P = Police

We're sat on the curb side with our cans, our boys playing somewhere on the street when a police man walks past with a blue blowup bass guitar.
"Cor I like your instrument!" shouts C's mum.
He turns and smiles at us and we laugh.
We sit making bawdy jokes, "fishing for talent" with her son's balloon. It doesn't tap anyone, never mind anyone nice. I haven't had such a good laugh in ages!

Friends, friends from my past,who I haven't seen for ages, stop by and chat, we say we'll hook up soon. I hope so, they're great people.

Later two guys stop and talk to us. They saw little C's customised Man Like Me t-shirt, they came from Brighton to listen to the band play. They were gutted too. They sit with us and shove fresh strawberries into a quarter vodka bottle.

Our sons meanwhile have found two badmington rackets and are playing with bottle tops that they find on the street.

The policeman comes back. He's very sweet, asks us if we mind filling out a community research form.

"Do you know Clout?" I say. C's mum laughs.
"Yes," he says.
"Is he your boss?"
"Yes."
"I interviewed him last year, nice man isn't he?"
"Yeah," he smiles. He's got dimples, he looks quite cheeky. C's mum's taken with him that's for sure!
"You interviewed him? What for?" she says.
"Part of a community research thing. He was really helpful. Has he got you doing this now? Going into the community, find out what we want from the force?"
"Yes,"
"Cool! Say thanks from me!"
We all chat some more until his "partner" comes along. He's not got such a friendly face and our copper gets up.

The guys we're with play with our boys as me and C's mum make a dash for the loo. "You can keep them!" she says laughing, then "what are we like, leaving them with people we don't even know!"

By the time we come back, my son's renamed them Uncle Mark and Uncle Vernon! Where he got those names I do not know!

We troop to the Golden Arches, because it's getting late and we need to feed our children.

They have a water fight with C's new pistol and a customer gets annoyed (no suprise there but at least the boys listened to him when asked to stop...)

My son had somehow got hold of the coppers blue blowup bass guitar.

He played it all the way home!

It took me half an hour to wake him on Monday morning. What a weekend though, what a weekend!