Saturday treat

THERE'S no escaping it. The Saturday after payday is always go-downtown-and-buy-a-DVD day. Because that's what the kids want.

In my day it was a comic (Victor, Warlord or Battle) or a toy soldier (Japanese infantryman, 7th Cavalry officer or centurion) and then upstairs at Maison Carre for a glass of fluorescent-green pop and a slightly tepid sausage roll.

For my two it's a trip to the record shop. As I look through the bargain CDs, they come running up with various DVDs from the film-section shelf.

'I want this one, Daddy,' says Little Red all excitedly.

'Yes, you probably do, love. But go and try to find something else.'

And off she scurries to put Apocalypse Now – Redux back on the shelf.

I really can imagine her taking off her scarf and saying, 'I love the smell of Napalm in the morning – it smells of victory,' to her playmates in a sandpit. But I just don't want to encourage it.

Princess C, however, knows exactly what she wants. And she knows the best way of getting it too.

'What about this one, Dad?'

It's a bargain three-pack: Babe, The Borrowers and Matilda. All for £10.99. This appeals instantly to the tight Yorkshire git in me.

'That's fantastic, love, let's go and get it,' I say, just after sending Little Red to put back Deliverance.

So they are happy.

But what about their Maison Carre moment?

No Saturday is complete without sitting in a cafe and people-watching, even for a four- and seven-year-old.

So it's an outdoor table and three milkshakes – small chocolate ones for them (or, as Little Red says, 'chock-lit') and huge strawberry one for the old man (the perks of the job).

'Dad, what's that green stuff in your milkshake?' asks an observant Princess.

'That's the leaves from the top of the strawberries. You see, it's that fresh,' I say, not quite convincing myself that a bit of cactus or a rogue sprig of broccoli hasn't somehow accidentally fallen in.

After the ritual humiliation I suffered as a child at the hands of my mother, I swore I'd never do it to my own kids. But there I was, in the middle of Town, probably in the exact same spot where it had happened to me three-and-a-half decades earlier, spit-licking a serviette and vigorously wiping the chocolate-milkshake grins off my kids' reluctant, squirming faces.

We hit the library, where I hoped the girls would settle down to some quiet intellectual rumination. Which they did for about 30 seconds until they discovered, looking out of the window, that Market Square had turned into a strange hybrid of Marrakech, the film Brassed Off, and an alfresco pet shop-cum-inner-city farmyard.

Any ideas I had about a quiet read were abandoned immediately.

'Dad, can we go down there instead? I want to see the animals.'

Real, giant rabbits, 1 – Watership Down, 0.

Why do kids love animals?

Princess C held a ferret. It wriggled, she panicked and it scratched her chest. Yet she and Red still wanted to hold the giant rabbits (the things were scarily huge, the size of motorbike seats) and still wanted to feed grapes to the parrot.

There were two luxurious-looking goats, too, but they weren't bothered by them.

We listened to the brass band, I bought a couple of home-made chocolate cakes for them to devour (out with the serviette again afterwards) and then asked if they wanted to go to Saumarez Park.

'Have we got our scoo-urz?' asked Little Red.

'Your scooters are in the boot of the car.'

'Hoo-way.'

Off we went to the park.

Now, I defy any parent, believer or non-believer, not to pray to the god of large, green, outdoor spaces in thanks for Saumarez Park. For those of us with kids, the place is as near to the Elysian Fields as we are going to get of a weekend.

It's the perfect size. It has a playground (or toys, as Little Red calls the swings, slides and roundabouts).

I remember when it had a couple of swings – and that must have been before health and safety was invented – and a gaily-painted steamroller, complete with sharp nuts, bolts, cogs and cranks on which we could gouge out our eyes and rip our flesh.

And even though we're not allowed to feed the ducks anymore, it's still a great park.

The kids spent a happy two hours ricking about the playground, completely ignoring the stripy tape and the warning not to use the wide slide, and solo spinning on the swings (if there's one thing that bores me more than organised sport, it's pushing a kid on a swing – I just let them spin themselves round).

'Can we go and watch a BBD now, Daddy?' asked Red.

The sun was cracking down. It was only about two o'clock and they weren't exhausted enough to fall asleep without trouble at 7.30.

'Who wants to go to the beach?'

'Cobo?'

'Oh, yeah,' I said coolly, knowing I had them. 'Cobo.'

So we scoo-ured back to the car and freewheeled down the hill to the coast.

The beach was nigh-on deserted and the tide was coming up. Perfect.

'I want to take my shoes off,' said Red.

The shoes come off.

'I'll show you where I saw Auntie Vee last week,' said the Princess. 'Stuart made these holes.'

In the sand were what looked like two bomb craters.

'I need a wee, Daddy,' said Red.

'Well, go down the hole, then,' I suggested. 'No one will see you.'

She did, but still managed to aim straight for her knicks. She had got what she wanted – an excuse to take off her clothes and go in the water. Immediately, I resigned myself to a mini-sandpit on the car's back seat.

They both ran into the waves, Red tentatively dabbing her undergarments in the brine.

Then they were gone.

'Where's your knicks?'

'I think they've gone to England, Dad,' laughed the Princess.

The girls stayed in the sea for an hour, the Princess finally emerging to say, 'Brrr, Dad. I feel like glass'.

Sylvia Plath couldn't have put it any better.

I drove them home and yes, they did leave a sandpit on the back seat. But what the hell, eh? It's not as if I have a DeLorean.

Back home for tea and The Borrowers DVD.

And guess what?

Yep: both asleep for 7.30pm and dreaming of giant rabbits. And of knickers floating all the way to England.