.” Pause. “You know that does look like a bit like a frog.” I peered. “Ah.  I think that might be the remnants of the Mighty One.”  No wonder they weren’t hungry.  

I’ve taken this week off thinking it wouldn’t too busy because most schools haven’t broken up.  But the Holiday Park Swimming Pool was elbow-bumpingly busy. The boys loved it - there was a great baby/toddler area and Son 2 loved the little slide… there were bubbles.. there were three huge slides.  Son 1 was only allowed on one, with me, and we had to queue for ages each of the three times we went down.  A gent in front of us had his late father’s face and birth and death dates tattoo-ed on his shoulder blade. The pool was well worth it, but the rest of it was like being whizzed back in time. Vauxhall Holiday Park, Great Yarmouth, 1973. Shamba Holiday Camp, Dorset, even earlier. If Sugar Baby Love had belted out of the speakers I would have suspected a head injury.   I felt strangely comfortable.  “Was that great, or what?” said Son 1, swinging his noodle as we left.     

Best Friend came round when we got back, armed with a sword, a handgun and a pistol. “Sorry,” said his mother. He had his taster session at his new school this afternoon. Pang.  Best Friend lives on the doorstep of the Tiny Outstanding Village School I had my eye on for Son 1.  I didn’t apply in the end, thinking we wouldn’t have a chance of getting him in.  So Son 1’s staying on for Reception at his current place 12 miles away.  It’s a fantastic place.  But they’re so good together. As soon as Best Friend came round, they piled into the dressing up box and emerged as pirates.  They played, utterly absorbed, with Son 1’s huge pirate toy collection till tea, then piled down, giggling, snorting, making farting noises, calling each other Poo Poo Head and having sword fights with the dipping vegetables.  Best Friend ate great piles, Son 1 picked like a supermodel. After tea they went out in the garden with bows and arrows. After a great many threats they got the hang of not firing at Son 2.

1.  Puppets

2.  Helter Skelter

3.  Waterfalls

Wonder Nanny arriving at 0830 was a Good Thing.  I love my boys and I want to be with them, but after three long hard days in sole charge I was very glad to have help. Son 2 aged 20m and I did puppet books this morning.  We have a monkey finger puppet in a jungle book, nursery rhyme finger puppets which give me the excuse to read an ELC book to him, a Finger Circus book for us to draw faces on our fingers and wiggle through the pages… and three pirate finger puppets which are Son 2’s favourite and gave me a great lead into Peter Pan. We are going to see the show in Kensington Gardens at the weekend, so I am trying to teach Son 2 the story to stop us getting slung out at the first cannonshot. “Hook!” he can say, pointing a stubby finger at Our Hero.  He has been well-trained by Son 1 aged 4y 8m.

I wasn’t needed in court this afternoon, so Wonder Nanny and I took the boys swimming.  Wonder Nanny goes with Son 2 while I’m at work, so he was very happy to swim with her while Son 1 and I played. We went round the River Run, we played on surf boards. We went up on the Flume.  Son 1 still goes down on his own, and I, like the Gruffalo,  follow after.  On our fourth time down, I decided to stuff the sedate, responsible Mother bit and see how fast I could go.  I pushed off, lay flat and shot down like a missile. Near the bottom, I blasted into Son 1, an elephant propelled into a little monkey. He screamed and we corkscrewed into the splashpool.  He was unhurt, but Very Cross. Back at the top of the ladder, the Lifeguard was sheepish.  “He just stopped near the bottom!” “Oh he’s all right,” I said. ”It’s my fault. I always sit up and go slowly, but just that once I thought ’sod it, how fast does this thing go.’  I’ll go back to being slow,”  “No you go for it,” said the Lifeguard. “He’s all the way down now so you won’t hit him.”  I went for it. Wheeeeeeeeeee.

Wonder Nanny and I swapped boys.  Son 2 can float in his armbands, and can kick himself along.  But he doesn’t see why he should.  Every time I prised him off me, finger by finger, he just hung in the water till I was near enough to grab.  He does though like playing in fountains and bubbles, so he was interested in that.  He kept pointing at the changing rooms. “There.”  “Do you want to get out?” Mad nodding.  Return home, tea, books, bath, bed. And the internet light on the computer is working too.  Hooray hooray,  A Very Good Thing.

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.  Extra Boy

2.  Mummy’s Boy

3.  Best Friends

A Friend was up for An Outing. First suggestion too expensive, second suggestion they’d already done.  Son 1 butted into all the discussions and phone calls.  He wanted to go to the New Play Centre.  I pretended not to hear. (Can’t stand it.)  The Mother of Son 1 aged 4y 4m’s Best Friend rang.  Best Friend had been whinging all morning, driving them mad.  He wanted to see Son 1.  What were we up to?  Could she bring him round and then she’ll have Son 1 overnight next weekend?  The New Play Centre it was.   Son 1 and the other Little Friend played together, Son 2 played in the baby area, the Ball Pool and the Toddler Section.  He rocked and pulled off and climbed and threw and slid and rode.  The Man talked Boats with Little Friend’s father.  Best Friend arrived.  Play. Lunch. Play.

Best Friend came back to the house, and hooray hooray, Son 1’s new Scooby Doo DVD had arrived.  That was them sorted.  I put Son 2 to bed.  Nappy change, in his sleeping bag, and then I put him in his cot. “I’m just going to do the window, and then I’ll come back and Son 2 and Mummy will have a sleep on the bed.”  For the first time he sat burbling instead of screaming as I pulled down the blind and put the blanket up. (Stuffed along the top of the roller and draped down the sides.  Son 2 does not sleep if there is Any Light At All.)  We snugged down together on the bed.  He hugged and held and scrunched his fists in my hair… and pressed his head against my cheek and clung.  And he’s lovely and cuddly, and we miss each other and I’ve decided.  When I’m off, he goes to sleep in the daytime by lying next to me.

Son 1 and Best Friend were having an elaborate game involving the Scooby Doo monsters, the Scooby Friends, all Son 1’s pirates, Captain Hook’s ship, the Lost Boys raft, the Woollies Pirate ship, the Tower of Doom and the ELC monsters.  Captain Hook was sitting in the front of the Mystery Machine with Shaggy and Scooby.   The DVD finished and the pirates paraded around the house.  They were warned off upstairs, but a jam on the toy keyboard woke Son 2.  I took him in the lounge and they melted away to Son 1’s bedroom.  Best Friend’s Mother came to collect him. I heard her ask Son 1: “Would you like to come and stay with Best Friend next weekend?”  “Will Mummy and Daddy be there?”  he replied.  Bit of work to do on that one, then.  At bedtime, when I left Son 2 in his cot, he screamed Blue Murder.

1.  The Flight

2.  The Pirate Ship

3.  Do You Believe In Fairies? 

The Man is not coming back today.  “The aeroplanes are full,” as I told Son 1 aged 4yr 3m this morning.  Howl.  “I want his body!” Wail. ”I want his T-shirt!” Curl up on the floor.  At that moment, The Man rang.  Son 1 gave him both barrels, fired straight at the guilto-plexus. Until Son 2 aged 16m snatched the phone from him, and waddled back and forth, chattering gibberish while Son 1 ululated in the corner.  Son 1’s day bumped along the bottom.  His Best Friend couldn’t come round because his Mother is ill.  Howl. Wail.  Curl.  His longed-for Scooby Do and the Pirates DVD didn’t come, despite a Royal Mail van parking outside and my calling “Son 1! Your parcel’s here!”  The driver smoked a fag, picked up a postman in the rain and pulled away.  Howl. Wail. Curl.

On The Bright Side.  A little 3 year old Friend and his Mother came round, and the boys played.   The Captain Hook Ship and The Lost Boys’ Raft stayed out - they can’t survive the wildebeest stampede that is 5 small boys at play… but three is manageable, so I didn’t hide them.    After they left Son 2 had a nap and a colleague from The Office came round, bringing biscuits and a chocolate cake for Son 1.  The colleague wanted to see the new dress and shoes I bought in The Sales.  I left her with Son 1, dashed to the bedroom, dressed up and tottered down in my finery.  The colleague coo-ed.  Son 1 sprang from his chair and gave me a huge hug.  “Do I look like a Princess?” I asked.  He just laughed.  But he made me feel like one.

Nanna came.  Son 2 played with the electric James and Percy engines.  Son 1 lay on the window seat  spearing a Tinkerbell finger puppet with 2 Woolies Ghost Pirates.  Nanna parked close to the house. I’ve been thanking the Parking Fairy when I get a space near.   “Is the Parking Fairy real?” asked Son 1.  “No,” I said. “It’s just Mummy’s bit of fun.”  Although, oddly, since I’ve been thanking the Parking Fairy, I’ve been able to park a lot closer to the house.  I was telling Nanna this when Son 1said “I don’t believe in fairies.”  “Oh no!” I said.  “Quick, clap.  Otherwise a fairy will…”  Son 1 made a spiral motion with his finger and pointed to the floor.  We clapped.  Son 2 joined in. Son 1 lay on his back giggling.  “I don’t believe in fairies”  Mad clapping, mad laughing.  “I don’t believe in fairies.” Mad clapping. Mad laughing.  Repeated many times.  Until: “Son 1 will you pack it in. What am I going to do if the fairy who - ” spiral motion, point to the floor ” - is the Parking Fairy?”