Well we did our bit for healthy week at school.  My eldest cycled and my youngest son scooted.  I did the same as yesterday though and arranged for my husband to pick me up at school 2.

I’m quite a hot blooded person and even on freezing cold days if I’m walking I’ll probably be in a t-shirt and no coat.

The day before had been really warm so today I opted to wear a pretty blue summer dress.  I looked up at the grey sky and thought I’ll risk it, knowing I get hot walking anyway.  Plus I was still pushing a pushchair laden down with all the school bags, drinks and coats.

We stopped a few times on the way so the children could have a drink and not long after setting off for the third time.  My youngest complained that the ‘black thing had gone’.  I stopped and asked ‘what’s the black thing’ racking my brain as to what I had seen in her hands that morning.

It turned out that whatever it was she had dropped it out of the pushchair.  I couldn’t go back as we had to get the boys to school so I promised to have a look on the way back.

We met my husband at school 2 and I explained about the ‘black thing’ and the only thing he thought it could be was a little black bottle that came out of a game.  Our daughter nodded, so at least I knew what to look for.

We drove to the start of the road that we thought it had been dropped on and while my husband stayed in the car I walked along the road, head down searching.

You can imagine how it looked.  I had started the morning out freshly showered in a pretty blue dress and because it had started raining I now just looked like a scarecrow in a frock!

I kept checking with my daughter and after walking the length of the road she said it had fell out where we had had our first pit stop.  This was along the next road! 

As I knew exactly where we had stopped I carried on round, searching but to no avail.

I went back to the car, told my daughter I couldn’t find it and that maybe a baby bird had found it and flown off with it to play with.  This seemed to satisfy her.

I had just put my seatbelt on, when a delighted little girl shouted ‘here it is’.  My husband and I both looked round and there she sat in the back of the car holding . . . you guessed it . . . a little black bottle!

Now, either she had been playing with it in her car seat on a previous journey and had got confused or there were two of these bottles and she had just found another one.  Despite the fact I had just walked about a quarter of a mile searching for this ‘thing’, the look on her happy little face spoke volumes.  We all burst out laughing.

‘The baby bird bought it back for me’ she said.  Who can argue with that?