That second goodbye

Each morning, I see my teenager to the front door to send him on his way to school. Each time, we pray and embrace. Sometimes we resolve the conflicts that arise from the early morning rush, at other times there may be a last minute exchange about the details and timings of the day and at what time we will reconvene, occasionally there's a last minute prank or a little banter but each and every time, I stand by the door and I wait. 

I wait for his head to glance up, I wait for our eyes to lock and for his hand to rise to wave me farewell. I watch as he looks ahead, there's a pause and then it comes again; that second wave. The one that signifies a final goodbye before I close the door and disappear behind it. Each time (of late at least) it feels like the snip of the umbilical cord where one becomes two in a final act. This boy-man of mine, neither man, neither boy but still my little one. I will carry that second goodbye with me always, in a pocket near my heart just like a good luck charm (if I were to believe in such things), I will tuck his cockeyed half smile up my sleeve for safe keeping in case of needing to draw close to it later on, whilst smiling my own half smile thinking of the many times I have watched my own mother tuck a hanky up her left hand wrist. His purposeful stride, that mirrors his fathers and his fathers before, I will note down hurriedly in the notebook of my mind so that I will come upon words that describe it in detail in the days and weeks and months that are to come.  

Like a super eight film, I see flashes of colour and pop up events that inform of his thirteen years alongside me thus far. I glimpse that first morning feed at the newborn phase, the toddler years curled up with his arms ajar because of the chicken pox in his armpits, where only Winnie the Pooh on repeat would bring comfort, I snatch at the little boy with a raspberry on the end of each finger that devours four, five six ... nine and ten one after another and bares the crimson evidence all across his delighted face. I look over the fence at the child who finds the nookiest of nooks and reads and reads and reads only to forget about the love of reading and then to discover it again and again and forget it. And remember it once more. I cross the road and I see the boy that motions for me, eager to tell me his news, what he likes to eat, what he likes to watch, what he likes to listen to, what he believes strongly in, what makes him laugh, what makes him sad. He calls, then shouts, them whispers, then speaks and tells me softly, openly: 'I don't always want you to cross over the road without me. I can cross alone but we're both headed home so let us walk together.' I squeeze his hand in mine (recalling that it was once smaller than mine) and I whisper to him, 'Let us walk together, let us walk together, let us walk together.' Just then, I hear the clunk of the front door closing, I feel the weight of it on the palm of my hand and I realise all at once, that his life and mine, all of it flashed before my eyes in just a few seconds. In that window between the second goodbye and the close of the door, right there, like a dream. Like that moment between dream and reality, where you're undecided to which world you belong. Like a super eight, super sweet, super fly story of him and I, captured without us ever knowing.  

Unknowingly, I told a lie

God's plans are not my plans, no Sir, no Mam. I learn this more and more over time. Just a few days ago, I wrote a post titled: 'On having a dirty house and why I won't clean up the crumbs, no matter who is visiting.' So there, right there in the title, I lied. And yet, just a few days ago I sincerely meant each and every word I wrote. It's what's so temperamental about me and perhaps you, perhaps all of us? So much is about 'that' very moment, the present, the now. On Friday, I returned home from work to find two brothers (my sons) fighting. It was unclear if fists had been raised or if just words had been thrown like punches but the younger of the two was on the floor sobbing. I immediately set to work, like Columbo, trying to find the trail to solve the crime. I had my most serious 'mum voice' on when I heard the key opening the door and my husband tentatively shouting, 'Hi, I've got Harry with me.' My first thought 'Oh no, not again! The last time we saw Harry, the kids had to be told off!' Then my next thought was, 'But it's Friday!' - the house is at its dirtiest on Friday because I clean at the weekend. So, I swallowed my pride thinking how proud I was and am of the new me that refuses to get bogged down in futile, petty details. Our home is 'homely' I said to myself and continued on with life. Then, later that night, I got a message from my husband just before midnight saying that our friend (who he was out with) had missed his last train home and would be heading back home with him and would be sleeping over. Already tucked up in bed and slowly drifting off, I leapt out of bed and began 'the clean'. I cleaned the bathroom, made a makeshift bed on our not very recently vacuumed sitting room floor, changed pillow cases and found extra blankets and returned to bed, smelling of cleaning products and feeling ever so slightly like a fraud. Well, crumbs are annoying and no one wants to willingly revel in crumbs surely?

One thing that I did learn is this: Friendship and kinship and relationship does genuinely surpass the embarrassment of crumbs. Watching my sons engaging with Harry (a close friend of their fathers) a man full of rich experience, a gifted musician and educator, an actor and teller of great stories. The boys deeply entranced by his knowledge and his sharing of facts, by his charm and their not quite knowing what are truths or half truths, just about able to keep up with his quick wit and cleverness with words. The morning after brought more delight in the form of conversations over teas and coffees, the thirteen year old playing guitar for a seasoned pro and receiving feedback that I can only imagine, will stay with him forever. Later in the day, before lunch, we all piled into the car and drove Harry back home to Leamington. He entertained us the whole journey and even when traffic slowed us, his running commentary on the pedestrian carrying an umbrella and walking just ahead of our car, kept us giggling for a good while and again later on when we spoke of it once more. When we arrived at Harry's home, he nervously invited us in. I was delighted. I am not alone. Others worry about their crumbs too. Harry's home was perfect. Spectacular. Filled with all of the vibrancy and range and brilliance and precision and extrovertedness that is Harry. 'Your flat describes you, without you having to' I told him. It reminded me of one of my favourite books 'Paris Interiors' that featured the homes of many creatives. It the home I dream of for myself when I think of the self without a husband or children. I think I made my husband a little sad when I described this but it isn't meaning to be so. Just that idea of a place to be that inspires and nurtured, surrounded by books and music and plants and photographs and vinyl and candles and more books. A haven. A place to be. It is a wonderful thing to have friends to share with your children. It is a privilege for them to learn from the experience of others, others that are other than their parents too. It was a delight to watch Harry doing what Harry does, with all the flair and nuance and cleverness with just a dash of cheekiness, just like a musician. My youngest wants to play trumpet now, 'just like Harry'. Don't we all. Don't we all. 

Will you cry if I die?

When I was a little girl, at night when we were falling asleep, I would often to say to my sister three years older than I, 'would you cry if I died?' She would get really annoyed with me and refuse to answer my question and I would try and find different ways to ask the same question, hoping to trick her into an answer. Knowing that we were close, I simply wanted confirmation that she felt the same level of affection for me that I felt for her. I think it came from knowing even at that young age that we all experience loss differently. I wanted my sister to cry many tears if I were to die that night or the following day but I knew that she might not show her sadness that way. She was more likely to shut herself away and immerse herself in a really thick novel, her means of escape. I was thinking about this a few weeks ago when I overheard several conversations between my two boys, who just like my sister and I are three years apart in age. I heard them exchanging 'I love you's' a few nights in a row and I have been struck by the ease at which these words spilled from their lips.

A few weeks back my eldest boy went away on his first school residential trip, four nights away in Wales at the infamous Redridge. As the days grew closer to his departure, the younger brother said to his elder brother 'I'm going to miss you when you go away'. The elder  brother responded with a tender smile and reassured the younger one with words like 'I'll be back before you know it!' and 'but you get our room to yourself for 5 days!' The younger boy then looked his brother straight in the eyes and quietly and slowly said: 'I'll really miss you' and then they embraced. My youngest boy was really quite lost without his shadow nearby. it took him some time to adjust to being the only child in the house. We found ourselves talking about our missing family member all of the time, recollecting favourite stories and happy times shared with him.One night he chose to sleep in the top bunk, in his brother's bed but by morning I found him back in his own bed. At breakfast he told me 'it just didn't feel right!'. Another night, my husband and I took him out to dinner to try and take the edge off the sting of missing his brother. Fried chicken did the trick, although even then he pointed out which bits would be his brother's favourite. It's the crispy bits by the way.

Reunited! their embrace was like a Hollywood film, just perfect. I was almost a little jelous. I got a hug but only after little brother. Five days away, canoeing, kayaking, rock climbing, abseiling, mountain biking, archery, caving, paddle boarding, orienteering, night walks and he loved it all! And, he kept his clean and dirty clothes separate! I am so proud of my boy. When he stepped off the coach and his dad went to meet him, apparently husband nearly walked past him as he didn't recognise the tall kid with cornrows. Then, finally, that smile. That smile. I'm sure, like every other parent there to collect their child, that space in your heart with a shape that's a perfect match for your children's smile, slotted into place like a jigsaw puzzle and all was well again.

Sometimes, it's only when the journey is over that you realise the magic of the build up to it. I loved watching our friend Sadie braiding Zach's hair, I loved hearing them chatting so easily, exchanging excited thoughts and comments as they watched Jason and the Argonauts. I was so excited that he enjoyed the ritual of having his hair braided. It felt like an important initiation. Many, many times, I have told him stories of having my hair braided as a child. The pleasure and pain of it, the comfort of feeling strong knees either side of you, usually your cousin's or Aunt's and the pain of having your fro combed through. Of course, it took me back to my childhood, to those days spent kicking dust in the air. Right now, my younger one is having a bit of a hard time with friendships and communicating and making himself understood. Not an uncommon thing for dyslexics. Watching him struggling to navigate, as a mother makes my heart bleed. His father tells me, he'll be just fine. I know it to be true but still it stirred me in the night last night. All I want  is to see those boys endlessly, effortlessly, kicking dust in the air. Making noise, sweet to taste. Kicking dust in the air, making noise, sweet to taste. Sweet to taste. I want it all to be sweet to taste.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

It started on this day, the twenty second of July 2014 and close to his sixth birthday. This was the moment that he told me 'I want short hair like other boys' and my heart broke into pieces. At the time a little talk from mama and daddy and big brother, each of us separately and he seemed to be back on track. Our baby baca, our wild thing, our crazy excitable 'chasing his own tail' spaniel. This was not to last because this boy knows his mind, he knows what he likes, he's got a plan and his glass is pretty much always half full. He often reassures me with words like 'doesn't matter, it's still good, maybe even better!' A few times over the last few months he's mentioned wanting to cut his hair and I have listened and then tried to distract him, like you do a toddler heading into a spiralling mood. But he is my toddler no longer and when a few days ago he told me very precisely and clearly that he wanted a new look and began shining radiantly as he described, bowties and smart shirts and corduroy jackets and a haircut. A haircut! I realised it was probably time. And so today we took a walk to our local barber shop and we waited alongside a few men and boys and he cuddled me and bit his bottom lip, that way he does. Not out of nerves but sheer joy, sheer excitement. I did my best to play the part and I made the right noises and pulled the right faces and as we scrolled through our pins on his board on pinterest titled 'My Boy Fashionista', I began slowly saying goodbye to my little boy. That boy that fitted almost in my palm it seemed, propped up against my chest as a newborn. That little boy that kept me awake for hours who made up for it all with those sweet smiles and gurgles. The little one that loved nothing more than to walk and walk around the park on cold winter days looking for the last of the berries to squish, especially those red ones that had fallen from the ewe trees. That little boy who was always so brave, who would dust his knees down after scrapes and falls, who would pull up his sleeve and allow the nurse to inject him pulling the most stoic of faces. Today as we waited to be seen, I weakened and said to my boy 'I don't know if I want you to have this done' and he jumped out of his high hairdressing chair in the waiting area and walked towards me and cupped my face and said 'It's fine, doesn't matter. I'll like it and you don't need to be sad about it'. And that was that, he convinced me. So proud he was as he took his seat and explained to the hairdresser what he wanted. How proud I was to watch him so totally immersed in the moment, as he happily conversed and spoke so confidently, so precisely. I did say goodbye, not for forever but for times changed and times passed and to those hazy baby days. I bid them all farewell with a tear in my eye and a smile on my face and with the same warmth of feeling of my boys hands cupping my face. Goodbye sweetness … so long. 

A Day spent in Oxford in Summer 2014

This was the day during summer of 2014 that we decided to visit our beloved Oxford. We packed a picnic to take with us because money was tight and because the best place to eat a picnic is possibly in any university park in Oxford, surrounded by green trees that whisper and discuss all that they have seen and heard in this great city. Oxford is a place that the kids love. It is a familiar face and part of the family. They know that their parents moved here as newlyweds. They know the story of me telling my new husband that I wasn't sure if I wanted to be married anymore 24 hours after I said 'I do'. They know the part and the place where he took my hand and told me that everything was going to be okay, as we walked along the river with the weeping willows alongside it, the part not far from the train station where we'd just arrived into Oxford. They know the stories of rendezvous and emotional goodbyes at coach stations, memories from that first year of their parents relationship when we were living in different cities and excitedly waited for friday to arrive so we could hit the road to visit the other. It is for them the way it was for me when I was young. I loved to hear about my parents life before my siblings and I were around. It was endlessly curious. I couldn't imagine that life had any real events without me being there. I'm sure it's much the same for my boys too, and whilst hubby and I reminisce about our story, our lives, I see these boys of ours building their story right alongside ours. 

I remember the days when each of the boys were not long walking as we took in this special city of ours. I remember my eldest spending minute after minute after minute splashing in a puddle near the pitt rivers museum, way before his brother had come along. I remember being five months pregnant with that youngest boy of mine and stepping off the train, my hubby, my eldest and I and as the train pulled away, I asked my hubby if he had my handbag. No, he didn't. The hardest part was knowing and still knowing, that that favourite polaroid of mine, the one with my hubby and eldest boy curling into one another, the one where my boy still has those puffy, squidgy dimpled baby hands, well … that it was and is gone, just a blur, a memory. I remember a cold rainy day in this city with that youngest boy wrapped in coat and hat and scarf, I remember his his mumbles and words that only close family understand and I remember the weight of him on my shoulders as we walked around. I can still feel the bounce, the giddy up, each time he spotted something exciting. There was lots of bounce in that pitt rivers museum. I even remember him catching his finger in one of the drawers and getting an itty bitty blood blister that he would show us for days accompanied by 'ooooh, ouch!'. The day when we ate delicious hand made pizzas in Jericho, the same day that we forgot that there are hardly any cash machines in Jericho and the one just opposite the place where we were already eating our pizza was out of order. Just at that point, the owner of the pizzeria explained that they only accept cash. That day, the boys and I watched their daddy running up and down the road looking for a cash point and then when he eventually went out of sight and had been gone for some time, I teased the boys that we were going to have to make a run for it without paying! My practical eldest child began offering an array of alternatives as a solution, whilst my youngest shoved the last part of his pizza in his mouth and jumped down from his stool and was already at the door when I explained I was joking. Chalk and cheese these boys of mine. Just at that point, their daddy burst through the doors panting and with cash in his hand and those boys of ours whooped and cheered - their hero! Always! 

This trip, we spent a long time looking at the elephant skeletons and talking about how beautiful they are. We all fell a little quiet, I guess thinking that perhaps these bones should not find a resting place here in the museum, perhaps just in awe of them. The shrunken heads still hold our interest and hold us captive and still at the end of each trip, at the last moment each of us sees something that we want to spend longer looking at, next time! It is pure magic. This trip, hubby and the boys played a long, long game of chase after our first picnic. Hubby would recline on the grass as if disinterested in their game and then when they least expected it, he would get up and run at full speed.Tagging them, sometimes wrestling them to the ground. Sometimes, I would wonder if he should give them a fairer chance and then he would say 'No Kate, it's fine. This is what boys do!' and then I would proudly watch as my boys struggled to catch their papa. This trip we heard a sweet boy talking french to his parents and my eldest asked his dad question after question about growing up bi-lingual, he also shared with us told us that we had robbed him of the choice to be bi-lingual too and when I said that was his dad's fault, he quickly reminded me that I have NEVER taken him to Ghana either!  On this trip, I can't remember what else we listened to in the car on the journey home but what I do remember is that the youngest one in our family asked for Major Lazer. He had a favourite track at the time although I can't remember which now. There are those days that just don't work out, days that are filled with stress and strife and just not gonna work outness, this just wasn't one of them. This one was pretty good. Pretty, pretty good.

My Middle Sister

It's my middle sisters' birthday today. The sister who is three years my senior. She's the one who famously, used to lock me in our parents room when we were young and make me learn hymns. That one. I would often take my time getting dressed in the morning so that I could see which clothes she picked and then I would pick clothes that matched hers as closely as I could manage. She found this annoying. She is also the one who found me at the side of the house, hiding, when I'd fallen into a river nearby and got swept away and had been rescued by some locals from our area. She convinced me that it was the right thing to tell mum the truth and helped me pluck up the courage to enter the house to explain away my adventure. 

I used to sit outside her bedroom door and watch her read just because I wanted to be near her. She also found this to be annoying. When at age eleven she left for boarding school, I pined for her. I remember dreaded car journeys to drop her off at school, with a lump in my throat the whole way and pinned as closely to her as I could get in the back seat of the car. I would watch out for the splash of my occasional  tear hitting the leather seat and the sun beating down on us drying it up in no time. I remember trying to make the journey fun, trying to laugh but feeling the hard hitting reality that we were about to be separated by nearly eighty miles and for months at a time. 

Once, when we were teenagers and she was no longer at boarding school but was as usual pre-occupied reading a book, and when I felt that she had neglected me for far too long, I used my mum's lighter and kept pretending to light her socks. I never seemed to grow tired of trying to pry her away from what I considered distractions from me. I was, shall we say, pretty persistent. So again, after some time had passed, I'd take another strike at the lighter getting closer and closer to her sock, trying to motivate her to put her book down. Well, eventually she did look up from her book because I had been a little careless and struck that lighter too close to her sock and suddenly I was filled with panic as I saw a blue flame with an orange edge travel up her sock towards the hem of her trousers. I leapt on top of her and threw my flailing arms upon her feet with tears in my eyes and a tightening pain in my chest. She casually looked up and said the words 'I don't want to talk to you, I'm reading my book, go away!' But then, she looked at me and saw the upset in my eyes and began to pick up the scent of her now singed socks. She glanced down and noticed the orange pattern left by the extinguished flame and she guffawed in shock at what she had just narrowly escaped. After shock had left me, I smiled to myself, I had after all got her to look up from her blasted book. Yes! 

I pined once again when she was nineteen and left for university. I pined for her at many different times in my life. I longed for her attention many times too. I received it many many times also and drank it in greedily. I pine for her even now, when life is busy and we don't speak for days and weeks, days and weeks. Of course it doesn't matter how many days or weeks or months or years that pass by because we share all of this. It's all stored up. The good stuff, the bad stuff, the funny stuff, the cringey. All of it. I think back to promises we made each other as children and how inconceivable it was back then, to think that we could go these days and weeks without talking and teasing and laughing and fighting and making up and talking and teasing and laughing at each other, at one another, together and apart and all at once. And when I think about it, it's not so different. Yes, there are changes but yes we are still together, still apart, still one another and all at once. And you know, if we lived in the same house now, I'd still sit outside her room. Happy Birthday Ali Pali Poodle! 

She was so darn cute!

Yep. That's her on the right. She was one of those clever, self motivated, geeky kids who thought about her plans for the future!

Linking up to:

Grown Ups

My driving instructor used to say to me 'THINK IT, DO IT'. What a great metaphor for life and what a huge challenge it is to live out those words fully, for me at least. I've been having some restless nights and restless spells in the day thinking about certain relationships of mine that for one reason or another are a little strained. It has been the kind of situation where you really want to blurt out your true feelings because you know it would be such a relief and it would make you feel so much better, but you hold back because you have no clear sense of what the other person might feel. You speculate about their reaction in your head, you consider all the scenarios, you consider the mutual friends that you have, you think about what your hubby's response is, you think, think, think but you just don't DO IT! 

This morning though, I did it. I woke up and I muttered under my breath 'THINK IT, DO IT' and I sent a friend an honest message about something a little sensitive, a little uncomfortable. It felt so good, the relief. It was immense. It was the same kind of relief I experienced after I sent a heart felt message of apology to a girlfriend of mine after a spell of not being in touch. I'm embarrassed to say we had a grown up falling out. There was a stormy meeting that kicked it all off, followed by a meeting that was seemingly calm on the surface although we both knew a storm was brewing deep within. And so we parted after that meeting and consequently, silence followed. After I had played out all of the drama of what had led to our 'fall out' over and over again and we'd both had some time out to cool down, to cower, to sulk and then to sulk some more. And then I could bare the silence no more. Eventually I realised that regardless of all that had taken place and been exchanged, I simply missed her. I wanted her back in my life and so I told her so. In fact I may even have been a little quasi romantic and quoted Joni Mitchell ... 'Don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you got till it's gone'. It worked and she told me that her eyes were filled with tears as she read my words and replied 'It's not gone'. I learned a lot from that experience a few months back. I learned that I don't always express myself clearly and that sometimes it is simply better to 'THINK IT, DO IT' and deal with the consequences rather than falling in line with something you either don't want to do or don't feel morally right about doing because you feel you 'ought to' or to avoid confrontation. It's tricky stuff but it feels good to put things right whichever side of the fence you happen to be on in life's varied and challenging scenarios. 

My hubby and I were talking about how hard all of this grown up stuff is, you know grown up relationships and friendships. I was explaining to him that as a teenager I always refused to be pulled into any nonsense that demanded either picking sides or picking friends, even if that led to my friends dismay or on occasion meant that I ended up alone on an island separated from all the complex conditions of friendship and the various friendship groups. It never left me afraid, it never made me want to compromise on my position. Maybe that was the greatest gift that I received being the youngest of four children, that early understanding that however well things were going at some point it would be your turn to be on the outside whilst the rest of the tribe clung together in union on the inside. I wish that I had that same clarity now as I had back then. Now, in spite of my knowledge of the state of man,(by that I mean all of us, the human condition, behaviours that are universal) I am still utterly befuddled by that person (this is not an individual so much as a 'type') at the school gates that yesterday was literally licking my face with an eagerness to talk and gain my attention but that today barely makes eye contact and when our eyes meet they look on as if they don't recognise me? I am befuddled too by the woman at church that clearly does not like me, the one that seems to smile at everyone but simply gives me an elvis curled lip as recognition of my existence. And yes, I will admit that I now see this as a bit of a challenge and yes I have over thought it a little although even hubby said that she definitely gave me the elvis curled lip and not in a good way! 

Grown up relationships, they're funny things. All of those things that you say to children about not hurting the feelings of others, not being insensitive, never letting others feel left out, playing nicely, sharing your things, saying you're sorry, making things better. I'm not sure how good we are at it when there aren't a couple of grown ups alongside making sure (or perhaps forcing, perhaps ensuring) that it's all sorted out before we part ways. And maybe it doesn't matter since there's always one that delivers a heart felt apology and one that says 'I'm sorry' through clenched teeth and with an accompanying eye roll. Maybe you're like me and you relate to each of these characters on different days, at different times, in different situations. I have no great revelation to impart today, sometimes it just feels so good to 'THINK IT, DO IT'. I think I've covered my quota for today after sending one friend a message first thing, so explaining to another friend how unhappy her drink driving makes me is definitely for another day or maybe not, I need a good night's sleep! In any case today I will be drinking tea. Lots and lots of tea.

NB Sincerest thanks must go to my hubby who forced himself to stay awake at 1.30 in the early hours of this morning as I shared my thoughts about the subject of this blog post.  

Water, food and light and they just keep on growing ...

I've read so many articles recently talking about 'being in the present', about making sure to capture beautiful moments in real time using your own eyes,  instead of seeing it through a lens or phone camera or whatever modern gadget you have to capture images and footage. During the summer this became easy by default because often my hands were full holding onto wellies and water bottles, sun screen and raincoats, skateboards and scooters, rucksacks and portable picnics. Voices were shouting 'watch mum, watch mum' and I often didn't dare to miss their triumphs by reaching for my phone in the deepest pocket of my bag slung across me. 

Looking back now through the photos that I took with my phone of the boys over the summer, I'm struck by two things: one, that I took far less photos of the boys than I normally would and two, that these creatures of mine have grown so so much. Those chubby little baby faces and hesitant smiles are all but gone, as are those quiet afternoons that led to naps or at the very least watching a film snuggled together with a blanket over our knees. I still do attempt those quiet times, especially when all the walking through woods is done and wellies have been retrieved from muddy bogs and hot chocolates from a flask are a distant memory and we return home and I picture all four of us with the blanket, buried in for the remainder of the day. 

Of course, this is not quite how the story goes. There is popcorn to be made and distributed equally, equally I said and I cannot emphasise this enough - equally. There are hand knitted blankets to be grabbed from the airing cupboard because we all struggle to share one these days because these creatures take up so much more space and I don't like a bare ankle if I am watching a film with a blanket. There are disputes about who owns which blanket although these are easily resolved since that youngest boy of mine has a gift of making holes in blankets(and many, many other things)and he always manages to find that thread, you know the one, the one that you shouldn't pull, well once he finds that one he pulls it - hard! Then of course, comes the choice of film. It's not very often that I will sit down to watch an entire film with them, normally I wander off to cook a meal or to carry out my domestic chores, so when we do sit down together I often like to introduce them to a new film, normally one from my childhood. This summer I introduced them to 'Grease' and apart from a cringey moment with Rizzo and Kenickie in the back seat of a car that I felt sure the eldest was going to comment on(although no comments so far), we all happily sang our way through that film, time and time again. Another of our big hits this summer was the Human Planet boxset. In an ideal world we would be travelling and visiting other countries regularly and gaining incite into other cultures through journeys away from home but hey when that's not possible then human planet is the next best thing. I got away with many fuss free, post hair wash untanglings and combings of hair with this boxset because they were so mesmerised! As much as I love the pink panther and looney tunes and tom&jerry et al, I do love a documentary and feel so pleased that we introduced these into their viewing early on.

This summer memories were made of unquiet times eating popcorn and watching films and documentaries. This summer I found myself often squeezing between two not so little people on that steadily getting smaller sofa of ours until one would abscond and curl up with dad sat in his chair. This summer that youngest boy of mine had his first sleepover at Grandma's without big brother and when he returned home he could speak of nothing but warm and cosy adventures with Grandma. This summer I watched two boys sat cross legged in a back garden determined to witness milk turning into cheese! This summer was all about being outdoors all day long and then grabbing scooters and skateboards after dinner and heading out once more for late night jaunts, just for kicks as they say. This summer there were plenty of the usual water fights in pants, except that being such an extraordinary hot summer these water fights were more plentiful that ever before and we liked it that way. This summer I knew that I wanted a picture of just him and me and those crazy beautiful mixed batch of teeth that I love so much. This summer I noticed really for the first time that my mama's hands are slowly becoming my Grandma Peppermint's 'worker' hands and you know there's something magical about knowing these hands wrap around my children just the way they used to wrap around me. This summer a boy had his face painted and quickly became the prettiest 'bat' I ever have seen! This summer all three of those boys of mine pulled grass seed off heads and threw golden sprinkles in the air time and time again and this brought smiles to their faces each and every one of those times. I hope that every summer is as carefree and simple and covered in golden sprinkles as the one we just waved goodbye to.