What Pickle did

So we spent yesterday afternoon at a football tournament in the village – yes, it’s the ‘F’ word again. But I only went along because I knew it was near a friend’s house and she was having a little garden party at the same time so I could slope off for an hour with Poppet to sip champagne and scoff canapés while Nobby entertained the budding Man Utd player in the family. It was a lovely afternoon really. Until the final match, which Nobby and I were watching to cheer on a friend’s son while our kids played nearby. Pickle suddenly disappeared from under the pine tree he’d been swinging on and I couldn’t spot him anywhere. More curious than worried I wandered over to see if he was lurking behind the trunk ready to jump out at me. No sign of him. But I could hear ‘Mummy, mummy, here I am’ coming from somewhere so I continued to search. It wasn’t until I stepped back and looked UP that I saw him – right at the very TOP of the tree!!! Holding on with one hand and waving, thinking himself very clever. My heart was in my mouth. He was probably only slightly higher than the roof of our house I suppose, but to a Mummy who suffers dizzy spells on a deep-pile carpet it might as well have been 100 feet. The boy has no fear. Poppet fetched Nobby over and he was very impressed – clearly no vertigo on his side of the family. And once Pickle had successfully descended he expected high-5s all round. Hmm. I must call my own Mum to remind me if I ever pulled any similar stunts. I remember liking tree-climbing but I think it was my sister who won the prize during a trip to King Arthur’s castle in Cornwall when we found her sitting astride a wooden fence, humming to herself, and admiring the 200 foot drop down to the rocks and the sea on the other side…

See Mum, NOW I get it!