It had taken weeks of planning, co-ordinating two busy diaries but finally we had set a date to spend the weekend with friends.
We arrive at their house early and the children spend the day bouncing on trampolines, speeding around on bikes and generally creating havoc in their once immaculate playroom. We feel sure they are well exercised and will sleep beautifully. After sausages and baked beans, they exert a bit more energy and are then thrown into baths full of Matey bubbles. Tucked into an assortment of sleeping bags on bunk beds, blow-up mattresses and in travel cots they are content with a swift group book followed by lights off.
Downstairs we enjoy a child-free supper and get a bit over-excited with the bottles of Rosé. Once we realise it is after midnight, far too late for any parent who endures early rises and non-stop twittering for 14 hours a day, we too say our good nights to each other. However, little do we know what the night has in store for us. Just as I am drifting off to sleep, I hear the first yell which, as a parent with supersonic hearing, I quickly identify as one of ours. I spring out of bed and into the baby’s room in an impressive few seconds, to avoid waking the other children. My husband and I then embark on a ridiculous exercise of moving the travel cot into our bedroom. It doesn’t fit through the doorway, so we resort to dismantling it in total darkness and re-erecting it beside our bed. After half an hour of the baby shrieking and wondering why on earth we let ourselves have that last glass of Port, we drift back to sleep. Then come the small cries for Mummy, prompting another mad dash to scoop up my daughter and place her in our bed. Shortly afterwards, sharing the 5ft bed defeats my husband and with a few groans, he moves next door to my daughter’s bed. The night continues with yet more cries and corridors full of bleary-eyed parents. At 5.30am, I wake up with a jolt as the baby pours a glass of cold water over me, which he has grabbed from the bedside table. This soaks the rest of the bed and the two children lying beside me (my son joined us too!). As I wander down the landing, I glance into the children’s bedroom to find two boxer shorted fathers - one lying on the top bunk and one on the bottom. Meanwhile, my friend is downstairs on the sofa with two sleeping children beside her watching Big Brother Live, where she has been for the past two hours. It was musical beds in its extreme and by 8.30am, we were waving goodbye to our friends with three small children screaming in the back of the car wondering how on earth we were going to get through the rest of the day.
