August is the cruellest month. The kids have seen Star Wars, they're bored with summer camp, bored with TV, bored with their new tattoos. Mine sit slumped in armchairs, watching a dog-training video they found in someone's skip. "That's a great idea," I say . "Why don't you do more of that?"
Andy stares suspiciously. "We don't have a dog, Mum. We would train it if we had a dog. But you wouldn't let us have a dog - and you lost the hamster."
"Let's not go into that again," I say. "I meant the skip thing. Treasure hunting in skips, for fun and profit - it's outdoors, it's exercise, it's teamwork and initiative and healthy competition . . ."
"Oh, look," Andy says in a BBC voice, quoting from his favourite Fast Show. "A woman is about to embarrass us all."
"Skip it, Mum," advises John, the diplomat. "No offence."
"Well then," I say, trying not to sound like a Blue Peter presenter. "Why don't you write a poem about Italy? You'll be asked to do something about your holiday as soon as you go back to school anyway." Even as the words leave my lips, I realise I've committed three cardinal errors. I've said "Why don't you . . .?" which begs a short, negative and very rude answer. I've tried to cash in on something they actually enjoyed. And, faux pas of pas, I've reminded them of school. The results are totally predictable.
"Why a poem, Mum? " asks Andy in a dangerously reasonable tone.
"Because your teachers say you have the makings of a real poet."
"They say that to all the mothers."
"I'm sure they . . ."
"Mum!" His voice has a harsh male tone now. He's 10 years old, he's being macho with his mother. "We're on holiday. I'm not going to do homework on holiday."
"Well, you're not doing anything else."
"That . . . that . . . that is so untrue. I watched Pokemon on TV at 8 o'clock this morning. I got to Level 5 on Worms Armageddon. I made my own Frosties, 'cos you were too busy talking on the phone. And I tidied out my wallet. And you owe me £20."
We all borrow cash from Andy and he makes huge profits by play?" I say, spotting the sting.
"No . . ." - thinking at the speed of light - "but you didn't give me pocket money for ages and Dad borrowed £5 for the papers on Sunday and . . ." Dad has actually paid Andy back £10 on demand because he had nothing smaller but Andy doesn't mention this. "Well, OK, let's not go into that now. I'll lodge £20 to your post office account soon. In the meantime do you want to make some more money?"
Treasure hunting in skips, I'm still thinking, shows real potential. There must be 20 skips within half a mile of our home. All that healthy running about, calling cheerfully to each other, happy in their co-operation. I'll give them a list of things I want and things worth transforming into interesting features in a run down (aka period) home - Victorian bricks (red or yellow), old door knobs, brass, wood, porcelain, original quarry tiles, a small stained glass window preferably round, arrowheaded railings in wrought iron, any stone or carved wood artefact . . .
"I'll pay you 50p for any item on my list that you find. Or anything you think we might use. 50p." "£1.50," flashes Andy. "There's the embarrassment factor, Mum. Our friends might see us."
"Yes, Mum" John chimes in "or the neighbours or the people who own the skip. They might call the police."
"£1.50 then."
"£2 actually, Mum." Andy's eyes narrow. "It's also very, very dangerous. We could get cut by glass. Or something could fall on us and I'd have to have stitches like when the brick dropped on my head while you were at work. £3 actually."
"You're absolutely right, Andy," I suddenly agree. "It's too dangerous. Let's forget it."
"£2," says Andrew. "We'll be very, very careful. We won't climb up on the skip or anything. We'll just look round the edges and take it if we can reach it." They start to pull on their shoes. I feel a brief panic - am I being reckless in sending them off to certain injury? Setting them on course for a life of petty crime?. Encouraging them to adopt the lifestyle of the street urchins of Rio? Or am I being over-protective?
I cast my mind back to what my two sisters and I did as kids on a farm during the dogdays of August. As I remember it, most of our childhood was spent as far above the ground as possible. Tightrope walking on high walls, retrieving balls from gutters atop ladders, dangling from attic windows to watch the strange antics of the bull with the cow. Even reading was done perched in the biggest apple tree, crunching on the ready supply of small, stomach cramping green apples. But life for my kids is all virtual adventure carried out on the computer. So, why am I not happy that they're safe at home? Is it because they're not using their imaginations and ingenuity?
My reverie is broken by the boys' appearance, fully kitted out for the hunt:
skateboard helmets, kneecaps and gloves. Andy is debating bringing his goggles in case of duststorms round the skip. "I don't think so, Andy" opines John. "Goggles will just draw attention. You see, Mum" - he points to the padding - "these will protect us from injury or death and also function as a disguise."
"Yes," expands Andy. "If people see us, we pretend we're skateboarding. And we can use the skateboard to help us carry heavy stuff home. Brilliant, isn't it?"
I think of the really useful things I should have organised over the holidays. Like sending Andy ("I want to be re-incarnated as a crane") to a building site where he could win at poker and exchange life skills with fellow workers. He would have enjoyed it more than the camp where there was swimming, football, races, rounders, gym and tennis. As he himself described it: "Mum, it's everything I hate in school, all packed into one day."
Twenty minutes later, the kids are back. "Mum, can we go over to Rory's? We met him at the second skip. He's got a new Playstation game and he says we can watch him play. We'll do that skip thing some other day, OK?"