Harry up at his usual ungodly hour. The rest of us sleep in until 9. When I get downstairs, I find Harry snoozing on the sofa – busted! Harry requests a pyjama day and since the weather’s looking miserable it’s fine by me (it’s pretty much always fine by me).

I reply to some emails, draft an interview for Bea and then get breakfast (David’s given the boys their breakfast).

David and the boys watch some Sesame Street, while I read (and drink tea).

I post up the course notes for my YA course and answer some more emails, while Joe plays Endless Alphabet and Harry’s on Pokemon.

Harry and I read The Earth from the Air: Santorini, a little boy named Yannis, Norwegian fjords… Harry makes a right meal of it, flailing and complaining.

Turn the coffee table upside down to make a “boat” for Joe. He immediately fills it with his “friends” (cuddly toys).

Write a blog post, answer some more emails (I’m trying to clear my inbox because we’re going away for a couple of days this week). Joe wants to wash his hands and ends up making a “bath” in the sink for his toys. (Joe: “The bath is ready, dear… That’s enough, dear.”) I come downstairs and tell Harry. He misunderstands, strips off and runs upstairs to get in the bath. In the meantime, Joe’s been transferring water from the basin to the bath, so he strips off too and they get in for a paddle. I join them – in the bathroom, not the bath – and make a bicarb volcano in the sink. Harry asks if they can have a real bath, so I run one, adding bubbles, while they’re still paddling.

David makes lunch and, once it’s ready, I haul the boys out of the bath and down the stairs. Over lunch, I ask them questions from Tots Trivia and Kids Trivia (can’t find the second one and I don’t know why the first is so expensive – I paid £2.99). I ask the boys if they remember the last time we looked at these questions. It was in a restaurant in Whitby last year. Harry says it was the night before he got sick. It was too.

I sneeze just as one of the guinea pigs comes out to eat some hay. It legs it so fast that hay flies out of the cage. Me and H find this hilarious. (Joe’s not so sure.)

I end up stuck on the computer for ages, watching Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement address, reading Home Education Magazine, and uploading photos to Flickr. David and the boys watch Horrible Histories, then Harry and Joe go upstairs to play “Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy” in my bedroom (I do not know what this involves, apart from stripping my bed).

Harry takes over the computer and Joe settles down with his blanket to watch CBeebies. I start reading, but end up snoozing and I’m woken by Joe asking me to take a photo of him for the Storybots app. I do and we read it together for a while, then the boys have tea (made by David). I catch up on blog-reading while Harry holds one of the guinea pigs. Harry and Joe go upstairs to play “The Last Episode.”

I go up and we wrestle for a bit (Harry beats me again), then I read to them from a Spongebob book we got from the library. Joe’s tired and gets under my duvet with his blanket. Me and Harry lie next to him and stroke his hair and face and he lets us… but it feels a bit like stroking a sleeping lion, like any minute he’ll rip our heads off. He doesn’t though. He must really be tired. David comes up and puts Joe to bed – he reads The Dance of Wallowy Bigness (one of my faves) and they watch a Sesame Street podcast (on Palaeontology).

Harry stays up with us while we have dinner (cooked by David) and then David puts Harry to bed.