It is Easter! Here is Ned modelling his plain but effective Easter Bonnet, looking kind of pensive in his wolf onesie, but nailing it. He OWNED that makeshift cardboard red carpet:

Easter has also come to mean a week away in the country, and so we decamped to the wilds of rural clotted cream Devon to stay in a farmhouse and pat the ponies. We left after school broke up on Friday and drove straight down with a dirty little stop at a KFC for dinner and only one incident involving the dog, his vomit and my jeans. The jeans in question are rated no.2 on my Jeans Hierachy, meaning they are better than the Seven For All Mankind jeans which are a little bit big but not so good as the really tight size 30 Levis skinny ones which I believe gives me a better bum. The vomit jeans are in between those other two, kind of relaxed and casual, teetering dangerously close to the ‘Mom Jeans’ category of Sadness and Despair. Anyway, Magic spewed green bile quite early on in the seven hour traffic-jammed journey, sitting as he was between my legs in the front passenger seat, but I was cool about it, and let it dry and tried not to think too much about it. It was more a case of working out the Jeans Hierachy reshuffle. You don’t wanna peak too soon, you know, bringing out the tight bum jeans on DAY ONE, and then letting everyone down with your creeping bum and slacker thighs while you wait for the Mom Jeans to dry. Anyway, this is Magic, possibly quite relieved, and me, being cool about my warm patch:

On the long drive, the kids were silent, owing to the DVD player installed on the roof of the truck, and so Mark and I listened to an episode of This American Life, via the medium of the modern podcast, and part of the show was about ASMR – Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response – something I had never heard of. A girl was talking about how, when the conditions are right, like hearing a whispery voice, or watching something really boring like napkins being folded, she gets a tingly head sensation. And I asked Mark if he gets the tingly head sensation, and he was totally clueless and said he didn’t know what she was talking about. Because I get that tingly head when I am tired and the children talk in whispery voices. So, apparently, I have ASMR! A new condition to google obsessively, and OH! The ASMR videos on youtube are totally mental. You learn something every day, etc, etc.  

Devon was, of course, all things lovely. There was a pool and our own jacuzzi and a variety of beaches where we scoffed fish and chips and ice cream. It was sunny enough to have a few barbecues and the dog was allowed to run around and he met some friends and they sniffed together and barked at the ponies. Magic got a little cocky, and came into the pool house while we (and other cottagers) were there and jumped right in. His dog friends stood at the door and watched, kind of horrified, kind of admiringly, as I heaved him out of the pool and back out the door. I think Magic was probably pretty embarrassed about the whole thing. I know I was.

Here’s the view from the cottage:

Here’s the dog swimming in the fishing pond. I think he was allowed to swim in there. Maybe.

Here’s a selection of beaches, from chips at Looe, to the gorgeous sand at Bude. We also stopped at Widemouth for a few hours, but we became overwhelmed by the stench of chicken manure and had to leave. There was also a sign warning the casual Easter-beach-goer that sometimes there is a toxic fatty substance on the shore, which kills dogs. And there were stingy beetles finding their way inside our shirts. Disconcerting, to say the least. 

And the rarest thing ever – the first photo of us all. Here we are, me with enormous hair, the others in varying degrees of enthusiasm, at the gorgeous tudor house at Cotehele, ALL TOGETHER!

Unfortunately, the baby took the week as a chance to regress, and so he is waking again at 3:30 for bosoms. He is also a little bit snotty, and one night he woke every few hours. Here he is the morning after:

Gleeful. I was less so.

We got back yesterday, and the boys raced into their room and started playing with Lego, and Mark and I lay down on our enormous bed and wept happy little internal tears of contentment. Happy to go away, but very happy to come home. Something must be right, eh? Anyway, Happy Easter to you, Dear Reader. I wish you many egg hunts and roast lamb and sunshine x