1.  Consternation

2.  Preparation

3.  Celebration

The last day of The Festival, with a big Celebration out on the water.  The Man being away, I arranged with last night’s friends that we’d go out on The Boat - he is also a sailor, and more relevantly, he had the key.  So, we got up, Son 2 aged 1 squawking chattily at about 0630… I ended up in a comedy hour of trying to get my second cup of coffee, but being thwarted by Son 1 demanding his new duck archer toy, Son 2 bolting for the stairs every five minutes, my control freaky need to read 5 stories to Son 2 without the telly on the background, and Son 1 aiming his plastic duck archers, loaded with arrows at Son 2’s head.  I lined up the Scooby Doo monsters on the window seat for him to blast at instead.  Unfortunately, Son 2, in the middle of the double bed, saw them, thought they looked very interesting and pelted off to investigate.  Forgetting again, that the bed ends and the floor is hard. Especially hit head first with a twisted neck because your legs haven’t fallen clean to the ground because the cot’s in the way.     

I ended up with a mad hour, Granny Murray fashion, cleaning, washing, wiping, changing, slicing, sandwich-making, packing, tea-defrosting, filling, stacking, grabbing, stuffing, zipping…  The Man friend came up to carry the bags down, and the boys and I set off.  On to the launch, on to The Boat.. start on lunch.  Son 2 wanted to eat everything.  Son 1 didn’t want anything in our lunch box, and only cared about the things emerging from our friends’.  Son 2 was enjoying pulling up and shifting round.  Then a wake wave rocked the boat and toppled him back, his head hitting the deck with a thunk.   Twice in one morning. Mummy must be more careful.

The Celebration was just fantastic.  There were hundreds, if not a thousand boats out there, everything from bathtub-sized dinghies under sail to ribs and race yachts and ferries and tugs and monster-rich motor cruisers.  The boys waved and waved at everyone passing… at the peak it all got close enough to shake hands.    We saw loads of people we know… and just had a great time chugging up and down enjoying the spectacle.  We pushed it a bit as far as the children were concerned.  Son 1 and his Friend went into overtired overdrive and sought attention with little cry-for-help activities like removing the scuppers and chucking them in the rope locker… “there isn’t anything to play, Mummy.”  But we got away with it with bribery (again) and got back at about 4pm.  And I got both boys to bed and asleep at 7pm.

1. The dozen

2. The new beach

3. Swimming

A fine morning with flat water.  Forecast for dryish day with rain later. Ah.  That means we’ve got to take The Boat out.   And Son 1 aged 3y 11m will want to go to the beach.  Taking all 4 of us onto the beach by boat is just about at the outside of what we can manage safely and drily.  We need more people in our team. We rang up the 4 year old/2 year old boy house.  Eight tickets please, as they have guests.  A couple and two teenage boys.  The Man took Son 1 to bring in The Boat.  We piled on. 

Captain Seadog took us to a new beach - just a bit further along from the public ones at the edge of The Town.  This was entirely tidal  and accessible only by about 9 flights of rickety steps down from the most beautiful cliff top house.  I must work harder.  We had it to ourselves.  Very Famous Five.  Dripping caves, a little tunnel, cowrie shells and cockles and mother-of-pearl winkles.  Seaweed and sea anenomes.  I spread out the mat and gave Son 2 aged 11m his lunch.  The small boys ran off. The teenage boys cracked open the hula hoops.  The adults cracked open the wine and lit the barbies.   Food kept coming.  Son 2 was a terrorist, and kept diving into the cool bag. He wanted raisins.  He wanted fromage frais.  He wanted his milk.  He wanted a hula hoop, suspecting that the things everyone else were stuffing their faces with would be worth tasting.  He was a sand monster.  Everything he touched, sand, sand, sand.

The Man put the beach tent up.   The boys wrecked it.  Son 2 wanted to play too, and did his first dummy walk over to it, holding on to my hands. Son 1 and 4 year old played collecting shells to make treasure.  Then rockpooling. I went with them, first with a glass of wine, and then with a coffee.  Then I changed in the tunnel (sky showing through a hole in the roof, of course) and went for a swim, via the anchor of the tender.  It was cold and seaweedy, but fantastic. I swam to the other end of the beach where the boys were playing, and past the rocks jutting out to another hidden beach on the other side.  More dripping rockfaces.  Shells and light round pebbles.  I went back in to swim back, and then turned round and started to swim out to sea.  “Mum-meeee!”  Son 1 at the shore. “Come back!” The Man felt the same.  Grey clouds cantering towards us. I couldn’t hurry to change - my fingers were too cold to do up my buttons, and too cold to dress Son 1, and too cold to do up Son 2’s lifejacket.  Rained on a bit on the way back, but a brilliant day.  Spontaneous and successful.         

1. Living is easy

2. Fish are jumping

3. Mummy and Daddy standing by

Son 2 aged 11m and I were downstairs when we heard little boy chatter and running feet upstairs.  Son 1 aged 3y 11m and his Friend. Up at 7am, and a three-hour game of pirates, involving every pirate we have, the Lost Boys, the Indians, both pirate costumes, three out of our four floors and the garden, the Scooby Do toys and all our Thomas the Tank engines (nos 1 to 8.)   Mother arrived at 10am with Little Bro and the dog.   Son 1 sobbed when Friend went.  Curled up on the doormat like a little woodlouse and howled his name.

Today was the only nice day in the weather forecast ever.  We had to take The Boat out.  I made a mighty picnic, 5 and a half rounds of sandwiches, three pots of fromage frais, two bags of rice cakes, leftover cocktail sausages, 2 apples, 2 boxes of raisins, one box  of sultanas and apricots, milk, water, smoothies.  Both Sons were, as usual, cranky and tricky with fatigue.  And so were The Man and I.  ”They’re so tired they’ll both be asleep before we’re out of the harbour,” I said. We chugged off past the £3m house.  It took me half an hour to get Son 2 off to sleep, and another half hour to get Son 1 off.  We were far up river, in a beauty spot.  The fish were, indeed, jumping. “You can’t drop the anchor.  It’ll wake Son 2 up,” I said. ” I can anchor off the back,” said The Man.  He did so.  I made coffee.  We admired the scenery, and chinked coffee mugs.  The boat swung round. Sunshine streamed into the cabin onto Son 2’s face.  He woke up.

Like Swee’ Pea, Son 2 crawled round the deck.  I didn’t have any suntan lotion.  Four weeks of rain and I still can’t stand to see sunlight on his little fair face.  “The depth is flashing 1m,” I said to The Man.  He peered overboard.  “Yes we’ve bottomed.  I can get it off if you want.”  “How?”  “I don’t know.” “Go on then.”  “I’ll put it in reverse and use the wake from these boats.” A great puff of smelly smoke and a grinding engine noise. The Man peered into the water again. ”No, we’re stuck.  Have to wait for the tide to come in.” So we cleaned the boat.  Son 1 woke up with the excitement, and he and The Man scrubbed and sluiced the dried seagull dung off the deck.    I dustbustered the cabin.  Son 2 brushed the carpet furiously with the broken-off corner of an M and S instant latte packet.   Eventually we floated off.  I’d stuffed that coolbag with food, and yet on the way back still suffered Son 1’s endless chorus of “What else is there?”    I preferred “Are we there yet?”

1. Boating

2. Beaching

3. Swimming

The house is a mess, there are toys everywhere, piles of filing, old baby clothes that need selling or passing on, paperwork that needs doing, shelves that need sorting.  And the bindweed in the garden is coming to get us.  But it was a lovely day, the forecast for the rest of the week is murky,  so we rang some friends and went out in the boat.   Him, her and their two and a half year old.  The Man, me, Son 1 aged 3 y 10 m and Son 2 aged 10m. And bag after bag after bag. We had apicnicandabarbecueandatoybagandachangingbag andtheswimmingstuffandtheirbeachbagandthelifejackets. 

This beach is the one with the boat only access.  It was pretty busy.  We pitched the tent on sand too hot to walk on.  The Man got the barbie going.  It was so hot I was worried about Son 2, who even though he had a great sleep this morning was still tired and fractious. Son 1 went off with the 2 year old and his mum, and again, I had the nagging feeling that all his rages are justified - I just don’t get to be with him.  We had lunch, we finally got Son 2 off to sleep by me walking with him in my arms next to the sea. It sent him off in seconds.  I might get him a sea CD.

I went swimming.  I’d taken goggles, so tried a bit of crawl.  I couldn’t do much - not fit enough and no style, but I think I’ll keep trying. If I keep the sea swimming thing going.  There were little black fish in the water, scattering away as my pale legs strode through them.  It was cold, but clear blue. More waves than yesterday, but again, really really good.  I was in about half an hour, and when I came out, Son 1 had gone to the other end of the beach with the 2 year old and his father.  I wandered over.  There was a three-year-old height tunnel through some rocks and you could just see the bleached white light of the other side through the black rocks.  Son 1 pelted through.  I had to crawl, like big, clumsy Alice.  The other dad and the two year old followed.  A tiny beach on the other side, with boys in wetsuits swimming round the rocks.  All very tidal - the tide was high and I think at low tide it all just becomes rocks sticking out from the shoreline.  Son 1 just loved it. We were supposed to play Pirates and Mermaids but he just kept trying to rub wet sand into my arms and neck.  Which just goes to show.  Even if I did stop my dips I’d probably just flounce off with a “I’m not playing with you any more.”

We chugged back, Son 1 hollering for food - it was 5 o’clock, and for a child who can’t tell the time, he can tell the time perfectly.  We had coffee and fruit salad, and he mineswept all the picnic bags.  We chugged round a marker buoy rock to see a big fat seal sunbathing.  We got back at 1830, and agreed that we couldn’t have had a better weekend if we’d had paid hundreds and hundreds of pounds to go away somewhere.   

1. After the break…

2.  Fishing

3.  The mermaid

No it hasn’t finished.  0515, howls from the cot.  Unwrap Son 2 aged 10m on changing mat.  Up to his waist in it.  Changed, cleaned, nice feed… laid him down on bed.  He stunk.  Changed him again.  Woke up at 7… he was hungry.  Rabbit toast, and weetabix, banana and live probiotic yoghurt all mixed up.  (I have been surfing for cures again.)  He ate the head off the rabbit and all the Grown Up Breakfast (AK.)  I think he might be on the mend.  The sludge hasn’t changed in composition or volume… but he seems better.  

So, confidence growing after yesterday,  we decided to go out in The Boat to the beach.     Very hard work even getting out of the house, and at one point before we’d anchored, I’d had, within 5 minutes,  The Man popping at me, Son 1 aged 3 y 9m having a strop over first the suncream, and then his sunsuit, and Son 2 screaming because he was exhausted and I’d left him on the bunk to sort Son 1 out.  I was Never Going Again.    But we all piled into the dinghy, Son 1 on beach, nappy bag, beach bag, food bag on beach.  Son 2 to The Man. Me on beach.  Dinghy pulled up.  Tent up.  And Son 1 and I wandering around the rock pools and shoreline with his fishing net. I caught two shrimps.  “Let’s eat them,” he said, repeatedly.  We took them back to show The Man and Son 2. “Daddy we’ve got two shrimps and we’re going to eat them.”   ”We can’t. Mummy doesn’t know what to do with them.” “We’ve got some crayfish tails in the fridge, would you like those instead?”  “Yes.”  Son 2 liked the shrimps.  He liked putting his fingers in the bucket to get tickled.

I wanted to swim in the sea.   But there was always a boy who wanted to fish, a dinghy to pull up away from the incoming tide, someone who needed the loo, snacks and drinks to hand out… Finally I got in.  It was freeeeeeeezing.  ”Mum-meee! Come back!” Son 1, at the water’s edge, yelling like the boy in Shane.  I wobbled back over all the stones and rocks.  “Do you want to come in?” “Yes.”  We got about four yards in, Son 1 up to his chest. “Mummy don’t forget I can’t swim.”  Good point.  We played where the waves broke.  I was a mermaid, he was a pirate.  He sat on my knee, the waves pushed us along, he splashed me and splashed me and we laughed and laughed.  It was Son 1’s first time up to his shoulders in the sea.  He went back to Daddy, I went swimming again.  Fantastic.  A total cure for anything.    

Back on the boat I changed Son 2.  Another “episode” in his nappy.  I changed Son 1.  I pulled down my swimming costume and Son 1 roared with laughter.  My chest and boobs were covered in sand, and there, draped between my 36Gs, was a bright green, feathery piece of seaweed.