The Mule

Sometimes I pass the place where we once lived And glimpse three ghosts arriving at the door A woman - me, a man, a newborn child, Alighting, in the darkness, shocked and sore. I watch them cross the threshold, disappear, They don't exist now - all of them are gone, For brand new parents barely last a day, And babies only live 'til they are one. In twenty years I'll show you our old haunts: "We used to come here once when you were small" You'll shrug, but I'll see flashes everywhere - Each gate you climbed, each park, each village hall.        Our lives move on, we change, evolve, adjust,         Leaving our trace, our imprints in the dust. If you are partial to sonnets about parenting you might also like:  I Lie With You Until You Are Asleep

In the past few days there've been some definite signs that Spring has truly arrived, and no, I don't mean the warm air or the nodding daffodils, I'm talking about bloody sand all over my bloody house.  It's amazing how far a three year old can track the stuff, and it turns up in the most irritating places, its regular removal becoming your number one mundane and thankless task for the next six months, until the wheel of the year turns, and you can start repetitively and ineffectively hoovering up its Winter counterpart, glitter, instead. Yesterday, in between bouts of sand clearance, I launched a sunshine induced and uncharacteristic attack on my two daughters respective wardrobes, sorting out summer clothes from various chaotic boxes and cupboards and drawers.  Like all such jobs, in order to try and complete it I had to do two things - set the three year old on a lunatic project (how many layers of trousers can you get on?) and allow the...