1.  Black Night

2.  Spring Colour

3.  A Rolling Nose

A murderous night.  Son 1 aged 4y 5m again.  Waking screaming for Mummy.  At the fourth time, at 5am, I was not patient, understanding or tolerant.  “Stop making that noise or you will wake Son 2!” I snapped.  Son 2 aged 18m woke, and screamed.  The Man went in with him.  Son 1 went back to sleep.  I went downstairs for coffee and the Sunday papers. 

It was a beautiful day.  Daffodils everywhere I drove.  The Crocuses we planted outside The Office in December are just about over, but still a great splash of colour.   The road near the entrance to Son 1’s nursery is wooded, and there are carpets of yellow primroses, and clumps of daffs.  Bright pink camellias, and fresh green leaves unfurling on a hydrangea.  The birds are singing, the sky was blue.  Son 1 went to Nursery without a coat because we can’t find his blazer.  It was just about warm enough.

After a tortuous weekend of failing to find a Red Nose anywhere, I found a leftover one at The Office.  I picked Son 1 up from Nursery.  There is apparently a school play on Friday afternoon for which he is learning some songs.  And he says I am going to it.  Only I’m supposed to be in The City, 60 miles away on Friday afternoon.    I am still mystified as to where everyone finds out this stuff.  There was a tiny  book of dates-in-the-year given out at the start of term.  This obviously has to be decanted into the calendar when it comes into the house.  I’ll learn. We parked near the house, and  Son 1 clutched his Red Nose as he got out of the car.  He dropped it.  It rolled across the road, and then into the entrance to some sea-level riverside properties opposite.  Son 1 howled.  “My Red Nose!” A passing youth couldn’t help laughing out loud.  The Nose picked up the pace, rolled away down the steep slope to the waterfront and disappeared out of sight.  I put a sobbing Son 1 in the house and went to investigate.  There was a red blob in the road at the bottom of the hill.  There was more comedy potential in it plopping off into the river and drifting out to sea, but I’m glad we saved it.

1.  First Flower

2.  Country Roads

3.  Night Nights

Son 1aged 4y 4m and I left for Nursery ten minutes earlier than usual.  He has had enough of The Pirate’s Hat And Other Stories… he has had enough of Horrid Henry.  So this morning it was the Famous Five and Treasure Island, free with a paper some time ago.  Son 1 calls it the Famous Fights.  “I wish I was called Georgina.  If I was called Georgina I will say everyone must call me George.”   He also wishes he had a boat, and an island.  And a dog of course.  We arrived in plenty of time, and so parked up the drive and walked down the Muddy Path.  And there, in among the sodden leaves, on a little clump of bright green foliage, was a single pale yellow primrose flower.  Spring Is Sprung.  

To make up for this morning, the roads were heaving this evening, so I decided to explore some back routes to get home.  Mistake.  Tiny, flooded, debris-strewn barely-maintained tracks switchbacking this way and that as the light faded.  We went for miles.  The Famous Five had found some Ingots in a dungeon on the Treasure Island.  A Baddy threatened to shoot Timmy the Dog.  We got back on the usual route and pulled round a group of three of four cars parked together at the side of the road, broken glass, crumpled bonnets, people milling.  Perhaps a Good Thing that we were a little later than them.

Son 2 aged 16m waved from the window as we pulled up outside the house (Thank You Parking Fairy.) He was on top form.  Laughing, squealing, insisting on being held and carried.  He mineswept Son 1’s leftover smoothie from the car, and ate nearly a whole satsuma from his picnic bag.  Son 1 refused tea but accepted a couple of pieces of fruit, and listened to the end of the Famous Five on a laptop upstairs.  Son 2 is still crying as soon as I say night night and leave him in his cot.  Son 1, who used to send The Man packing when I went to see him for his bedtime stories, now says “Oh Mummy, you’ve come at exactly the wrong time.”  He fell asleep during Fairy Child.

1.   Storm

2.   Calm

3.   Seeds

Howls from Son 1 aged 4 y 4m when he plomped downstairs after two hours telly watching, found his Scooby Doo and the Pirates DVD and I said he couldn’t watch it.  “I can’t wait till this afternoon.”  “You can’t watch any more telly. You’ve watched cartoons all morning.”  Red face. Real tears.  “Forgive me Mummy.” “Darling you haven’t done anything.  I just don’t want you to watch any more telly.”  “If you let me watch it I’ll give you fifty pounds for your birthday.”  “Come and sit on my knee.  Son 2 (aged 16m) is very tired and he’ll need his nap this morning.  You can watch Scooby Doo when he’s asleep, and we’ll go out this afternoon instead.”   He composed himself.  I whispered.  “Go and tell Daddy he’s got to give you fifty pounds to give me.”  Son 1 padded over and whispered to The Man.  I held out my hand.

Another snug with Son 2 on the Big Bed to get him to sleep.  Little arms around my neck.  Soft hair, soft skin.  A friend ages ago said that lying down with a sleeping child is one of life’s great luxuries.  Son 1 watched Scooby with The Man, and I went for a run.   A bright, crisp, still morning with doves coo-cooing and sparrows twittering. I was in shorts.  Can’t remember the last time I was out running in daylight, or out running in shorts.  Down to the bridge over the river.  I did my stretches in the kitchen, with Son 1first trying to give me a cuddle and then lying on top of me when I was on my back.   From upstairs came a wail from Son 2.

We were blowing bubbles.  A consolation for Son 2 after an unfortunate incident in which someone screwed his finger into to the top of a toddler bottle, panicked when he screamed in obvious agony, couldn’t work out which way to twist the lid… and just yanked the finger out.  Deep groove in it.  Ahem.  Bubbles.  Son 2 chortled with joy, leapt up, clutched at them, laughed, clapped, giggled, and, finally, came to take the blower to see how it worked.  We were heading into The Town, so we mopped the floor before we went.  A friend walked past with his two girls.   We all met for lunch.  On the way back Son 1 stung us for some Gormitis:  “They have a Terrible Nature.”  Magmion is the Volcano King, smashing and trashing Hapless Peoples.  Delos is the Count of the Seas.  “And Stelios is the King Of The Air,” I told Son 1, who was sitting on The Man’s shoulders as we walked home.   Son 1 has gone straight from the ecologically, politically, ethnically, culturally, representationally-correct cocoon that is CBeebies into a world of Ben 10, Power Rangers and now Gormitis.   What lucky creatures are the women of 2034…

1. Greens

2. Manners

3. The joke

On grey, wet days, The Town is just an-out-of-season-holiday-town-in-the-rain.   On days like today it’s like Crete.  As it said on the chalk boards in the shop window, wind speed 1, sea slight, visibility good.  I went running during Son 1 aged 3 and a half’s swimming lesson, and the water was turquoise, there were flowers and young leaves everywhere… a lovely spread of light green bramble on the cliffside broken by a single red hot poker… and then running round the headland  through a tunnel of trees there was bright white wild garlic on either side of the path for hundreds of yards.  Birdsong, sunshine, bluebells, hardly anyone around.  It was fantastic.    

Missed breakfast again so persuaded The Man to stop at the Beach Cafe for a snackette.  He stayed with the boys; I went for coffee and cake.  I got a chocolate Danish for him, a chocolate Brownie for Son 1 and ordered brioche for me.  Son 1 let off a tuneless howl because I cut up the Brownie, but I re-bottled that genie by betting him he couldn’t count to 12.  The Man did the 40+ version of the same thing over his Danish: “I’m not eating that.  I don’t like them.  You’ve never seen me eat one of those.”  Whereupon the 3 and half year old sighed and said “I’ll have it,” unwrapped the pastry, started digging the chocolate drops out with his fingers and asked kindly: “Did you enjoy your run, Mummy?”

Son 2 aged 7m has told his first joke.  As I was putting him to bed.  I’d just given him his Gaviscon, and was letting him play with the syringe to get him in the mood for his Calpol… shall we just say that never goes down quite as easily.  He was biting the syringe’s plunger end, and waving the whole thing around, and then accidently stuck it in my mouth.  And roared and roared with laughter.  From then on he was aiming deliberately, trying to get the business end in my mouth and giggling and giggling till he could hardly breathe and gave himself body-shaking hiccups. “I’m giving Mummy the Gaviscon, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.”