Mud

Despite the beautiful spring weather, mud is still featuring heavily in my weekends.  First of all there was football.  The biggest boy scored a couple of goals today which made him happy.

Four lots of football and one of golf meant a light application of mud and bits of grass about the place.  Then we went to Slimbridge.  The biggest boys were having heaps of fun chasing each other about the play area, until the middle boy ran across what he thought was a bit of solid ground and turned out to be six inches of the thickest, wettest mud imaginable.  He went absolutely flying, and about one second later the biggest boy did exactly the same.  They honestly looked like swamp creatures.  The middle boy even had it in his mouth, to his horror.  They were covered, all down one side, legs, back, arms, hands.  It happened about eight seconds before we were going to leave anyway.  So close.

I made them sit in the car in their pants.  When we got home the car was not parked particularly close to the house.  I've never seen them get to the front door so fast.  I took my time.  I may even have snapped a photo or two of them standing on the doorstep.

They're squeaky clean now, especially the biggest boy who has had two showers in the space of about six hours.  The littlest boy was utterly thrilled at not being the one in trouble, after a particularly tricky week.  Oh he was happy and proud.  So good when the weekend goes out on a high.

I know you won't want to see pictures of boys on doorsteps in their pants, so I have some pretty things from Slimbridge instead.

I vividly recall looking for buds on this magnolia last year on the 13th of April.  I found only one.  How different this year is.

There were also lots of fluffy spring things.

And some slightly sunken leftover rosehips.

I had an insightful conversation with the two bigger boys yesterday.  We'd been talking about what estates and wills were.  It went something like this:

Middle boy:  "Horrid Henry has a really funny will, he leaves his mum and dad a chunk of mud."

Me:  "I hope you're not leaving me a chunk of mud."

Biggest boy:  "Actually, you'll be leaving us stuff."

Me:  "Got your eye on anything there have you?"

Biggest boy (with nary a pause):  "Big lens.  Laptop."

Middle boy:  "Television and remote.  Daddy's computer."

Me:  "Lovely.  Will you be leaving anything for the littlest boy?"  (I should point out that the littlest boy wasn't in the room, or he would have shouted the loudest and bagsed everything for himself.)

Middle boy:  "He can have your recipe books.  And the kitchen."

I'm wondering if they're thinking about making him cook their food.  Good luck with that.