A while ago poor Michael was sick. Nothing serious, just a runny nose, a cough and a bit of a temperature. But, if I put him down, he roared. It was one of my half days and I had tried to nap in the afternoon because I was tired after a difficult night with Michael and had a slight cold of my own but anyone will tell you that, even if your twin babies are asleep with their minder, having a little girl poke you in the eyelids is not conducive to napping. So we went to the supermarket, hung out clothes, fed the neighbours’ cats and generally laboured for the afternoon. The childminder left me on my own with all my children about 6 (terror) and, unexpectedly, Mr. Waffle was stuck late at work (disaster).

By 7.30 the boys were cranky and tired, particularly Michael, but every time I tried to put him to bed he would wake up and cry. Perhaps the whooping from the other two didn’t help. While I was in the bathroom running the bath for the two healthy ones, Daniel was putting his new found crawling skills to good effect in the bedroom and I kept darting in to check that he was alright. I couldn’t put Michael down because he was deeply miserable and the Princess was lying in our bed saying “I’m sick, I’m sick, pay attention to me not to Michael, Mummy come here”. Under other circumstances, it wouldn’t have been a crisis, but I was so tired and it seemed to me that they all wanted me immediately and I couldn’t split myself in three so I shouted at the Princess “You are not sick, you are being a pain”. I had never shouted at her before. I have occasionally gone into another room, stuffed a towel in my mouth and had a rewarding silent scream, but I had never shouted at her. It was absolutely dreadful. She went pink, then white, then pink again. Daniel who I had just plumped down on the bed thought that I was shouting at him and he began to cry in terror, big round tears coursing down his little chubby cheeks (Michael was still in my arms and completely indifferent, I can’t feel that he is the sensitive one among my children). It was awful. I started to cry myself, the combination of guilt and self-pity proving irresistible. I picked up Daniel to comfort him and Michael started to cry because he was not now in my arms. The Princess looked at me in horror – what’s wrong, Mummy? “Nothing” I said sniffing “I just can’t manage everyone and look, Michael is crying now”. She hopped up and put her arms around Michael (who screamed some more at this unnerving development) and said “Don’t you mind him, Mummy, I’ll look after him.” You know how it is, once someone is nice to you when you start to cry, all you can do is cry some more. As I rescued Michael from his sister’s embrace and kept an arm round a more quietly sobbing Daniel (who later in the evening squealed in terror when I put him sitting on the bed – happy memories, clearly), she said “Mummy, when will you be happy again?” So I said that I would be happy by the time she counted to 60 (that’s one minute, everything is a pedagogical opportunity for the pushy parent, you know) and so, I gathered myself together and faced into the remainder of the evening and, I suppose, we all survived.

I have registered to vote in the Belgian communal elections on October 8. How proud I am of this fact. How I have lorded it over other expats who have not registered to vote on the feeble grounds that voting is compulsory, once you have registered, and the fine for not doing so is hefty. How I have spoken eloquently of doing my democratic duty. How I should have known I was riding for a fall.

You may have noticed that it has been a bit quiet here lately. Partly this has been because of our ongoing dispute with Mr. Gates, partly, it is because I have been travelling for most of the past week but largely it has been because my father has been having open heart surgery and I was too scared to blog about it in case I, somehow, jinxed matters. But, almost miraculously, he seems to be recovering well from a second bout between his ribs and a hacksaw wherein his ribs came off worst. Obviously, the bout with the hacksaw was followed by a number of people poking around his beating heart to ensure that it would stay doing just that. And since the last bypass has lasted 20 years, I am cautiously optimistic that all will be well. Today the patient was sitting up in bed asking for the newspaper. But we all got something of a shock. My sister flew home from India last weekend. After much agonising, I decided that I might be more useful when he came out of hospital and, upon my husband’s nobly volunteering to mind the children, rushed to book a trip to Cork for the weekend of October 8.

Ah, October 8, just how hefty do you think that those fines are?