All it takes is a faith and trust - and a Little Bit of Pixie Dust

Not-So-Small Boy and I are stuck in traffic, and he is filling me in on School Life.
"We think William's sister has a boyfriend, so we were teasing her about it last night when we all walked out of school together," he confides.
William's sister is sixteen, or thereabouts. I am sure she is thrilled about two giggly eleven-year-old boys teasing her in front of their friends. I decide not to criticise as criticism inevitably leads to conversational shut-down. I will learn more if I just stick to chit-chat.
"What's his name?"I ask.
"Well, it wouldn't be fair for me to tell you that," my son says, frowning.
"Clearly," I say.
"So, me 'n' William have decided to use a code word instead. We are going to call him Beano because his name sounds like one of the characters in the Beano!"
"Right." I shudder to think.
"Which reminds me!" Not-So-Small Boy says, bouncing in his seat. "I've got a new nickname!"
"Oh?"
"Yeah. It's Tinker Bell!"
I put all my energies into not crashing into the car in front. "WHAT?"
"Yeah. It's coz there's going to be a school play next term and we think it's Peter Pan and I said could I be Tinker Bell?"
"As in . . . Tinker Bell the fairy?" I ask, staring resolutely ahead.
"Yes!"
"As in . . . the fairy who wears a tutu and waves a wand?"
"Yes!"
"But - a fairy?"
"Yes!"
I swallow hard.
"Why?"
"S'obvious. I get to fly!" Not-So-Small Boy flings his arms wide and beams with delight.
"But - But," I stammer. "But PETER PAN flies! And John, and Michael. And the Lost BOYS - don't they fly as well?" I have no idea, but I am clutching at straws here. I refuse to mention Wendy. I don't want to be responsible for where that might lead.
"Yeah, but they don't have pixie dust, do they?" says my son triumphantly. "THAT is cool."
"Right." I take deep, steady breaths. I can see his mind is made up.
"Anyway, so that's why my new nickname is Tinker Bell," my son says. "And Molly has even changed my name on her phone to say 'Tinker Bell'."
"And you're fine with that?" I ask.
"Course, why not?" my son says, looking puzzled. "Why wouldn't I be?"
I cannot help but admire his confidence. I smile. "Absolutely," I say. "Why wouldn't you?"

Farewell, Age of Innocence

Not-So-Small Boy has a phone. At last. We held out until senior school before letting him have one. And thank goodness we did. The minute you give a child a phone, the floodgates of social politics are opened wide.
At junior school, my son did all his socialising in the playground and this was kept very separate from his home life. (For socialising read "pretending to be a lemur" or "digging holes to Australia".) Now, thanks to the phone, the socialising follows him home of an evening creating unforeseen complications.

This presents itself early in the term by the sound of Not-So-Small Boy's phone vibrating at such an alarming intensity that I fear it is about to spontaneously combust. My son is upstairs doing his homework, so I peer at the screen to see a message from an unknown number which reads: "Do you like Henry more than me?"
Strange, I think. I cannot imagine one of my son's friends asking him this. Even amongst his less-than-macho crowd, the boys would not ask each other such questions. But a girl would not ask if my son preferred a boy to her - would she? I am feeling out of my depth, so decide to tackle this head-on over supper.
"Your phone has been receiving messages non-stop this evening," I say.
"You didn't read them, did you?" Not-So-Small Boy asks.
"Er, well, I couldn't help seeing the latest one," I say carefully. "But don't worry, I've no idea who it's from."
Not-So-Small Boy leaves the table hurriedly and snatches up his phone. "Oh no!" he cries, flicking his thumb over the screen. "I'm going to kill him!"
I wait.
My son looks up. "This is someone texting me who thinks I'm someone else," he says, his face white with concern.
"Oh?" I say.
"Yeah, y'see, William is getting bullied by these boys who keep picking him up and putting him in the lockers and saying that he's gay and so in revenge when one of them asked him for Ellie's number, William gave them mine instead."
I try to unpick this. "So . . . you are getting texts from one of the bullies because he thinks you are a girl he is interested in?" I say.
"Yes! And I don't know what to do, coz if I play along I might get bullied too."
Poor boy, I think, the Age of Innocence has ended.
But I can't help having a surge of respect for my son's best friend. William - 1, Bullies - 0!

The Pet Shop Boys

Small Boy barrels out of school at top speed.
"I need to get home quick so I can Skype William!" he yells, bashing me in the back of the legs with his rucksack.
"Why do you want to Skype someone you've just spent the whole day with?" I ask.
"More like why would you want to look at that boy's face any longer than you actually have to?" comments Daughter, scathingly.

“Well,” says Small Boy, putting on his what-I’m-about-to-say-is-terribly-important voice. “We have to Skype so we can plan what we are doing for the Dragons’ Den."

"I'm sorry?" I am already losing the thread of this conversation.

"Dragon's Den," repeats Small Boy. "We have to get into teams and decide what we are going to pitch to the Dragons to make money for the end of term fair, and me and William, right, we are going to pitch the totally fantastic idea of a Petting Zoo!”

I hold my breath and wait for him to tell me this is another of their make-believe games, like the time they both came running out of school and announced they were opening a Real Life Zoo in our back garden with “real lions and seals and giraffes and everything” which they were going to get from Longleat "cos that Lord Bath guy has far too many already".

“A petting zoo?” says Daughter, giving him her most contemptuous of looks.

“Yes, like, you know – a zoo of pets!” says Small Boy.

“You’re telling me that school has given you permission to bring in your pets? To the actual school premises?” I ask him.

Small Boy waves his hands impatiently at me. “They haven’t yet. But they will,” he says ominously. “And anyway we are going to make loads of money out of it,” he adds.
“Hang on a minute," I say, as it dawns on me that he is serious about taking our pets in, "you can't take the dog and cats! They would hate it - well, the cats would.”

The last time I took the cats anywhere Psycho Cat peed in her cat box and looked like a drowned and particularly smelly rat by the time we reached our destination, and the other one made such horrendous noises I had to turn the radio up full blast to stop myself from having a panic attack and crashing the car. As for the dog, the idea of bringing in our over-enthusiastic Labrador who will not sit still if even one child is in sight, let alone 300, and whose bowels are not the most predictable--

“NO! Of course not,” says Small Boy, shaking his head in despair. “I’m taking the chickens in.”
Good grief. “And, dare I ask, what is William bringing in?”

“His chickens.”

“So this is a chicken zoo rather than a petting zoo,” I say.

“No, deerrrr, because Ellie is bringing in her tortoise and Molly is bringing in her hamster and Maeve is - well, Maeve isn't actually bringing anything in obviously, as she doesn't have any pets, but she's going to help William with his lambs which he is also bringing in,” says Small Boy.
“I see.”

“And Ollie has said that I can rent his guinea pigs for the day for £1.20 each.”

“So you’re already in debt before you’ve even started,” I point out.

"Mu-uuum!" Small Boy protests. "You are not really getting the point of this whole Dragons' Den thing, are you?"
No, I don't believe I am to be honest. But when has that ever stopped Small Boy and William when they are on a roll?

We Will Most Definitely Rock You

William has come round again. He has brought one of his sisters this time and they, together with my two children, have decided to put on a show. They are planning to re-write the words of the rap from the Yeo Valley website to make it more relevant to their own lives.
"Coz you see, we have lambs and pigs and chickens as well as cows, whereas the Yeo Valley people only have cows," William explains.
After an hour or so of squabbling, the four children announce they are hungry. We sit down to lunch in the garden and I ask them how their performance is coming along.
"What, you mean apart from the fact that the boys are rubbish and can't sing and can't dance and won't do what we say?" asks Daughter, her friend joining in with a few "yeah"s and exquisitely timed eye-rolls.
"Hey!" interjects Small Boy. "We are so NOT rubbish at singing and dancing!"
"Yeah!" says William, "coz actually we are both going to be in the school muscial next term, so there."
"Oh yes," I say. "Remind me what it's going to be about?"
"We are doing 'We Will Rock You'," says William proudly.
"The Queen musical?" I ask.
"Yes," the boys chorus.
The mind goes beyond boggling and into the realms of complete and utter bamboozlement.
"And, er, which part are you playing, William?" I ask.
"I am going to be a Yuppie," he replies proudly. "And Ollie is going to be Scaramouche--"
"And I am going to be a Bo-heem-ium," says Small Boy.
"Don't you mean a Bohemian?" I offer.
"That's what I said."
The girls exchange eye-rolls.
"But it's a shame we didn't all get the parts we wanted," William chirps up.
"Oh? Which role did you want?" I ask.
William sighs heavily. "I really really wanted to be the Killer Queen," he says.
I choke on my drink. "Is that so?" I splutter.
Daughter and her friend erupt into hysterical laughter. "Do you, like, even know what a queen is?" they shriek.
William and Small Boy look at each other and shrug.
"It's, like, a man who wants to be a woman!" the girls howl.
"Well, not quite--" I begin.
"Oh, you mean an Elizabethan?" William says.
"You mean a lesbian, duh," says Small Boy.
"Same thing," says William.
"I think I can safely say that you will most definitely be Rocking Us if you take on that particular role, William," I say.

At the risk of sounding like the Aged Ps, whatever do they TEACH kids these days?

The Remarkable New Chicken Hotel

It is STILL the holidays. Small Boy's best friend and partner in crime, William, has been a regular fixture at our house this holiday. Their main project has been to construct a new chicken house out of an old chest of drawers and copious quantities of nails, with the aid of the entire contents of Husband's toolbox. I go out into the garden to find the two small boys, heads bent together in earnest chatter, fifteen million different types of screwdriver, hammer and drill-bit strewn about the lawn.
"What I think, is that it's obvious really, and it's that you need to make one of those doors which goes up and down," William is saying. "Coz that's what Adam Henson does on Countryfile, so it must be the best way to do it."
"Well, what I think, is that this is for my chickens and it's my garden and my dad's toolbox, so I am going to try my idea first," says Small Boy, somewhat tetchily.
I regard the rickety construction dubiously. The boys have placed one drawer on the ground, taken a second and upended it on the first to make a closed-up box. They have hammered hundreds of nails at random points all around the sides, but have not succeeded in bashing them all the way through the wood, so they are now whacking the nails flat against the edges "to smooth things off".
"I - er, I hesitate to say this," I begin.
"Yes?" Small Boy juts out his bottom jaw in challenge.
"Well, it's only that I'm not sure you've made this chicken house big enough for any of the chickens to fit inside," I say.
Small Boy draws himself up to his full height, hands on hips and yells, "Are you telling me that I have wasted MY WHOLE DAY MAKING THIS?" He sounds alarmingly like me.
"N-no, well, yes," I admit, backing away quickly. "Why don't you just finish off and then we can do a trial run with the Pekin? She's the smallest," I point out.
Small Boy grits his teeth dangerously. William puts a mollifying hand on his arm. "Let's finish the door which goes up and down first," he says.

Two hours later, the door which goes up and down is indeed going up and down with the aid of an unfeasibly long piece of string. Titch, the shivering Lavender Pekin, has been put inside the box, the door has been lowered and we are all assembled for the Grand Opening. Titch is making some very unusual and distinctly distressed noises from inside the new house.
"I now declare the Remarkable New Chicken Hotel well and truly open!" cries Small Boy, yanking the string which lifts the door and sends fifty-six jaggedy nails flying in all directions.
A small, terrified chicken emerges in the doorway to rapturous applause.
"And now, Titch on Film!" declares Small Boy, waving his iPod in my face.
He proceeds to show me a terribly moving clip of the tiny bird entering the Remarkable New Chicken Hotel with much over-enthusiastic pushing and shoving from two giggling small boys, set against a backing track of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep".
"Lovely," I say. "All we need now is Bill Nighy and Dame Judy Dench, and we could make a fortune out of this."
"Oooh! Enough to buy some more nails and chicken wire so William and me can finish the run to go with the hotel?" cries Small Boy.
"Just about enough for that, yes," I say wearily. "Just about enough."

Small Boy: The Movie

It is the holidays. The children are bemoaning the fact that we not doing "anything interesting".
"It's not fair!" wails Daughter. "We only ever go to Cornwall. And it always rains."
"Lucky we're not going there this holiday, then," I say.
"NOO! But staying at home is EVEN WORSE!"
"Anyway, what's wrong with Cornwall? You love Cornwall," I say.
"Ye-es, butanywaythat'snotthepoint," Daughter says with a withering look. "What I mean is that Everyone Else is going somewhere fantastic. Libbie is going to the Caribbean, Lobbie is going to Italy and Loobie is going to Egypt. And as for Millie, Mollie and Mandie--"
"Yeah AND," cuts in Small Boy, "Ollie is going to New York."
Husband and I exchange a look.
"So where would you like to go?" Husband asks (the children, not me I should add).
"Riding in America!" cries Daughter.
"Exploring in the Galapagos!" yells Small Boy.
Bugger that Charles Darwin, I think.
"Or Madagascar!" shrieks Small Boy.
And as for that David Attenborough . . .
"OK, OK," Husband has held up a hand in an attempt to look as though he has control of the situation. "I must admit I was thinking more along the lines of Spain or Portugal, but . . ." he smiles indulgently at Small Boy. "What if I promise that when you get Grade 8 Trombone I'll take you to the Galapagos."
I look horrified. "I know we want him to practise more, but--"
"Yes, erm . . ." Husband is already regetting his rashness. "Maybe if you get Grade 8 Trombone AND piano and Daughter gets Grade 8 violin--"
"And I get a film deal," I add with heavy sarcasm.
"Oh, I've already had one of those," says Small Boy airily.
"Yeah, right," says Daughter with an extravagant eye-roll.
"I did," Small Boy protests. "But I had to turn it down because I was going to play at William's."
Husband and I exchange another look.
"What was the role you were offered?" I ask.
"It was to be a giant Easter Egg Superhero," Small Boy announces.
"And how exactly can a giant Easter Egg be a superhero?" asks Daughter.
"Easy, you roll over your enemies and SQUASH THEM FLAT!" Small Boy replies, with a victory salute.
"Wow," I say. "Shame you turned down the roll."
"Why's that?"
"Sounds like it would have been a box office hit." I sigh. "Oh well, looks like it's Cornwall again for us this summer . . ."

Licensed to Chill

Small Boy bounds into the kitchen with the exciting news that his class is putting together a film. "And I am going to be one of the stars in it!"
"That's lovely darling! What's the film about?"
"It's for our end of year assembly for next term." Small Boy pauses and raises his eyebrows enigmatically. "And I can't tell you what it's about cos we have been sworn to secrecy."
"Oh?" I smile and wait and watch as he squirms and jumps up and down, which is what he does when he cannot contain himself. (Before I had Small Boy, I had not given much thought to the expression, "he cannot contain himself", but having watched many such performances over the years, I now know it to be a very accurate description of a small child's way of expressing excitement or frustration.)
"Oooooh, all right! I'll tell you!" he blurts out, as though I have been spending the past thirty seconds tickling him into submission, rather than watching and waiting patiently. "It's going to be a James Bond movie!" he squeals, thumping the air in triumph.
"Fantastic!" I say. Although I am struggling to see the relationship between 007 and Class 6I . . .
"And I," says Small Boy, his face split into the most gleeful of grins, "am going to be--"
"No, no!" I butt in. "Let me guess . . . you are going to be an evil villain. Preferably one with a white cat." Small Boy does a good line in Evil Villain voices, and I know he would not pass up the opportunity to carry an animal of some kind around with him.
"No!" says Small Boy, wiggling his eyebrows at me again. "Guess again."
"Erm . . . wait! You're not actually going to be James Bond himelf, are you?" I get quite excited at the idea of my cute small son dressed up in black tie, his hair actually brushed for once in his life.
"No!" he says. "You'll never guess. It's actually way better than either of those." He pauses. "I am going to be . . . a BOND GIRL!" Holy. Flippin'. Moly. This cannot be true. But he is going into detail now, about his outfit and the scene he has filmed today: "I am wearing this totally awesome wig and I have to put my own lipstick on! And it's wicked, cos the lipstick is so hard to get off, I actually got to wear it up until lunchtime today! And My Best Friend William has brought a dress in for me to wear cos he has a totally fantastic dressing-up box, and the funniest thing is that Molly is James Bond and William and I are both Bond Girls and we have to kiss her on the cheek at that part in the song where they say, 'I wish I was James Bond, kissing all the girls . . ."
I bite the inside of my cheeks. Hard. Then I squeak: "That's great!"
"Isn't it?" trills Small Boy, pirouetting round the kitchen.
Isn't it, just.

Out of the Mouths of Babes

My children have decided they need to take me in hand. I say this as though this is a new phenomenon, but in fact they have done this many times before, whether it is to give me advice on my dress sense, my moodiness, my terrible of habit of swearing like a trouper (especially whilst driving), or, more recently, my sense of humour (incredibly embarrassing and very unfunny, apparently).
Today they have launched a new line of attack, and this time it focuses on my career.
"I think you should re-do your website," says Small Boy, banging his school bag down on the table decisively. "Me and William have been looking at really cool websites today and learning about how to make them ourselves. And yours is not really cool enough."
He is absolutely right, of course: updating my website has been on my To Do List for at least a year.
"I have already made a start on making my own website, so you could have a look at it for ideas if you like," Small Boy says casually.
"Your own website?" I say. "And what would you be needing with a website?" No sooner have the words left my mouth than warning bells sound in my befuddled mind. "Oh, wait a minute - this isn't for some hare-brained money-making exercise, is it? You're not planning to sell the chickens' eggs, are you? Or the cats? Actually, I wouldn't mind if you sold Psycho Cat, although I don't think you'd get much money for her--"
"NOOOO!" Small Boy exclaims, rolling his eyes dramatically. "Not anything stupid like that. I've made a website about lemurs." He spreads his hands as though stating the obvious to an extremely dim-witted individual.
"Lemurs," I repeat. "And what have you, personally, got to do with lemurs?"
"I like them," he says, still giving me that you-are-an-A-Grade-loony look.
"Right. So why a website? I thought people made websites to promote things or sell things or--"
"I AM promoting things. I'm promoting lemurs," says Small Boy. "And I'm going to do a link to your website too, so you'd better hurry up and make it look better, otherwise it'll be embarrassing."
"OK," I say, feeling distinctly brow-beaten.
"Talking of your work," says Daughter, who has been listening to all this with faint amusement, "I have been reading the manuscript of that book you were writing over Christmas."
"Oh, that's nice. Thank you, darling!" I say. It has been years since Daughter has deigned to show any interest in any of my books, being far too old and sophisticated these days for the childish stuff I write.
"I think it's coming along nicely," she says graciously. "But I think you need to make it more descriptive. Our English teachers always say we should set the scene. I don't think you've done enough of that. And I think you should think about whether this is a one-off title or whether it's going to be part of a series, as that will affect how you develop the relationship between the main characters."
"Right. Well. Thanks. You've certainly both given me a lot to think about," I say, reaching for my notepad.

Blimey, who needs an agent when you have kids?

Here, for those of you who are interested in lemurs, is the link to Small Boy's website:
http://www.wix.com/thomasdjwilson/elf
(The graphics are so lovely that I am ashamed to give you the link for mine...)

No Ruffled Feathers Here

The form for the District Fanciers' Annual Show has been filled in and the National Federation of Poultry Clubs has been sent a cheque for £2.50: one pound for the entrance fee plus £1.50 membership.
I am rather worried about the "membership" part. What does this mean for Small Boy's future? Will he be put on some register of "fanciers" and be required to disclose this information at a future date? I hope it won't cause problems with career choices later in life. Does that sort of thing come up on a CRB check, for example?
I hoped that once the form was in the post we would hear no more about Chicken Fancying until the dreaded dark December morning when we have to go to the show.
But no, Small Boy is on a mission, and when he is on a mission, no one is safe.
"So," he informs me, sternly. "Today is the day that I have decided we must do A Dry Run on Titch so that she can get used to being groomed."
"Don't you mean a Wet Run?" I ask, sniggering.
Small Boy gives me his best withering look. "No," he says. "A Dry Run is when you practise something. And we must practise grooming Titch. Otherwise," he reminds me, "she may Get Overwhelmed on the day."
Small Boy then proceeds to repeat all the advice his has gleaned from William about how best to do this.
"All right, all right!" I fling up my hands in surrender. "I'll get a washing up bowl, you get the baby shampoo, cotton buds and Vaseline."
That is a sentence I have never had to say before. I am hoping it will be a while before I ever have to say it again.
"And I need your hairdryer," Small Boy calls casually over his shoulder, before disappearing into the bathroom.
"My WHAT?"
Small Boy reemerges with armfuls of toiletries and one of my best towels. "Well we need a hairdryer obviously, otherwise Titch might get hypothermia like one of William's chickens did."
"WHAT?" I realise I am repeating myself in a high-pitched and slightly weird way, but really: chickens with hypothermia? Then I realise this is William we are talking about. "How did one of William's chickens get hypothermia?" I ask wearily.
"Well, it was all because he washed it and did all the things we are about to do to Titch," explains Small Boy, "and then he didn't dry it, so it got too cold and they had to take it round to their next door neighbour to dry it out in the Aga."
I have visions of Small Boy putting Titch in the bottom oven and forgetting all about her until the next day when the aroma of roast bantam floods the house.
"I'll get the hairdryer," I say quickly.
We then wash the chicken. I say "we", but actually Small Boy proves to be quite proficient at washing his little hen and she, in turn, proves quite content at being washed. She sits in the plastic bowl, blinking blissfully and emitting soft chirruping sounds. She also, bafflingly, seems to enjoy the experience of the hairdryer which I have the job of wielding while Small Boy holds her.
We finish off the Poultry Pampering session with a manicure and a nice blob of Vaseline on her comb. I make stupid comments along the lines of, "Would madam like some product on her feathers?" to which Small Boy snorts derisively and tells me to "shut up as you are not funny, Mum."
We stand back to admire our handiwork. And it has to be said that Titch does look rather fine. She seems to know it, too, and struts her stuff in front of her coop-mates, giving them the eye.
"Look at me!" she seems to say. "I'm a show bird, me."
I only hope she cuts the mustard with the District Poultry Fanciers. I won't know what to say to her if she doesn't.

Reasons Not to be a Chicken Fancier, Part Two

Small Boy is taking this chicken fancying business far too seriously for my liking. Things have escalated since the letter from the National Federation of Poultry Clubs mysteriously landed in our letter box. Unbeknownst to me, he took the letter into school and photocopied it for his gang of collaborators, whom he had already contacted by email to make sure of getting them on side.
"Just exactly who've you told about this chicken show?" I demand, when he comes running out of school, excitedly telling me that "everyone" (that word again) wants to come too.
"Just William," he says, appropriately. Then he looks a bit sheepish and says, "and Matt and Jamez."
("Jamez" is actually "James", but apparently "Jamez" is "more cool".)
"In other words, all your friends who also happen to have chickens?" I point out.
"Er, yeah. Obviously," says Small Boy in his you-are-a-der-brain voice. "No one else would be interested."
I sigh. "I hope you realise that their parents may well be as cross as I am about getting up in the dark on a December morning to wash a chicken and take it to a show fifteen miles away?"
"William's already asked his dad and his dad has already called the man who runs the show," Small Boy announces triumphantly.
Luckily, William's dad is a mate, otherwise I might have a few choice things to say about William's dad. He also knows a lot about chickens, so I had better be extra nice to him. He may have some top tips on how to groom the bird (no pun or euphemism intended).
"OK, so IF we were to show Titch, how are you going to set about making her beautiful for the show?" I ask.
I immediately regret my answer.
"First we wash her in warm water and baby shampoo," says Small Boy, the glint of the fanatic flashing in his eyes. "Then we get one of those cotton things on sticks and clean under her claws and around her feet, and then we gently clean her face. Oh, and we mustn't forget to make her comb look nice and shiny."
"And how do you propose to do that?" I ask.
"With Vaseline, obviously," says Small Boy.
Obviously. Silly me. How in heaven's name have I managed to survive forty-one years on this earth without knowing that you make a chicken's comb shiny with Vaseline?
"And, dare I ask, won't all this intimate attention upset poor Titch?" I venture.
Small Boy looks at me as though I need to go back to the School for Idiots and resit my A-levels. "Obviously," he says with heavy sarcasm, "obviously we don't just leave it until the last minute otherwise she will get Overwhelmed."
"Overwhelmed?" I repeat. I try to picture an overwhelmed bantam, but fail.
"Yes," says Small Boy. "And that is why we need to practise before the day." He fixes me with a stern expression. "And you are going to help."
That's my weekend sorted then. Oh joy.

The Last Will and Testament of Small Boy

Small Boy wakes up at 6:30am at Uncle's house.
"WHY?" I wail. "It's halfterm. Can't you at least sleep in at halfterm?"
"It's cos there's no real curtains in this house," Small Boy explains patiently. "Anyway, I don't know why you're complaining, cos I'm the one who's been bored since I woke up."
Uncle does not have a telly, so Small Boy is feeling very hard done by. Normally he would be downstairs with his sister, watching inappropriate music videos and dodgy American comedy by 7:00am.
"I had to lie in bed and just - think," he continues bitterly.
"You could have read your book," I suggest. "Or gone back to sleep."
"Well, I didn't. Anyway, it was actually not a complete waste of time as I wrote my will," he says carelessly.
"You did what?" I exclaim. I haven't had a coffee yet, so it is possible I have not heard him correctly.
"I wrote my will - you know," he says, looking at me thunderously as though I am the stupidest person he's ever come across. "I decided what to leave you all when I die."
"Sounds good," says Daughter. "What do I get?"
"Well, first of all Mum is getting my wardrobe," says Small Boy, ticking off his meagre possessions on his fingers.
"That's nice," I say. "It was my grandpa's anyway, so--"
Small Boy waves his hands impatiently at me to shut up. "And then Dad's getting my bed."
Husband and I exchange looks. "I can't quite see your dad in that bed," I say. "It's a platform bed. And it's a bit small--"
"Mu-um! Shut UP!" says Daughter. "I want to know what I'm getting!"
"You can have my toys," says Small Boy generously. "And William is getting all my books. Well, all the animal ones anyway."
"What about me?" says Uncle.
"Oh YOU," says Small Boy, beaming adoringly at his favourite uncle, "YOU can have all my money. Which is £91 the last time I counted. And if I don't die until next month, you might get £100."
"Wow!" says Uncle. "That's generous."
"So what are you going to leave me in your will?" asks Small Boy.
Uncle looks around his sparsely furnished house and rubs his chin thoughtfully. "You could have all my socks," he suggests.
Small Boy follows Uncle's gaze around the room and agrees that there doesn't seem to be anything else Uncle could leave in his will.

We move on to a discussion about what Uncle should do to his new house in the way of home improvements.
"I've no idea what to do to the house, really," he explains. "So any suggestions would be welcome. I do know I'm going to let loads of weeds grow in the garden, though," he adds with utter seriousness. "I just think there's too much paving and stuff out there. It doesn't look natural."
"You like stuff that's natural, don't you?" Small Boy says with interest. "Is that why you don't have a telly?"
"I don't need one," Uncle says. "I can watch stuff on my laptop if I really want to."
"Like what?" asks Small Boy.
"Like really cool clips of talking animals on YouTube!" says Uncle.
He proceeds to show the kids his favourite clip, which involves some kind of ratty creature who appears to be shouting "Alan!" at the top of his voice. It makes the kids laugh until they cannot breathe.

Our visit sadly draws to a close and we prise the kids away with the promise that they'll see Uncle again very soon.
"It's weird," says Daughter as we pull away from the house, waving and shouting our farewells. "You know how Auntie C is nothing like Mum? Well Uncle is nothing like you either, Dad."
"Oh, in what way?" Husband asks.
"In every way," says Daughter. She lists a few reasons: "Uncle is kind of mostly vegetarian, he cycles everywhere, doesn't get planes, doesn't have much furniture, doesn't have much anything really, doesn't have a telly -" (This would seem to be the thing that's impressed the kids most.) "And he thinks talking animals are hilarious and he's basically way more fun than you. It just doesn't make sense that you're related."
"And that," says Small Boy, decidedly, "is why it is Uncle who is getting my £91 in my will and not you."
Husband looks at me and shrugs. "Oh well," he says. "At least I know my place."
"Yes," I say. "On top of Small Boy's platform bed, penniless and alone by the sounds of it."

Quantitative Easing, or How To Get What You Really Want

Small Boy is sitting in the armchair in the kitchen reading Country Smallholdings magazine and humming the tune to "Crazy In Love" by Beyonce while tapping his foot vigorously to the beat.
I choose to ignore the choice of song, but am curious as to where he has got the magazine from. My son has always been an afficionado of the RSPB magazine and BBC Wildlife, but this is the first time Country Smallholdings has made an appearance in our house. I am a little worried to see he is flicking through articles about keeping pygmy goats. At least he has given up pestering me for terrapins, which was last week's craze.
"Where did you get that magazine from?" I ask casually.
"William," he answers, just as casually.
"Oh?"
I feel a stab of panic. William is much loved in our house and is Small Boy's best friend, but that does not lessen the murmurings of disquiet that accompany the mention of his name, paired as it usually is with some new hare-brained scheme to increase the animal population in our house. William's family have a smallholding which is, quite simply, the envy of Small Boy. It is an envy which consumes him. William has daily access to pigs, cows, ponies, chickens, quail, a Harris hawk, a cat and a dog. William has thus become the benchmark by which Small Boy measures our own animal husbandry, which of course pales in comparison.
"You know this Quality Veezin' they keep going on about," Small Boy says suddenly, breaking into my anxious thoughts.
My mind does a couple of backflips as it attempts to translate.
"Oh, you mean 'quantitative easing'?" I say, as the light dawns.
"That's the one," says Small Boy. "It's very interesting how the banks are going to be printing loads of new money notes, but what I want to know is--"
"Hang on!" I interrupt. "That's not quite what's happening."
"Yes it is," Small Boy contradicts me indignantly. "You said that the bank is going to Create More Money to Solve The Crisis. You said!" he protests. "And if they are going to do that, then I want to know if I can get a rise in my pocket money."
"No," I say.
"But! What! Hey! But that's not faaaaiiiiiir!" Small Boy wails. "If you are getting more money then why shouldn't I?"
"I am not getting more money! No one is. You see--" I begin.
"Well, what on earth is the point of printing more if no one is going to get any then?" says Small Boy with disgust.
"It's not as though you need any more, is it love?" I point out. "The last time you counted up your pocket money you seemed to be doing pretty well."
"But I don't have enough to buy what I really want, though!" he protests, waving the magazine at me ominously.
I peer anxiously over his shoulder at the pictures. "What exactly have you got your eye on?" I ask.
"Well, I think that if I just had another say, hundred pounds or so," he says carelessly, "I could afford one of these coops." He points to a luxury two-storey chicken house.
"I quite fancy that myself," I said, impressed. "I could use it as an office."
"Don't be stupid," he berates me with a withering look, "it's for Marans, obviously. 'Cept," he adds thoughtfully, "I don't really want Marans cos they're too big. But a chicken house like this one would fit hundreds of Pekins!" he brightens.
"No," I say firmly. "No more chickens."
I feel the three hens are living on borrowed time as it is. I had to prise Psycho Cat away from the edge of the run yesterday, as she was licking her lips and getting perilously close.
"All right then - what about an incubator?" Small Boy is not giving up easily tonight. "William says it's really easy to hatch your own eggs and then you get really really cute fluffy chicks!" he puts on his best pleading, baby voice in an attempt to appeal to my softer side.
"NO!" I am getting annoyed now. "I am not letting you hatch chicks and you know very well why not!"
"Is it because you don't want a cockerel?" Small Boy says. He is getting irritated now. "Well, all I can say is, you are not a very animal-minded person. Not like William's parents."
"Huh!" I bridle at this. I am the one who picks up the dead rodents The Cats bring home, I am the one who picks up the dog's poo, walks her, bathes her, takes her to the vet . . . But he has heard this all before and is not going to let me get a word in.
"Anyway," he says, defiantly. "It doesn't matter if we hatch a cockerel. There's an easy way to deal with it. William says."
"I should have known," I sigh. "I suppose William will give a good home to any cockerel we don't want, is that it?"
"No," says Small Boy simply. "But his dad will ring its neck for us."
There's no real answer to that, is there?

Fat is a Family Issue

I am eating a banana whilst standing and directing the family to their various positions on a Monday morning. I am wearing my running kit so that I don't have an excuse to debate with myself about the sanity of running in the rain on a Monday morning once I have dropped the kids off.
"Pack your bags, eat your toast, drink your juice, clean your teeth!" I bark.
The dog looks distinctly worried and goes into Submissive Mode, shuffling back to her basket. The Cats yawn, stretch and go back to sharpening their claws on the furniture.
"Why do you always go running in the morning?" asks Small Boy, as a diversionary tactic. "Is it because you are afraid of being fat?"
"Mum is not fat," says Daughter, supportively. "And William's mum says that William's sister says that Mum is one of the only Sporty Mums to be able to carry off wearing her running kit into school."
William's family is regarded as the Fount of all Wisdom by my kids, so I gratefully accept this as a compliment and note with relief that I have been promoted from Weird Mum to Sporty Mum in the space of a week.
Small Boy looks me up and down dubiously. "You know, when I am older I am going to invent the FatNav," he announces decisively.
My moment of self-satisfaction has evaporated in the blink of an eye.
"The WHAT?" chorus Daughter and Husband.
"The FatNav," Small Boy explains patiently. "It would be like a SatNav except it would tell you where all the fat people are in the world."
"What would be the use of that?" asks Husband.
"Well obviously it would mean that you could round them all up - the fat people," Small Boy sighs, "and then you could . . . burst them!" he finishes, waving his arms wildly at the brilliance of his idea.
"That's not very nice!" I exclaim.
"OK then. I'll invent the NaffNav instead," Small Boy says, not to be deterred from this sudden surge of creativity.
"The NaffNav?"
"Yup, the NaffNav. It would find all the naff people in the world."
"Ri-i-i-ght," I say slowly. "And what would it do with them?"
"Un-naff them, of course," says Small Boy.
Daughter nods sagely and sucks her teeth at me, as if I am in danger of being hunted down by said machine myself.
I consider trying to come up with a Nav of my own - possibly one which would enable me to get everyone to organise themselves without me having to behave like a Gauleiter in Lycra. But it is Monday morning and I am barely conscious. Instead I look pointedly at the clock and bark: "Teeth! Hair! Shoes! Bags!" until normal chaos is resumed.