One of the drawbacks of having four children is that your friends never invite you to stay. I’d like to believe it’s because they don’t have enough room, but even those friends with large houses are remarkably tight-lipped come holiday time. Actually, that isn’t strictly true. We have been invited to stay by a few of our friends. It’s just that we’ve never been invited to stay by any of them more than once.
I know why. It’s because our children are so … how can I put this … rambunctious. Take last weekend, for instance, when some friends invited us to stay in Dorset. They don’t actually own the house in question, but are allowed to stay there by the absentee owner provided they look after his pets, including his prize peacocks.
No sooner had we pulled up in the driveway, than four-year-old Freddie spotted one of these exotic birds, leapt from the car and immediately gave chase.
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