Doctor Octopus and the spy in the sunshine

For approximately five minutes yesterday the sun came out. It was bright, warm and low in the sky and it made me feel happy and optimistic. My boys who have been couped up for 4 months demanded to be released into the back garden to be reunited with their cosy coupe cars, the trampoline and their bikes.

Mid-February is far too early in the year for me to venture outside for any length of time so I opted to watch them from the upstairs window. This had the added advantage of them not knowing I was there. I love watching them go about their business when they don't know I can see what they're doing. Sometimes I watch them watching TV, I monitor the expressions on their face, study their features, admire their beauty.

Joel's latest obsession is Doctor Octopus from Spiderman 2. In the film Doctor Octopus wears a long trench coat with trousers underneath (thankfully, he's not a flasher!) but is otherwise bare chested. Joel likes to emulate all his heroes (who are almost always the baddies) and had decided to take his jumper and vest off and wear only his coat, why do children not feel the cold like us adults? Dr Octopus also has long tube like arms with grabby metal hands hence the name. Joel has made these out of two grabbers that we got them for Christmas and an old tube that came with the washing machine. It's genius really, I wonder what he will do for a living when he's older. I watched him start to attack the bushes with his grabbers and then Louie who was still in his pyjamas pottered by with a tea towel to dry the seat of his car.

Louie had put his own shoes on except they weren't his own but an old pair of his brother's that were far too big for him. He wasn't wearing any socks and the shoes kept falling off, eventually he gave up and decided to go bare foot. I can't even begin to imagine how unpleasant I would find this, the cold muddy grass under foot, but it didn't seem to bother him. They played for a while and then it clouded over and they came back inside unaware that I had been spying on them.