Star I goes down with hideous and recurring lurgie, but, despite his temperature being off the scale during the night, come the afternoon he was perky enough for the park.  Which was somewhat of a relief as I was running out of ways to keep two 11 yr. olds and an eight yr old fully occupied before we were joined by their mum and five year old sister. Once this Hampshiremum’s café has produced pizza and sarnies en masse we trek off, under gathering storm clouds, to the park.

We Hampshiremums  were  berated  by two five year olds to ‘push higher’ on the swings while the others charged round ricocheting off trees, hedges and climbing frames with seemingly inexhaustible  energy. A change of apparatus and the onset of rain meant my chum and  I sought  refuge under the trees while the kids played on oblivious to the change in the climatic conditions.

Then, having taken my eye off the ball as it were, from across the park came the disgusted voice of Star I: ” Eerr Mum, look, he’s wet himself !”   Sure enough there was Star II  high on the wooden platform having clearly had a wee of Niagara proportions. My handbag  emergency kit of a mobile, old shopping list and an empty cheque book was not going to cope with this unhappy event. Best pop back home I thought.  Star I continued to mock his bladder-control-impaired sibling, when suddenly out of the mouth of this particular babe came “B***** hell shut up !!!!!!!!”

Mercifully the park was now devoid of less hardy Hampshiremums, but the rest of us were glued to the spot, mouths open in stunned silence . An icy wind blew and all eyes were upon me.  Mothering skills on trial, all I could muster was a choked  “What did you say?!”  Brilliant,  let's get him to say it again!

What followed must have looked like Mary Poppins on speed. I ushered mass evacuation from the park with a lengthy and detailed explanation of the correct use of the English language to my urine-soaked youngest en route.

Seemed to work, the other children fell into silent contemplation and Star II repeated his mantra ”I’m really, really sorry Mummy.”  My chum offered up her support, “Funny, my children never use language like that, where did he get it from?”  Thanks for that.