What a night… 1am the smoke alarm wakes Mr Dotty. He gets to the foot of the stairs, rushes back up, shakes me awake and tells me sharply that I am ‘in charge’ of bedrooms. Groggily I stand outside the childrens’ bedroom like a retired sumo wrestler who has forgotten how to wrestle, instead of more practically gathering up dressing gowns and slippers (note to self, must find slippers). Mr Dotty emerges from the acrid smoke-filled sitting room bearing what was a bright orange reusable Sainsbury’s shopping bag: filled with quick-exit swimming things (including brand-new bra). The bits of the bag that hadn’t welded themselves to the storage heater welded themselves to my bra, knickers, white towel….. The worst thing is that the week before I left the vaccuum cleaner out and the hose melted in exactly the same way.
Anyway, disaster averted, back to bed, Wee2 bed-hops back to ours, I can’t get back to sleep so I tiptoe into Wee2’s bed. Wee2 appears with beatific grin ‘Oh – THERE you are!’ and squeezes in beside me.I wait until he is asleep, climb over, tiptoe out back into big bed, Wee2 appears once again. He ends up sleeping horizontally, Mr Dotty is oblivious, the dog is in the middle between the bedspread and the duvet (having magically metamorphosed into an alsation [the dog, that is, not the duvet]), the cat is wherever he feels like and WILL not move and I resign myself into morphing myself into a size 0 contortionist.
Gosh, I’m looking forward to the rest of the day!
Do you know: it just got better and better. Heaven only knows how: but it did. We took the boys out for a jolly old-fashioned walk to the park via the newsagent (sadly Spa – our independent newagent closed a couple of years ago and is now a very expensive designer clothes shop) for the boys to spend their pocket money on over-priced comics with irresistible plastic gimmics shrink-wrapped on the front, followed by hot chocolate at Marmions: a haven for all post-school, pre-toddler group and generally exhausted Mummies of Melrose. So far, so good. Then Wee1 asked if we could bake biscuits when we got home: ‘Of course, darling’ I said, full of Doris Day floral-pinny hope and joy. Post coffee/hot chocolate I popped into the Co-op for eggs and let Wee1 hold the bag. Here endeth the Doris Day moment.
We trudged up the hill in the merciless drizzle, let boys keep hold of (light) bags while parents carry (VERY heavy bicycle and scooter). Mr Dotty decides to take the scenic ’short-cut’, Wee1 follows, Wee2 wants to follow – but only if Mummy will hold his hand. Short-cut involves two mile trek further UP steeper hill, over rough woodland terrain, to end up 5 yards away from where we left perfectly servicable tarmaced path. On the way we lost 2 eggs, broke a third (or so we thought…. actually fourth) and mushed a container of prime Scottish raspberries destined for my morning porridge into an instant smoothie. As if that wasn’t enough, my attempts at easing the road with little nature notes (Oh, look at that wild woodland violet/wild garlic/wild leek/late primrose) were interspersed with ‘Mummy – what’s this?’…’It’s a pine cone, darling – there are lots in this wood: it’s a pine wood’…. ‘Mummy, what’s this?’…’it’s another pine cone, sweetheart’…. ‘Mummy, what’s this?’… ‘it’s a PINE CONE!!!!!!!!!!!!’. Funnily enough, no biscuits were made this afternoon: I had a lie-down instead.