With you away, Hayley and I are taking the boys to Coral Reef Waterworld in Bracknell for the day. Mother is coming with us. She will sit in the café while we swim, and then come for a walk in the surrounding woods with us, after lunch.

We arrive at Coral Reef and park the car, the boys whooping with excitement. Mother marches off towards the café brandishing her Daily Telegraph. No doubt ready to attack the crossword with her usual determination.

‘See you by the base of the waterslides in about ten minutes,’ I say to Hayley as I take the boys by the hand, leading them towards the family changing rooms.

‘Fine.’ She beams, sauntering towards the child-free area.

Harry and Ben jump up and down pretending to be baby lambs, all the way to the cubicles. I manage to get a big one so that we can change together. Ben stops jumping and changes sensibly. Harry carries on jumping. He is a baby rabbit now apparently.

‘Come on, Harry, your turn to get your trunks on,’ I say when Ben and I are ready.

But Harry keeps jumping, and giggling. His high-pitched giggle is beginning to give me a headache.

‘Don’t you want to come swimming?’ I ask. ‘Would you rather sit and do the crossword with Granny?’

‘Don’t call her Granny,’ Ben and Harry say in unison.

‘Why not?’

‘She hates it.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘She tells us every day.’

Harry puts his head on one side and looks at me. ‘I don’t want to do the crossword with Caprice, but I can’t come swimming because I’m a bunny rabbit.’ He pauses. ‘And bunnies don’t swim.’

‘They do,’ Ben replies. ‘I’ve seen one on YouTube. Can I borrow your iPhone Daddy?’

I hand it to him. He opens a video of a rabbit, underwater, ears back, kicking its legs, streamlined in the water, like a furry pencil.

‘Come on, Harry. We can have a bunny swimming race in the water,’ I say hopefully. We have already been twice as long as I said.

‘I want to go to the pirate ship. Bunnies like pirates. They like eating them,’ he says gnashing his teeth.

‘Don’t be silly. Bunnies are vegetarian,’ Ben replies.

Harry puts his tongue out at his brother. Ben reciprocates.

‘Remember what Caprice says. If the wind changes your faces will stay like that,’ I say as I grab their hands and drag them out of the changing cubicle. ‘Hayley is queen of the bunny rabbits and she’s waiting for you by the slide. Let’s race there now.’