We Have Sand

When I first moved in to this lovely new house, the previous owner offered to leave his sandpit for my children to play in. I thought to myself, "No way! I don't want sand through the lawn, through the house and in the beds!! Accepting this kind offer of a sandpit will only end in regret. Sand Regret." And so I politely declined the offer.

Soon I realised that a four year old boy must play, and if there is no sand, he will play in the gravel that lies on a few places in the yard. And lo, there was gravel in the lawn, gravel in the house, and gravel in the bed, if you can believe that.

And I found that afterall, I had Sand Regret. I began to want a sandpit, to stop the endless playing with gravel.

I thought long and hard about where to put a sandpit and how to do it, being a puny girl myself. I decided that rather than use some prime real estate on the lawn, I'd be better off using a corner of the yard that was already set aside, but being used for nothing at the moment.


I thought so. And if we were going to make the yard a fun place to be in, wouldn't it be good to fix up the old swings?

The problem was it was going to be a big job for a Mum whose hands were often filled (quite happily) with my little Joseph. What to do?

I decided to ask my brother how I should go about the job. I thought he'd be a good Sandpit Consultant. And he was. Last Tuesday morning there was a ring at the doorbell and there he was, having travelled 1700km to surprise me and help with the sandpit. What a champion.

I had offered him a free dinner if he'd help with the job but he was unavailable to collect on that, as he was catching up with some ladies as well (ooh la la.) I had also offered him a free dessert if he would do the job in a hard hat, but he forgot to bring a hard hat, so there goes that.

He got straight to work. First he attached the new seats to the swing set.

Then he started on the sandpit. He completed a frame, took out some little trees, did some thinking about ways I could finish off the sandpit and then he helped me do some other jobs around the garden, like re-planting one of the little trees.

My father helped me work out how much sand I'd need. I can't estimate quantity and he's a mathematician, so I get him to help with things like this. 0.6 cubic metres. Thanks Dad.

Then this morning Mr de Elba helped me finish the job. We went to a sand place, bought our 0.6 metres of sand ...

... and shovelled it into the sandpit.

A few weeks ago I bought these sand toys to help motivate me. Here they are in the finished sandpit. Okay, so there's an eggbeater in there. I didn't buy that specifically for the sandpit. My children use it to play with so often, and I don't use it to beat eggs, so it seemed like the place for it.

The final step was to add children. Very happy children.

And tonight as I walk through the house, I am feeling sand underfoot. Sand in the bath, sand on the floor, sand swept into piles waiting for me to remove it, sand, sand, sand.

And I find that despite achieving this long-term goal with help from the men in my life, when I should be 100% happy and satisfied that the job is done, instead ...

... I have a little bit of Sand Regret.

(I've done the right thing, haven't I?)