We went to the driving range this morning even though it howling a gale and really chilly. It was that awful drizzly rain where you think you wont get too wet so you don’t put a coat on, but end up going home looking like a well dunked tea bag with a 70’s afro! Lush.

Monty has his own golf club, he loves the driving range and is actually pretty good at whacking a golf ball. He’s pretty good at whacking most things to be fair. His sister, me, his dad, anyone or thing within reach when he is doing his moves, but mainly his sister!

We’re doing that typical parent thing where we make excuses for his wild behaviour. “oh we think he’s going to be a natural when he starts Karate”, “I think its important that he  can stick up for himself” and “he’s very good at tackling, maybe he’ll be a famous rubgy player”. The bottom line is, he is happiest when he is breaking wind, burping or kicking the living daylights out of  someone. This is fine until we have elderly visitors, or we need to go to the library, or sit on an 8 hour flight! Oh gosh, dreadful library memories flooding back.. Rose was not a happy librarian.

Golf was pretty relaxed, we had 100 balls and once they were gone, we were out of there. Its actually a pretty good “family activity” to kill an hour or so. We were all separated by  small walls (yippedeee doo da). The children were too far apart to be able to wipe bogies on each other, and we told them it was a no talking area, so apart from the odd shriek of joy when the ball went further than the end of the mat it was peaceful…. Try it… you’ll thank me I promise. Of course this counts as a “super parent” activity and is definitely worth bringing up in conversation at toddler group when Fanny is talking about taking Delilah to baby yoga.

After golf, we tried to get a few jobs done for our holiday, just the usual last minute things. Buying currency, forking out tonnes of cash on new swimwear for the kids, the essential pharmacy trip because you just know I’m going to end up with some kind of crazy Malaysian diarrhea. These are the sorts of jobs we know we should be doing as a sole parent while the other stays at home watching Paw Patrol with the brats, but as ever, we went in eyes wide open, with two tired, hungry children, who were demanding we go straight to Toys R us. Oh good god! Here goes nothing!

The sliding doors part, people everywhere, children screaming, fathers weeping outside David Jones while mothers relax having full makeovers at the MAC counter, spotty teenage couples draped all over each other looking all loved up, oblivious to what lies in store for them in a few years.

Monty decided to hopscotch round Westfield, screeching if anyone dared step on a “blaaaaack LIIIIINE”. Poppy, as always, walked forwards while looking backwards, and therefore spent most of this joyful experience tripping over, stubbing her toes, or crashing into people, then bursting into tears because “it WAAAAASSSN’T MYYYYY FAUULT”.

A few parents look at us with that “oh we feel your pain” look, and then there’s the others…. The kids all in white, (who the heck lets their kids wear white?) hair beautifully tied back, whispering sweet nothings into each others ears, usually stroking some sort of cuddly kitten toy… Oh you know the ones. The children are  usually called Tarquin and Sapphire. They glare, they gasp, they even mutter about us under their breath! I try to ignore their stress free shopping trip and closely tail the family with the two overweight kids downing energy drinks. They are bound to go nuts in a minute.

We made it! We got our jobs done and we managed to get out of the shopping centre fairly unscathed. Although I have developed a slight twitchy eye. Go figure. We’ve now been at home for an hour or so, the weather is still awful, so we’ve donned our trackies and warm socks. Sydney is not dissimilar to Skegness this afternoon. So much for the endless sunshine Tim promised me.

We flicked through the movies and insisted the children watch ET as its a classic and something they just have to see. This caused huge trauma as they had their hearts set on some weird Christmas Shrek movie. We stood our ground, I smiled across the living room to Tim as he asserted himself, so proud and in love with this hunk of a father before me! “We can do this,” I said in my head, as the children hid behind cushions, weeping because they were scared.We werent going to break. ET is awesome and we had it on…

ET had just about got off the space ship and into the woods and the bloody internet went off and Netflix was no more. Damn it, we were back to bloomin Peppa pig. The children crossed their legs, glanced at each other and I am damn sure I saw a smirk. Bugger it…..

Tomorrows activities include watching ET and possibly a trip to buy some white clothes and a stuffed kitten for the children. I WILL succeed in parenting well.