Here I am with my white flag waving over my head. I surrender. Well, at least I do so on a daily basis. It’s mid May and we’ve almost hit a wall. The weather at last is good and we’re grateful for that at least. But we are most tired. And the children sensing their parent’s sleeply state like the snipers outside the castle watching the overtired guard nodding off, are ready to….

Attack!

They’re giddier than normal. They’re outdoors morning, noon and night and are drunk on life. Daily they discover new avenues through the haybales as Daddy removes a bale for feeding and they rename a new part of the shed. They speak a new language of sunshiny outdoor play and have become fluent in our ‘absence’ to work and weariness. The dinner table is rife with this chat and while we try to contain this exuberance (at times when all we want is a quiet meal), we surrender daily to their lust for life. Three boys. Last summer, it was, I realize now, two boys and a baby boy but the latter has taken his place in the wilds of their domaine.

And sometimes, or indeed mostly, all you can do is laugh. Laugh when they have a name calling competition that ends in giggles, surrender to the dirty faces and the muck on their legs (you could, I tell them, grow potatoes on them), laugh when they make the most ridiculously unfunny jokes. They are, it appears, relentless, but their tired parents understand that these giggling wrestlers rolling around a field outside are laying the foundations for their long lives together as brothers. And who are we to interfere. Alas.