1. My to-listen-to playlist turns up a bit of 1980s electronica -- Don't Go by Yazoo. The first beautiful thing is Nick telling Alec that I would have been about the same age as him when this came out. And the other beautiful thing is us all robot dancing around the kitchen.
2. Between bubbing duties and being ill I haven't left the house for days. I thrust armfuls of babies at Nick and invent some light garden work that needs doing. Fifteen minutes under the sky leaves me feeling much happier.
3. Alec wants a caterpillar. I start to explain that it's the wrong time of year but it seems quicker and easier to manufacture one out of piper cleaners and secrete it in the garden. He names it David Attenborough Mice and asks for a second (David Attenborough Twice) for Daddy to find in the front garden. We put them in an improvised terrarium and Alec is so delighted that he runs out to show a woman trudging past our gate up the hill.
3b. Awkward conversations with my children:
"Are they real?"
"They're as real as you want them to be."
"Yes but are they real?"
"As real as your dinosaurs."
"But ARE THEY REALLY REAL?"
"No."
