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.