I'm incapable of saying no to my kids | Steve Canavan

It had been raining all morning and Mrs C had been in charge of entertaining the little ones, so I thought I’d take them out after dinner and give her a break.

‘Where do you want to go?’ I asked Mary, my three-year-old.

‘The beach,’ she replied (which is a 30-minute drive from where we live). ‘But it’s overcast and quite cold,’ I told Mary. ‘It’s not a beach kind of day.’

‘But I want to go,’ she replied, and being absolutely incapable of ever saying no to my children (I’m aware this will lead to massive discipline problems along the line, but, hey, it’s the way she looks at me), I replied ‘ok, let’s go then’.

I shoved her and Wilf – who is one and therefore not old enough to have a say on where we go – in the car, along with an assortment of spades and buckets and toys, and a little picnic consisting of ham, cheese, crisps, and buttered bread (these are the only food items my child Mary seems to like; by the time she’s turns 21 her cholesterol level is going to be off the scale. I predict open heart surgery before she hits 30), and off we went to the beach.

On our arrival I noted that, slightly disturbingly, the sea was a lot closer than I'd anticipated. In fact it was completely in, which meant the little patch of sand we had come all this way to play on was underwater, with waves smashing against the rocks. It was at this point I regretted not checking the tide times.

The tide did seem to be going out – albeit slowly – so I decided to wait. However, it’s quite tricky to do this with two small children, one of whom has not long since woken from his lunchtime nap and wants to be on the move.

Food was the only way I could think of to keep them preoccupied, so in desperation I laid out our picnic blanket on what was effectively a concrete cycle path adjacent to the beach (and therefore spent the next half an hour apologising to cyclists who whizzed by shooting me disapproving looks and tutting at the sight of ham and cheese splattered on their path).

It wasn’t, with hindsight, a great child-friendly place to stop. On one side of the path was a lengthy drop to rocks below and on the other a flood defence made up of steep steps. As soon as I put Wilf down, he ignored the food and instead began crawling off in both directions, seemingly intent on throwing himself to his death in one way or another. Meanwhile Mary complained that I had only bought two chocolate biscuits and after she'd eaten them within 30 seconds, began crying for more.

This situation went on for 40 or so rather stressful minutes during which time my blood pressure quadrupled and I felt a serious stomach ulcer coming on, before mercifully the sea retreated enough for us to venture on to the beach.

The problem was that the sand was absolutely soaking and so as soon as I put Wilf down, he got very wet.

Mary ran happily about the rockpools, sailing a little plastic boat we had bought with us, and I tried to play with her as much as possible while breaking off every 20 seconds to prevent Wilf – who I think wants to be a surfer when he grows up – careering headfirst into the sea.

In fairness we had quite a pleasant quarter of a hour and I distinctly remember at one point taking a deep breath and thinking, ‘ah, this is lovely’.

Then, moments later, Wilf began crying loudly and I realised he was shivering uncontrollably and his skin had an odd blue tinge. I suppose, on reflection, a cold damp day is not the perfect conditions to take a small baby to a beach, then allow him to get him very wet in the icy cold water.

This led me having to break the bad news to Mary that we had to go. ‘But we've only just got here,’ she said, and began wailing again.

I shoved everything back in the bags, then stripped Wilf, attempted to wash the sand off him in a nearby pool of sea water (he really appreciated this) and wrapped him in a big towel. You’d have thought he’d be grateful but instead he tried to wriggle from my grasp and head towards the sea again. Cretin.

At the same time I attempted to clean Mary and put her sandals on, then picked up the bags, and the scooter – all the while with Wilf thrashing around in my arm like a snared fish – and said, stress etched into my voice, “let’s go”.

‘But daddy,’ whined Mary, ‘I’ve sand in my sandals and it hurts. I can’t walk. Carry me’.

In possibly rather harsh manner I told her I couldn’t possibly carry her because, as she might have noticed, my hands were rather full, and to man up.

Sobbing even more loudly, she began walking at the pace of an asthmatic tortoise carrying heavy shopping, so in the end I had to sprint to the top of the hill, put down the scooter and bags, run back down - all the while with a screaming Wilf in my arms - and then scoop her up and go back to the top. By this time I had a sweat on and my face was puce.

It took us another 25 minutes to cover the 100 yards or so back to the car, by which point I was physically exhausted and in need of a three-week visit to a countryside retreat specialising in rest and relaxation.

Both children cried all the way home because they were cold and hungry. And then, when I walked through the door expecting Mrs Canavan to take both children off me and provide them with tea, I found a note saying, ‘gone jogging’.

Good god, I cannot wait to get back to work.