Stolen moments

Gerry Stewart

Since I was eleven I've kept journals to preserve events threatening to fade away with time. It's impossible to choose which days to cherish and which to let slip away. What seemed so insignificant to my younger self is now important, but lost to my scribbled notebooks.

It is easier to live this day, capture its small unfolding details.

After child-broken sleep I wake to another demand: the baby requires feeding, only two hours after the last bleary, too-early meal. I hate growth spurts - my good little sleeper has become a screeching stomach. Our two year old's not much better, up most of the night with a bug, but he's over the worse. I hope.

We congregate on the couch, change nappies, say our good mornings. That sweet little voice and gentle kiss banishes all frustrations.

The baby suckles, the toddler eats his Krispies and their dad and I bolster ourselves with caffeine before we start considering showers and getting dressed. We have fallen into a gentle routine wrapped around the children, but we each try to dig out pockets of time for ourselves.

The youngest goes down for a nap and I run a shallow, hot bath, even manage some herbal bath salts. I am momentarily reborn - at least enough to get the boys dressed. Then I run commentary on the toy trains littering the floor while my partner showers and works on the computer. My son doesn't want me to join in, just act as narrator and occasionally rescue fallen cars. At two, he speaks better than most children twice his age, especially on his favourite subjects; trains and Thomas. We talk in circles, ask and answer the same questions, repeat the same conclusions.

About noon both boys decide to nap at the same time, a rare prize. A clock is now ticking down in my head; the baby will awake in an hour, the older boy in two. I head for the allotment, my parcel of earth, my sanctuary.

There's disappointment upon arrival - no familiar cars in the car park. One of the highlights of the allotment is a cup of tea with my fellow allotmenteers. A bunch of old boys who've had plots for decades with the wisdom of the soil in their bones; they give me advice on my vegetables and regale me with stories of their illicit youth in the time it takes to down a cuppa. They joke I'm taking notes of our conversations for my writing. They don't realise how right they are.

However, all chances for a blether are not gone. Someone's bound to wander by looking to waste time.

My two hours slipping away, I change to my work boots and up tools. I have a bed to re-prepare. No leeks were available when I cleared it a month ago, so a green haze of weeds has moved in, claiming squatters' rights. With only around twenty-five plants, I'll have to scrounge about for more. Someone's bound to have a few spare. I don't even get started before a neighbour's little girl wanders in. So much for escaping kids. She fills me in with the minutiae of her life, offers me a fizzy fish sweetie and vanishes.

I bend to the spade beneath the open crisp sky, removing the worst, perennial weeds and turn as much of the heavy, rich soil over as I can.

I'm about halfway into it, muddied and sore, when the man in the next plot arrives with the little girl in tow. She's run into a patch of nettles, her arm covered in raised stings. To her credit, no tears. A good first aid kit and some chocolate buttons soon sort her out.

Her mum appears and we chat about our kids' ailments. A welcome interruption and chance to stretch my back. Between us, nettles reach into the path and my brambles need pruning; the work is never done. Not that I want it to be.

My neighbour pops his head in. Sometimes we talk more than we work, usually rehashing old topics. Our conversation ignores the clocks. My goal accomplished, I'm happy to stand amongst the last hints of harvest; golden tumbled pumpkins, furrows of tatties.

My two hours spent, I gather my tools before casting an eye over my work. Signs of my labours: one square of earth dark and tidy, even if the rest of the plot is weed-choked; a good ache in my muscles. At home, life falls back into a pattern of hanging laundry, lunch, punctuated by small discoveries: a new phrase, a developing giggle. I express some milk in a never-ending attempt to keep up my supply for my precious, few moments away.

Off to the swing-park to bask in the bright weather. My partner and I take turns leading the toddler over the slides, pushing him on the swings while the other writes among the buggies and gossiping parents.

Another cuddled feed with the baby, his blanket covering. Not quite an Indian summer, but we soak up the sun, our time alone.

Boys wrangled into the car with a few tears, we head home. Meatballs for dinner and more trains, children's telly.

We frantically chase down the scattered bath and bed things. Dad bathes the screaming baby and I get splashed by his brother.

Our family curls up together in our bed, sleep-warm. I feed the little one while the older boy takes his bottle. Their father recounts the events of the day in a measured voice. The baby passes out too quickly.

By eight they're both asleep, as am I. By nine the crying starts. It feels like a conspiracy. Once the little one's settled, I'm gifted with five hours unbroken sleep before his brother wakes. We're up and down for the next five hours.

An ordinary day worth no more than a footnote in my journal. Preserved, its simple beauty intact. I wouldn't change a thing. Well, maybe just a little more sleep.