Never walk through a vast field of nettles in flip flops...whilst carrying a baby

Today is immensely sunny - so hot that my son informs me that if I were to sit on the sun I would get sunburn - this is a revelation and I thank him for his ready advice. He also wonders why his mum goes red in the sun and I explain it is because she is Irish and has freckles.

After work - I sit happily in a traffic jam listening to a bluegrass cover of Highway to Hell and decide that relocating to the Caribbean would be a really great idea. Logistics and money are not to be held up as reasons to banish this great idea.

I make it home and have to drag the kids into the garden. The power of Dinosaur Kings is truly mighty.

I have learnt from my mistakes earlier in the week - and now I stick sandals on their feet. Stones, thorns, sticks, slugs...there are many dangers to the feet of young children. I know this now. After my son managed to stand on every thorn between our garden and the playground down the street. So we clamber up the well constructed (cheers Chris!) wooden climbing frame and launch ourselves down the slide repeatedly. This is hard as I tend to get wedged half way down the slide and Fintan asks "Is your bottom too big daddy?".

"No. The slide is too small." I remind him.

Later - after spells in the wendy house - crammed up against the red plastic roof - feeling like the adults in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Later still - we venture into the "secret garden" which is actually the really dangerous bit next to the garden which leads to the canal and is full of nettles in a wall ten foot high.

Stupidly - I encourage Fintan to "grab a big stick and follow me!" as I wade in armed with a tinder-dry puny stick in one hand and a baby in the other. Declan is delighted. "Wahhhh!" "Wahhhhh" clap hands.

"Yep Declan - it's water. Brown dangerous canal water. Imagine it's the Med or something."

Fintan tells me that if we fall in we will drown unless we have armbands on. He's probably right. It reminds me of the river in Ank Morpork and that river only exists in my head.

Needless to say - wading through a thicket of nettles in flip flops with two kids is the stupdiest idea ever. I sting myself to pieces. Fintan tells me trees are made of metal and we spend the next half an hour looking for dock leaves for my brutalised bare legs.

We head inside. I crack open a bottle of Spitfire and settle in to watch Glastonbury from the comfort of my sofa. I'm jealous. In another lifetime - that was me. Sitting in a pile of noodles for ten hours in a big field near some standing stones as random bands rocked in front of me. I never went hungry though - that Glastonbury - I believe to this day that I absorbed those noodles by the power of osmosis - through my butt cheeks. Honest. Honest to god I did.

I will stay up late tonight - to catch Snoop and reminisce with the missus over glasses of wine. I may even decamp to the Wendy House, light a bonfire, play guitar badly and stay up til dawn. What do ya think? Sound good?