I picked up Lizzie’s youngest three from school again today, brought them back to my place for ice-cream, drinks and snacks, and then off in the car to Exeter in order to see their mum in hospital (still no appearance of baby Rosie… or is she going to be an Isabella, Emily or Dolly?). To be honest with you, I really enjoy having the children with me on our own (not that I’m after the full-time job). I feel I’m getting to know them better – stuck in the car together what else can we do but talk?

Hubba Bubba (alias Daniel), being the eldest of the three, sits in the front passenger seat of our big French car with a dash- board like the Star-ship Enterprise, while Fairy Mary and Sporty Lotte (Charlotte) sit, with the arm rest between them, in the spacious back seat.

We were all having a nice chat about sleep-walking (as you do) and it transpired that Hubba is in the habit of such perambulations; and Sporty Lotte thinks she, too, might be a sleep-walker because she sometimes goes into her parents’ bedroom in the middle of the night and wakes them up! I felt rather chuffed when Hubba began to tell me that he had had a dream about Chris and me (fancy that!). Apparently, in the dream Chris and I owned a bakery and Hubba called in for a cake or doughnut. Chris disappeared into a room at the back and didn’t come back. Fearing that something was amiss, Hubba and I went looking for Chris only to find that a sinister transformation had taken place and Chris had turned into a vampire bat! Hubba couldn’t remember what happened next but he told me that whenever he dies in his dreams he is always relieved to discover that a message comes up – “Game Over”.

On the ward a little later Sporty Lotte announced that she had been born on a Wednesday. Now whenever someone says they were born a particular day somebody else always recites the nineteenth century rhyme that begins with “Monday’s child is fair of face…” My niece did the honours and stopped at “Wednesday’s child is full of woe”.

“Oh Charlotte,” Lizzie had a worried look on her face, “Wednesday’s child is full of woe – do you mind being full of woe?”

“No,” Sporty Lotte (six years old) beamed, “when I was playing basketball and football the other day Aunty Sally said ‘Whoa!'”

Whoa! What wit!

And for those of you who have trouble remembering the rhyme…

Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath day,
Is lucky and happy and good and gay.