MONKEY BUSINESS

How do we feel about sea monkeys? Personally, I’m ready to flush ours down the loo. If you haven’t come across them, they are minute water creatures that start life in a dreary sachet of powder. Surreal, but true. Sprinkle the powder into water and it transforms into tiny swimming beings that bear no resemblance to monkeys whatsoever. Ours glide about aimlessly in their plastic capsule on the windowsill in the kitchen in a grisly soup of murky water.

They must be the least rewarding pets you could ever hope for. Bobby was given them for his birthday six months ago. How can they possibly still be alive? Is this a record? Do we have the oldest sea monkeys in Britain? What amazes me is that I think in all that time we have only fed them four or five times. I stare at them as I wash up, willing them to die, and yet they thrive and procreate.

I ask the question.

“How do we feel about the sea monkeys? Shall we liberate them into the big wide world, pour them down the sink? You never even look at them.”

Wide-eyed horror and dismay greets me, as if I’d suggested we barbecue the cat. In the eyes of Flo and Bobby, I am little better than Cruella de Vil.

“They’re God’s creatures too,” Flo informs me, practising her new nun’s face.

“Yes, God loves them,” adds Bobby.

“I don’t believe in God,” says Max.

Now I’m not in the mood for this, and respond badly by stating loudly…

“This is not about God, it’s about Sea Monkeys.”

They stare back at me reproachfully and I realise they are right, it is about God. Once again my children have exposed me as a fake. I can’t flush twenty odd living things down the toilet just because I’m bored of them, no matter what size they are.

“I know what,” says Bobby. “We could set them free in the canal, they’d be happy there.”

I look at him with pride - inspired thinking for a six year old. They will love it in the canal, the water is the same colour, there’s just more of it.

“Can we say a prayer for them when we set them free?” asks Flo eagerly.

Anything to get rid of them, I think.

Tomorrow we will walk through the village, past the pub, the village shop, the bakery, the station, over the bridges and down to the canal. Let’s hope to goodness that Flo doesn’t fashion some kind of wimple and vestment from the contents of the dressing up box - I’ll let you know.

Life in the Slow Lane is written by Clare Kent. She has three children - Max is nearly eleven, Flo is nearly eight and Bobby is six and a half - and lives in Wiltshire.

Read Claire's previous diary