The sensible thing

Dig does the manly sensible thing and hires a driver and guide. This is possibly to get Grit off the streets altogether and thus protect the citizens of Cairo from another impromptu bit of theatre.

Hiring someone who actually knows where they are going, and how to get there quickly, might also be something to do with Dig preserving his reputation as a man about the world, capable of striding about in a commanding way, and seeing these:

Step pyramid at Saqqara

Giza Pyramid complex

We have to think of the alternative. Can you imagine coming back from Cairo and being asked the question, Did you see the pyramids? And answering, No. We got lost and couldn't find them.

Grit's travel tips for a day out in Cairo

1. Learn Arabic. You can do this at home, alone, which is probably best, because you need to choke out shkyrakyrakshryakakak-aka-aka-ak without spitting at anyone. Being alone also has the added advantage that there is no-one around to tell you your aka-aka-ak has all gone wrong, when it sounds perfectly good to me.

Grit has three Arabic words at her disposal now, none of which have been in any way useful, except to cause Dig embarrassment. I try a modest shukran to the hotel driver, which I hope seems polite and respectful. I get a slight puzzled expression in return. I probably called him old goat or offered my body for five dollars. I promise myself I will borrow the Teach Yourself Arabic audio course again from the library. I think am stressing it all wrong.

2. Buy the services of a guide to do the meet and greet and get you to the hotel. Seriously. Cairo is a place where a meet and greet got us to the hotel in 40 minutes instead of our usual 5 hours and an argument with a taxi driver where he wins. And would we have found that hotel in that web of streets, elevated on a fifth floor above the thousands of shops selling everything from Singer sewing machine parts, beads and bread, to shoes, clay pots and fan belts? All on a threading alleyway off the Talaat Harb? I don't think so. This hotel doesn't even have a street level sign. It is however, wonderful*.

3. Smile. This is very nice. It doesn't seem to make any difference to anything, but everyone smiles back and that is very nice too. Grit smiles a lot. The people we meet in Egypt are very friendly and constantly just want us to step inside their shop to take a business card. I can honestly say I smiled a lot in the perfume shop. Dig didn't smile at all. Grumpy Dig! And look! The Egyptians are so lovely I am even smiling while handing over a large sum of money for a bottle of flower essence and such lovely smile-inducing perfume bottles!

4. Wear shoes that cover your feet. And you can see why.


5. Take a sun hat. And do not go out in the midday sun. Otherwise you get heatstroke. And this is how it happens.

At about midday and after two hours walking through Cairo you might whimper 'I feel a bit hot'. Dig of course will take no notice of such feminine vapours. He will continue to stride about in a manly way like Bulldog Drummond, shouting in a commanding voice, 'Next we need to find the spice market!' He then proceeds to get hopelessly lost in the tangle of market streets up old Cairo, and Grit starts swearing blind she just saw that old man again sitting on the car tyres by the abattoir because he is looking at her intently, following her with his eyes, and is also frowning in bemusement. This is a look I've seen before on the faces of people who are experiencing a procession of matching triplets wearing similar dresses and identical hairstyles. So now I know we've walked past him three different ways in the last half hour.


With heatstroke, you might feel your body take a drastic turn for the worse at about 3pm when suddenly you feel you are no longer sweating. The effect on Grit is alarming. She starts running around in circles shouting 'I'm not sweating! I'M NOT SWEATING! I must have shade!'

Sprinting past a Coca cola seller who has large blocks of broken ice in baskets by the heavy traffic, Grit then screeches to a halt and grabs one of these ice blocks under the startled gaze of the street seller who probably thinks this strange European is trying to half-inch his can of Coke. She then proceeds to slap that ice straight to her face. Rubbing the ice block methodically around her face, over her head, round her neck and down her front she then intones That feels good, that feels good, before Dig drags her off to stand under a fan in a bag shop. Here I continue rubbing the ice block over my entire body because the alternative is a coma. When I get to the last palm-size bit, I shove it into the left cup of my bra, reasoning this is nearest cup to my heart and I have to stop the cardiac arrest. Fortunately I seem to get away with this bizarre exhibition, which says something about the behaviour the gentle folk of Cairo expect from their foreign visitors.

6. Locate the free water. All around Cairo there are drums of water, provided free for drinking. Alongside these drums will be a couple of plastic cups. The idea is that you help yourself to water, return the cup and move on, refreshed.

Well, obviously, do not drink the water because as a soft-bellied, non-Cairoan, you will die. What you do is push in front of everyone else in the queue for the free water, fill your cup and throw it at yourself, head first, working the entire way down to the feet. This is mildy embarrassing for Dig, but I say the ice was only a partial solution because have you thought how you are going to get my stiff dead body down from the fifth floor? I have now given this serious thought and there is no way they can do it without propping me up in the lift or lowering me out the window on a rope. In preference to that I am going to shower. Now. Admittedly this looks a bit like Grit trying to import the wet T-shirt competition inappropriately into a land where the ladies mostly wear black bags and I could possibly be arrested, but like I said, this is an emergency.

7. Get a room with air con. I apologise to the environment, but I need to bring my body temperature down now about fifteen degrees. Remember only a few hours ago, in the market near the abattoir, that fabric conditioner looked like a viable, thirst-quenching, cocktail.

8. Carry around an assortment of currency. This is great. I love this about travel. Dig carries around US dollars, Euro, UK sterling, plus assortments from Aus, China, and today, Egypt. Because you never know. There might just be a man who owns a perfume shop round the next corner.

9. Obsessively keep all small change, probably where Dig keeps his. Down his underpants. Because when you have a fifty pound note and the bottle of water you are dribbling over costs one pound fifty the street trader will laugh in your face and hold up his fingers at your nose. Then you'd better come up with one pound fifty or you are going to die. Either that or you have to wrestle him to the ground and rob him, or just hand over the entire fifty pound note and walk away holding that luxurious bottle of ice cool drinking water! And now you can bet Grit is more sorry than she ever thought possible that she gave the fifty piastres to the children as play money.


10. Gather local maps of Cairo because the Lonely Planet maps are crap. On the third trip past the abattoir Dig is all but kicking the Lonely Planet into the gutter. Apparently the map has no landmarks! The scale is wrong! The streets are not listed! Dig, I say, some of these streets are the width of a line of wool, of course they are not going to be on the map. Give it here. I need to put it on my head to get some shade.

11. Never believe anything you are told by anyone. We say to a passer by, 'Hey! Thanks for the offer of a business card and we will be back tomorrow, but could you just tell us where is the Restaurant Taboula?' And he will shrug his shoulders like 'Are you foolish? Everyone knows where that place is! It is first right!' And then you will discover it is nowhere near the first right, it is several blocks away. You will wander round for the next hour until you are late for your reservation and they have given your table to a man who can suck smoke through something that looks like a candlestick.

12. Get religion before you cross the road. You will need a God on your side.

Now I don't know about you but I was brought up to believe the safe way to cross the road was to wait for a gap in the traffic, look both ways and step cautiously across. NO. That is WRONG. The way to cross the road is to step out into MOVING TRAFFIC and those vehicles will FLOW ROUND YOU. Dig says Look! They are crossing the road by stepping off the kerb into a stream of traffic going at 40mph! Why can't we? He says just use the locals as human shields. No Dig NO. Because Dig, WE ARE GOING TO DIE. And then let's see you explain that to the children.


13. Do not take a photograph in the Cairo Museum. Not under any circumstances. Not even if you are talked into it by Dig, who wants to see if you can get away with it. You can't. You will be caught by a guard and marched into a corner where your phone is taken off you while you make pathetic grovelly noises and say it was all his fault. Then with a mean look that very severe guard will hand your phone back to you and somehow contrive to leave his palm open to indicate that a fifty pound note will do nicely, thank you very much. But then you scarper. Because where I come from matey, bribing a policeman is a pretty big deal, and a much bigger crime than taking a photograph in the Cairo Museum.


14. This is not so much of a suggestion, more of a plea, particularly to the ladeez. And I get so worked up about this subject I could write a book about it. Please cover yourselves up if you are in a land where the women do not show their backsides, bra straps, burnt wobbly bits at the tops of their thighs, naked backs down to buttock level, near naked breasts and underarms. Please show modesty. (Smearing ice over your entire body in a handbag shop is, of course, an exception.)



* The Talisman, Hotel de charme, 39 Talaat Harb Street.

On the road to Cairo

Everything went to plan, of course.

Squirrel is safely in Wales. Shark and Tiger can't wait for me and Dig to be out the house, and Northumberland's finest babysitter, Aunty Dee, who drives at ten miles an hour, was predictably late arriving last night. That gave me time to clean the floors and stock the fridge. Now it's easy to pretend we always live with this level of cleanliness and this many peas. I've drawn all the maps neatly for her, including all ten roundabouts, the junction, and the free car park. With those I hope she can safely take the hands of the remaining twins and arrive at the lake on time tomorrow for Shark's sailing, and arrive unflustered at the art gallery for Tiger.

And I have even packed a bag.


This is a bag my mother used to unkindly call the rent collector's bag. I salvaged it from an antique shop in Suffolk at the cost of a fiver about twenty years ago. My mother is probably right. But I hope in this vintage / retro world of ours it looks like the sort of first-class bag to travel with.

The first thing to go wrong is the train to Heathrow. The one that was to serve as a getaway vehicle for me and Dig. That was foolish of us. Trains in Britain don't seem to run on weekends and holidays and most days because of a strange thing called engineering works. This is something I have never understood, because when applied to railways the engineering doesn't work. Especially on Sundays. Dig decides to take the car, which means the additional job of unloading the garbage, orange peel, biscuit crumbs and rotten potato which has somehow crept in there, because otherwise I worry that Heathrow car park staff might think it has been abandoned and have it towed away.

But then I start to experience some real delights. And it is the Business Lounge at Terminal 5. Where there is soft furnishing, quiet atmosphere and free food. Free food. FREE FOOD. AND FREE WINE.

Grit's world meets Dig's world. Grit's world is, quite frankly, horrible. In Grit's world, nothing works. Things break down, explode, die. People shout and cry and are sick down your leg on Christmas eve. Grit listens to screaming for an hour and a half because she is the worst and most evil person in the entire world. And what has she done? She wants to do to you the worst torture in the world. She wants to comb your hair.

When Grit's world is filled with so much screaming you think there can't be any more screams left anywhere, Grit descends into undignified scrambling and manhandling of kids, sometimes away from each other before they remove eyeballs altogether, or away from doors, windows and cars where they are just about to set to with fists, feet, and a stuffed puffin.

In Grit's world, you see, nothing gets better. It just gets worse. She electrocutes herself at midnight, plunges the house into darkness, is alone and defeated with three kids who in exactly eight hours will kill in the competition to open the packet of Cheerios first, and when she realises the full horror of this unfolding drama, there seems nothing else to do but lie flat on the kitchen floor and bawl.

But Dig's world. Dig's world. Here everything is elegant and quiet and works. Here you are made to feel special. This is a world which doesn't break down. And if it does, there are people to fix it. Here we are trusted to know what to do. If I don't, someone will save me, and leap to my aid, and discreetly cover my hesitancy, and everything will be alright, and everything will be safe. And here there are no triplets. Here I don't have to supervise the handling of tomato sauce. No-one will shout to a waiting group of parents at the park that mummy's bum will not fit into a wet suit even if she got one elephant sized. No. This is an adult world. And it is elegant.

It would be wonderful if Grit could live this dream. But within two minutes Grit's world intrudes. She clamps her hand to her mouth and shouts out 'I have to ring Aunty Dee! I forgot to tell her that the boiler will break down and she needs to relight it by climbing under the eaves and when she goes under the eaves she must not step back because the toilet waste pipe is propped up on a CD case'.

Sad and lonely without Squirrel

We leave Squirrel here. In Wales.

Then drive home without a sister. And really, we are a bit unsure about that.

But we're not going to show it.

There are, of course, compensations.

But not many.

Priorities

Here's the plan.

Tomorrow we all drive to Wales to drop off Squirrel for her adventure holiday week, then we come home, by which time Aunty Dee will have arrived.

On Sunday morning, Aunty Dee takes over the management of Shark and Squirrel, then me and Dig leave on the train to get to Heathrow and on to Cairo in the afternoon.

That sounds very well worked out. Except at this point, with less than 24 hours before Squirrel is thrown out onto a Welsh mountain, I haven't located or packed a thing for her. The list is quite exhaustive, requiring multiple pairs of trainers for wet and dry activities, trousers suitable for all weathers, long socks and short socks, and tee-shirts with varying sleeve lengths.

Neither have I stocked up on any essentials for tomorrow's journey, like fruity buns, apple juice and 4-hour CD stories for the car. That means trips to the Co-op and library. Tomorrow, Aunty Dee will be two hours late because she drives everywhere at ten miles an hour, even on the A1. And I have nothing suitable for a first-class return journey from Cairo apart from a pair of torn jeans, so fit in a shopping trip. I could, of course, wear the jeans anyway and hope they make me look like a rock chick and not a freeloading bag lady. And I have yet to leave a full fridge, maps and instructions for Monday. On Monday Tiger is booked into an all day workshop at the art gallery and Shark starts her stage two sailing course at the lake. Aunty Dee, who drives everywhere at ten miles an hour, has to get them there. On time.

But then I spot that today there is a very good workshop on insects over at a local country park. The wardens there are excellent and can tell us all about Carabus violaceus if we accidentally stand on one. If I pick Squirrel up from her final kayak session I could just make that, and then we can learn all about beetles and bugs and slugs and slow worms and this will be very good for home education.

I tell Dig we are now out until tea time, and he asks, what about the packing? What about Wales? What about Aunty Dee? What about Cairo? Dig, I say, everything will be alright. Trust me. At this point, what could possibly go wrong?

Public apology

OK Squirrel, here it is.

I HEREBY MAKE A FULL AND HUMBLE PUBLIC APOLOGY TO SQUIRREL OVER THE FACT THAT I HUMILIATED HER AGAIN BY PUTTING HER WET SUIT ON THE WRONG WAY ROUND.

MOREOVER I NOW AGREE THAT I DO NOT KNOW WHICH END A CANOE GOES IN THE WATER FIRST AND CONCUR THAT MY BUM PROBABLY WOULD NO LONGER FIT INTO A WET SUIT AND THAT I AM NOT A KAYAKING INSTRUCTOR AND DO NOT KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.

I do however, know what a lake looks like, so back off Squirrel, aka MRS PROSECUTOR.

Day of action, not words.

9.00 Breakfast. Deflect argument about packet of Cheerios.
10.00 Get Squirrel sorted at the lake for a soaking in a canoe.
10.30 Home to say goodbye to Oo.
11.00 Have a quiet cry.
11.45 Deflect argument about a bat.
12.00 Pick up Squirrel from a canoe, get over to see a man and his eagles in a field. Find out about buzzards, kestrels, owls and sharp beaks.


1.00 Deflect argument about a piece of tissue paper.
1.15 Throw bread rolls at everyone while making a telephone booking for Tiger to attend an art workshop next Monday.
2.00 Arrive at the drop-in session at the art gallery to 'develop ideas about place and the community' and not muck about with printing ink. Or have a fight at the sink over who gets the tap first.


4.00 Buy things in Waitrose! With three kids! And leave with DIGNITY! HAHAHAHA! I did it! I DID IT!
4.50 Deflect argument about windscreen.
6.00 Cook food.
6.45 Deflect argument about glue.
8.00 Arrive at Buddhist temple to listen to the chanting. Try and guard against Squirrel, Shark and Tiger making an unseemly grab for the candles which are carried to be floated away on the lake after dark.


10.00 Arrive home. Deflect argument about snow leopard. Get everyone into bed.

I list these events here because on some days any one of these actions would be an achievement so great I would want to climb up the back of the old sofa in the attic room and shout it all out to the neighbours from the advantage point of the dormer windows. I probably do, when a bit unhinged and Dig can't reach my ankles quick enough.

And on those overwhelming days when I can barely crawl, or when pressing the button on the dishwasher is a step too far, I can look back at this bloggy record day and be grateful. Because not only can I think that when the wind is travelling in the right direction, I can do it, I can also hope that no August 6 is ever going to be as bad as the one that went before.

Rain and shine

Rain rain rain rain rain. That stops everyone going out, so Dig and the children stay irritable at home.

Hahahah. I don't. I go out. With Oo. Shopping. I am a Proper Girl. And I am doing Proper Girly Things like drinking coffee and complaining about the cake in John Lewis.

Well, Oo complains. I don't. I am just grateful. It is free, I tell Oo, because this is the voucher given to me nearly two years ago when a member of staff saw this down-at-heel mother of triplets. She took pity on the stains from the weeping. It's why I don't wear mascara anymore. She gave me a voucher for two cups of coffee and two slabs of cake. I didn't like to point out to that kind shop assistant that I never have time to go to John Lewis coffee shop and, worse, I didn't have any girl friends to go to John Lewis coffee shop with, except for one who lives in Dubai.

Anyway, today Grit is a Proper Girl, even though she has never watched Sex and the City and is not actually sure what Proper Girls do. Hey, I remind Oo, the year Shark, Tiger and Squirrel were wrenched from my wretched body, Big Brother started on TV. I was so cut off from society you had to explain to me what it was, because I never understood what people were talking about. That's what motherhood did for me. It started off as a sort of a prison sentence where the guards would dribble and squeal and slurp and sleep and poop all day and all night while I watched over them shouting She smiled! and Dig would grunt, She burped.

But this is now, and the results of a proper girly afternoon out are to look at clothes, complain about the state of undress in the youth of today, and purchase some brown facial fluid in a bottle, which Oo will probably have to explain to me about. There are, of course, other expenditures, which I'm going to keep quiet about.

The afternoon is also gratifyingly disastrous, because this is Oo after all, and involves several John Lewis staff at closing time scouring every shop floor looking for a Debenhams shirt.

And I do not know whether this is the mark of a Proper Girl, but there is my complete gratitude that on this rare occasion, the person I am with shares my understandings, consoles me about life, says on balance I am right to eat crisps, and does not interrupt to shout poopy head, or to make demands for cheesy rice, toast, and where is the leg of the doll because I said I would glue it on. No, they just made me feel like today, the sun came out.

Qualified status

It is Squirrel's turn for watersports lessons at the lake.

She's going to throw herself into the murky depths from a kayak, and she's been looking forward to it for days. I tell her I could give her a shove at the end of the pier and save myself fifty quid but apparently this is not the same experience at all. For a start, Squirrel claims, I am not an instructor and do not know what I am doing. Then she holds against me the fact that I have never been in a kayak and cannot even explain the difference between a kayak and a canoe. She then says I do not how to launch a canoe. Adding insult to injury, she then claims I do not know what a lake looks like. Finally, she gratuitously adds that she bets I could not fit my bum into a wet suit.

Enough of this persecution, I say, because if it continues, then do you know what I shall do? Throw you in the lake right now and claim the status of parent irritated by child, for which I have enough professional qualifications already, thank you very much.

Fun at the farm

Because our lovely visitor Oo spends her common hours surrounded by Gulf sunshine and sand, the Grit family takes her off to the farm to be surrounded by English drizzle and mud.

This, of course, counts as part of our home education. And of this is am mostly proud and need to show off. So I am moved to pronounce to Oo that if we hear any more crap in the newspapers about kids not knowing where their food comes from, I may be moved to write a letter to the Times. And this shows how much a friend is Oo, because even though I have made her suffer, covered her in mud in a field and caused her to stink of beetroot and onion, she agrees.

I am an unbiased critic. Honestly.

Before anything else happens, la famille Grit and Dig muster at the local community hall to attend Shark's drama performance. Shark, and 39 other kids who happen to be there as well.

Shark has been every morning at a drama workshop for the last week, this being summer holidays and all, and today the miniature dramatis personae are showing the parents what their hard-earned money just bought them.

Well, I can say as a person who has watched a bit of theatre here and there that the end result is two hours of total crap with kids running about all over the place pretending to be acting, and my daughter, Shark, a shining beacon of dramatic excellence, taking centre stage as a ghost for fifteen seconds and allowing a spell-bound audience to witness the next Katharine Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman rolled into one.

How can I convey the talent that shines through Shark's debut performance? The power she brought to that whooooo hooooo noise? The characterisation she brought to that part? Can I explain how much I felt I really knew the sufferings and trauma the ghost had gone through when it couldn't eat the cheese sandwich because it had no stomach? I don't think so. I can only say that I am a very proud mummy, sixty quid was a bargain, and I had to wait nearly an hour and a quarter for the only bit that mattered.

And I would like to guess that all the parents went home today with their offspring, saying, well what a terrible show! It was just a bunch of kids running about the place! But did you work with the ghost? Did you get to learn something from her technique? Did you hear the way she went whooooo hooooo? That, offspring, is total charisma.

And for Shark, CLAP CLAP APPLAUSE!

Organise the diary, Grit

Is it August 1st? Good, because this afternoon Oo from Dubai arrives to stay. I can now legitimately embark on three riotous days of girly living. That means handbag disaster, cosmetics expenditure and bathroom squealing. All of those I hope to be doing shortly.

But this is a busy day for other reasons, so better leave time for some planning. Like this morning, when Dig cruises past the PGL For Sale website and clicks the Go button. Within twenty minutes Squirrel is booked into another week of a boarding adventure holiday in Wales. That's lucky. She can't do the coming week because Monday to Friday I am ferrying her backwards and forwards to the lake where she is on a paddle sports course, learning how to throw herself in from a kayak. When she does go to Wales we'd better make that Saturday dash and book another Travelodge a week later. My confirming our attendance at the local bat walk pales in comparison.

As it does against Dig reemerging from his office to say that now he has got Squirrel in Wales, he has also contrived to get Aunty Dee down from Northumberland to look after Tiger and Shark, because he has booked flights for the both of us to escape on a two-day visit to Cairo, return first class.

He only slightly mars that last dramatic gesture by saying he needs to use some air miles and Cairo is off season at 40 degrees centigrade, so the hotel is cheap.

Grit is now occupied with the diary, humbly apologising to the environment and will be found later today in the bathroom, squealing.

Slightly unhinged

Spend the day being chased by goblins. Not the paranoid delusional variety induced by daily misuse of hard drugs and vodka, but the small goblin variety also known as Shark, Tiger and Squirrel.

Occasionally, under my breath, they travel, cursed, under the names Goneril, Regan and Lady Macbeth. Those names will one day make horrible, cruel sense, and then my daughters will sob and say Why, mother, why?

I will answer that by saying that in these growing years, before you chuck your family up altogether and stomp off to live in a squat with a born again Christian and then get pregnant at age 17 (these things happen, trust me), then any quiet resistance I can manage now is merely growing my inner shield in preparation for worse to come. In fact I am growing it for the teenage years, which on some days, I think we may glimpse, just a little, of what life is to be.

By that time, this shield should take literally anything that is thrown at me. And yes, even a shield that outwardly is composed of curses and in the future may seem cruel, disloyal and uncaring is actually a way of emotional resistance and a positive act of therapy. And having that hard shield which stops me from being fatally wounded is far better than stabbing myself in the head or grabbing someone and throwing them out of the top floor window.

Anyway, I will tell Shark, Tiger and Squirrel, you know that I love you more than all the green tea in China and beyond, and possibly more than life itself, so you should be able to withstand your new names, Goneril, Regan, and Lady Macbeth.

However I also know that there are more socially acceptable forms of therapy I can admit to than muttering curses to my own children under my breath, even if they are Shakespearean.

Thanks to the wonderful Ellie and Mr W, therapy can also take the shape of a good chat over supper while Goneril, Regan, and Lady Macbeth are drugged upstairs by Anastasia. As if my id were not calmed down enough, then Ellie produces another form of therapy and it is this:


When I finally extract this recipe from Ellie, possibly under threat of torture and blackmail, I shall blast it out to planet Internet and anyone who is suffering from the pre-teen years can join me in this therapeutic melting moment.

Forest play

This is a fun afternoon for Tiger and Squirrel. Shark gets herself grounded for screaming YOU IDIOT! GET OUT OF MY WAY! repeatedly at me on the way to the woods.

The A421 is a very fine road

Memo to Grit. Please look at the ruddy map before setting out with Shark, Tiger and Squirrel for the swimming pool with the wave machine. Or simply power up the Satnav and, along with the woggles, costumes, shampoo, conditioner, hairbrushes, towels and bags, take it with you.

Either of these two procedures will prevent you standing at the side of the road somewhere off the A421, in tears, possibly needing a respirator, calling Dig on the mobile to navigate the last ten minutes past the A5134. Otherwise, Grit, if you keep going on like this, you are going to have a breakdown.

And incidentally, do not yell at the children who have all got out of the car to take swinging punches at each other, that we are all going home now, right NOW. This is a pointless threat which no-one will take seriously, because everyone knows that after you've invested over an hour trying to find the swimming pool with the wave machine, the last thing that you are going to do, is GIVE UP.

And on reaching the swimming pool with the wave machine, when Doreen on reception says that it is lucky it took an hour an a half to get here and now it is the off-peak time, so everyone gets in half-price, remember that you need to be more like Doreen. Smile. And think that every cloud has a silver lining.

I should have known this would happen

9am. The stables are shut. Of course the stables are shut. Of course there is no-one here because I have arranged for Tiger to be mucking out from 9am to 11am. It is supposed to be the start of her horse adventure week, for which I am selling a lung and a kidney.

9.10am. I tell Tiger for the millionth time that of course Tim, who is managing the stables, has not forgotten about her. He is leaving the house right now because he overslept last night and when she is grown up she will understand why grown ups need an extra ten minutes in bed on a Monday morning.

9.20am. I tell Tiger play one more game of hopscotch. I will call Tim's mobile in a few minutes.

9.30am. There is no answer from Tim's mobile. I get a recorded woman telling me this number is not contactable.

9.40am. I tell an increasingly distressed Tiger that everything will be fine. In fact nothing can possibly go wrong with these arrangements because I have worked hard to set them up. And, I say, I am so confident everything will work out, that I have appointments for myself lined up all day today which have been built around dropping her off and picking her up.

9.45am. On the sly, I ring Dig, and ask him to search the web for telephone numbers.

9.50am. Dig finds a number for the stables. I ring it, even though we are here and no-one else is. I get a recorded woman telling me this number does not accept incoming calls.

10.00am. I call one of the six emergency numbers listed at the stables. These are the emergency numbers in case of fire, bolted horses, or a wall-eyed toothless lunatic heading over the hills with a grudge against anything on four legs and a machete. Actually, I would count as an emergency a distraught Tiger who thinks everyone has forgotten her, and a pissed off Grit who has spent several hours in the last few months pursuing these arrangements for her daughter's home education, only to have now the strong suspicion that she has been forgotten about, even though she stood at Tim's elbow in the stables only last week when he wrote down in the diary that Tiger was to be here everyday on a horse adventure week.

10.05am. I call the first emergency number, for Jules. She says ring Tee. I ring Tee. A recorded woman tells me to leave a message. I ring the third number for Laura. Laura tells me to ring Tee, when lo and behold, Tee drives past in a car. She screeches to a halt when she sees me and asks whether we are there for Tim. Yes. But Tim is not here for us. That is because, says Tee, he is in a field.

I should have known that. I should have known that whatever Grit does in her life it is going to end in a field. The field will be in the middle of nowhere because everything always is. I am going to spend my life in fields. I will spend my life in fields because this is where the excluded, defeated, marginalised, frustrated, pissed off, and miserable people go. They go into fields. If you drive past some fields you will see us there, wandering about, unable to escape, weeping. I will never get out of the field. I will die disappointed, defeated, in a field with no funeral because that is what happens to people who struggle everyday, only to see their ambitions, purposes and goals frustrated, no matter how small and insignificant those ambitions are, no matter on whose behalf we are all working, or how minor our objective, it will all be thwarted and skewered. And end up in a field.

11.00am. Take Tiger to a field where Tim swears blind he sent me a text. Meet him here, at the field. I hold up my phone. No text. He raises his eyebrows like technologyeh? and heads off into the field with Tiger behind, leaving me to look at the back end of a horse.

11.10am. Arrange to pick Tiger up at 1.30pm. Spend the next 30 minutes hanging on mobile phone rescheduling the day, cancelling appointments, rearranging times and asking Dig to pick up Shark at midday from a drama workshop because now I will never make it.

11.35am. Stare at field. Consider whether it is better to be buried near the gate or under the horse shit.

Happy families

The day of the butterfly walk! Yeah! I'm putting exclamation! marks! here! and here! Because this is a long, long, overdue family day out! And are we excited!

No, actually, we are not. Despite my best efforts to be cheery mummy cheerleader whipping up the frenzy of a happy family band, we are not excited. Not at all. So I shall start by blaming the butterfly walk. It has bad vibes. It already got cancelled last month thanks to the amount of rain coming down from the heavens. On that single scheduled day the local devout shouted told you so and probably took to hammering planks of wood together in the shape of an ark. The rest of us tut tutted about what global warming can do for butterflies before sticking on the heating and making a nice cup of tea from a full kettle of water.

Well now we are arrived at the rescheduled day of the butterfly walk, and the first day back together as a family, and I am determined that we will enjoy being together. Shark isn't talking to any of us and demands that we stay several paces away from us because, as she puts it, we are embarrassing. How can I be embarrassing! I mock as we are getting into the car. And by the way, did you remember to put knickers on this morning? And are you ever going to wear socks with those sandals? Mockery, by the way, is not a good idea and she refuses to speak to me for the next seven hours.

Then Dig gets stressy about how late it is and is probably not talking to us either now and also wishing we would walk several paces away. Tiger won't stand anywhere near anyone, because someone might produce a dog, and Squirrel is usually in a huff half an hour after anything starts because of something or other, and if not that, then probably the colour green, or something important along those lines. A Squirrel in a huff usually then snaps at me that she does not wish to see me right now and suggests I go to my room. I snap back that I am in a field and anyway, that is my line and she is not allowed to use it.

The woman leading the butterfly walk then gets pissed off with the speed with which we are all marching up the hill. We are probably doing that because there is a German Shepherd on a lead at the bottom of the hill, but that is difficult to explain. Anyway, she manages to dump the group we are in, and abandons us with her assistant who is an expert on locusts. Then when I see a dead rabbit in the grass I try and stand in front of it to protect my little Tiger who tells me she doesn't need that sort of help thank you very much and looks like she is going to give me a shove so I fall into it. That sends me scuttling up the hill as far away from an irate Tiger and a dead rabbit as I can get while feeling sorry for myself that my children are all, in their various ways, telling me they are now so grown up that they do not need me anymore, and I am clearly a burden to them and everyone, even though I am not on a respirator. I could, I console myself, arrange for that and then I am sure everyone would be sorry.

So it is in this mood that today, in a field, led by an expert on locusts, we see a large white, a small white, a peacock, a something else and a something else with wings. I forget what. Because I am disappointed, deflated and sulking and telling everyone to walk several paces away from me. And, I tell myself in my wallowing pit of misery, all I wanted was to be a happy family simply so glad to be together and holding hands for a lovely, lovely, butterfly walk!

Well don't say I didn't try. And there is always a consolation. It is called one large white and three large reds.

Photoblog day out

Here is Shark, and Squirrel, and Tiger, meeting up in Wales after a week apart.


That's forty minutes before everyone is towed around the Mappa Mundi exhibition in Hereford.


One and a half hours before everyone is forced to enjoy themselves at Snowshill.


And five minutes before the first argument. The one about who is allowed to look out of the window of the car.


And here is a flashing sea slug, hand-made by Squirrel. It accompanied us for the entire journey there and back, attached to a bit of string.


I agree that it is not impressive and does not even look like a sea slug. But don't tell Squirrel. It is a present for Shark.


After that bizarre addition, I may as well post a photograph of a lot of eyeballs in a box.

Displacement

Of course I may have the suspicion that this cleaning is a displacement from saying what I feel or even acknowledging it, especially when here is a bit of floor that needs a sparkle. And that is, how sad and empty is this house without Shark.

In fact if I clean up this kitchen work surface here, I can just tell myself that I do not need to think about anything else, like whether Shark is quad biking today, and whether she is falling off that quad bike and is, at this moment, being airlifted from the side of a Welsh mountain, and then with this vacuum cleaner I do not need to think that the organisers have been trying to contact me on the emergency mobile telephone number, and how they haven't been able to reach me because I might have forgotten to turn it on, or I have left it under my pillow in the bedroom where it has been ringing and ringing for the last hour while Shark is in the emergency operating theatre.

And if I give these doors a wipe then I might not need to think about how Shark would say, if she were here, Mummy, have you noticed what an enormous presence I am in the house, even when you don't notice me and even though you managed to elbow me in the head last week because my head is at your elbow height and I have a habit of standing right behind you quietly when you do not know I am there and, when I speak, you jump round and manage to knock my ear off with your pointy elbow? Mummy, have you noticed how silent and quiet a reader I am, except with Tin Tin when I suddenly burst into laughter, possibly when Captain Haddock is shouting blasphemies at the empty whisky bottle, which is something that I have noticed that adults do and especially you mummy, at 11 o'clock at night when you have said everyone should have gone to sleep hours ago and I say in a loud voice that even though I know I have to get up at 8 in the morning for the workshop that I am still going to read Destination Moon one more time?

And mummy, have you noticed how full of attitude I am right now and how hard I have been working to justify your line of that child is aged eight going on thirteen. And have you noticed that if I don't like something I will aim that withering look at you, the one I have been experimenting with to see if it will kill plants and small furry animals, and it happens when I look down my nose and narrow my eyes, particularly after those things you say like Are you wearing socks with those sandals? And have you noticed how I can answer back now with such lip that I can send daddy Dig scuttling from the room, with his parting words something like And do not talk to your parents like that! when he is clearly just so dumbfounded at what I said that it must have been a really excellent answer-back line, probably as bad as a church blasphemy on a Sunday, so that's a line I'll try again, and next time, just to see what you do, I'll repeat it in public. With hand gestures.

And mummy, have you really noticed how much I can eat at one sitting, how many cut up bits of paper I can generate from one pair of scissors and a ream of paper in just five minutes, how loud I can make Tiger scream in the street, and how much I can provoke Squirrel at 7.30 in the morning so that you start slamming doors and waking up the neighbour who sleeps all morning after his night shift? And have you noticed mummy how much mess I can make on the hall carpet when I come in from the garden and forget to take off my sandals which are now platform shoes because they have a two-inch layer of mud and clay strapped to the bottom. And have you really noticed how bloody awkward I can now be about simple things like getting into the car, and how I stand there shouting in the street I cannot get in! when Tiger is sitting in there, because I know for sure she will start screaming? Have you noticed those things about me? Have you?

And I would say Shark, I have noticed them all, and more, and on Tuesday when I spoke to you for 15 minutes on the telephone to see if you had settled in OK at the nearest thing to a boarding school we could find for the week, and how when you spoke back to me my heart just leaped down that telephone line and I wanted to follow right after it and come out the other end and give you such a great big hug and say You are wonderful, my big, beautiful, grown up baby girl, how much I love you, and then when I asked Shark, Are you missing us, without a skip or a beat you said simply, but with possibly the hint of surprise that you'd been asked to consider this, you answered cheerily No! Of course not! and what's more, there is Madagascar playing right now in the common room so we have phoned at an awkward moment. And then I said well that is good my darling and run back and do not miss the funny bits with the scaredy lion, because do you know what? I am busy myself right now and I just have to go and clean some floors.

World matters

Stop, Grit! STOP! All this cleaning is making holes in my brain. Not because of the fumes from Airwick but because when there is cleaning there is NOTHING ELSE.

I cannot think of anything right now but where does this foam dice go? Should it go on this shelf in the schoolroom or does it belong in that plastic box I have been calling the Maths Box for the last 18 months. And the cuddly birds that sing. Bird box or cuddly toy box? I mean, these are really important issues of state. Not, shall I educate the kids about the US Presidential elections and the democracies of the world, or should we get the kids to go on the march to stop the western world bombing Iran, all of which is like nothing today compared to where does this squeaky toy chicken live?