Memories for boys 2

James and Alex playing Monopoly in Jutland while Katy fed Luke in bed, September 2007. The sauna with the thermometer with the man’s penis which went higher as it became hotter. The stroppy woman whose car we allegedly marked in the supermarket. The river coming out on the beach which had lots of discarded apples in it…
Alex saying of me ‘You sound just like Ed Reardon’ after we’d been listening to audiobooks in the car…
Walking into Canterbury while Katy was in bed with a migraine and finding an Italian restaurant where I and the three boys had dinner. That afternoon we’d been stuck in traffic on the M20 and had walked up the hard shoulder…
Going to Bridge to Terabithia with J and A on a rainy day when L was just a few days old…
Going to a concert with A in Harwich which started with a jazz band in the bandstand in the park near Orwell Terrace and then we all followed them into the big civic hall opposite the decorator’s shop. Jacqui and Kevin were there too. It was 2012 because Katy thought of inviting them to play at Lizzie’s 50th birthday. But I think they were too expensive…
Luke doing crazy dancing to ‘Dance Into The Fire’ by Duran Duran. It was 2012 because for xmas that year I gave him a DVD of A View To A Kill…
Remember the Harry Potter card game? I think I gave it to James one Christmas and then played it with each of the boys in turn…
At Stutton when L was there there was another little boy who had no hair. I suppose he must have had cancer. His mother always looked very sheepish and I feel bad that I never talked to her…
Alex doing the rehearsal for Carmina Burana at Snape Maltings. We then went for a swim at Thorpeness before going back for the concert…
Helping L get changed at Holbrook before swimming. I used to take him and A every week before I had the stroke…
Alex saying ‘to infinity and beyond’ when we finally got through the 30-mile limit through Brantham and accelerated on the way to Tattingstone…
Bumping into little James at the ‘have-a-look-round’ Colchester Grammar evening. Must have been 2011 or even 2010. He didn’t get in…
Going to Bentley to pick up L from that bruiser of a boy he was friends with in the first year. He had yellow hair and his dad was a mechanic who dropped him off at school in the morning…
Driving to Bentley to drop Jake off after choir practice. Alex remembers the long, long drive…
Compiling a ‘Lukeglish’ dictionary of all the words he knew when he was two. What were they all?
In Crete, James buying a statue for James Gilchrist, 2010. J swimming in the pool. We went for a long walk and found a little chapel/hermit’s retreat, and then later on the same walk heard rifle shots very near and ran for our lives. J made friends with a little Greek girl who was in the next apartment. I think he was reading Charlie Higson. Did we play backgammon in the cafe at Chania?
What were those books that Luke liked that we first got one of at Ickworth and then brought sets of? It was by an American woman in the 80s. Joan something?
I remember Millie doing this thing where she kind of shrugged and turned her hands face up – and then Luke who was one started doing the same thing. And she used to run around the garden pulling a rug with Alex on it. And when she had been ‘naughty’ having boys to stay at the Green I had to go down and ‘have a little talk’ with her. That was 2009…
In Fuertaventura, Alex and Nina holding hands. I, Dylan and the boys doing a game on the beach which involved throwing stones at a target. And then I drove miles down a track and found the wrecked ship which we commemorated in a puzzle. I think that was 2006 because I remember I was reading Jung for my course and talking about it with Katie Webb…
Staying at Steen’s house near Elsinore, I think it was 2009. James was naked in the garden (the Danish influence) and swinging on a rope dangling from a tree. At Louisiana, that art museum just north of Copenhagen, there was a sculpture made of water bottles. K has a cup from there on her desk, or at least she used to. To get to the far island from Ejsberg we had to drive over a long bridge which went over one island and on to the next. I think the sea was very cold but I went in anyway…