After an agressive altercation with a boy and a bus door on Sunday our vacuum cleaner has been on the blink.

David has been fixing it as best he can. (He can feel my panic in not being able to clean for the twins’ party).

Every morning Noah has come in and pointed to the poor plastic heap in the corner of our room.

"Carleener" he states, "Broken".

To which I reply in the affirmative; yes, it is broken.

The boy who is deathly afraid of said ‘Carleener’ (cleaner) would then proceed to give the machine a kiss on the top of it’s body and proclaim it "all better".

For three days this has gone on.

This morning, we limped the vacuum out to de – crunch the floor. As it whirred into action Noah sprang into my arms, shaking and crying. He cuddled in close and, totally believing in the power of the kiss, whispered to me, his eyes as big as saucers,

"I fix it".