With 3 boys under 6, Buggy Blogger mum to J (5), B (4) and S (2) certainly has her hands full. This week it’s Ready Steady Look away if you’re a minimalist.

East, West, our Home’s Messi-est.

We’re fresh back from a weekend visiting childless friends. Their newly done-up house is a haven of calm, cool blues and clutter-free space. Or at least it was until we arrived.

No sooner was the freshly-painted front door opened than our rabble of boys, toys and … wait for it …. NOISE came flooding raucously in swiftly putting paid to the tranquillity of yore. The artily arranged Nigella cookware recoiled, the shiny stainless steel appliances winced visibly and our childless hosts nearly ran for their lives.

Things didn’t improve much when B bashed a Hot Wheels into the skirting board, S disappeared under the kitchen table to grunt conspicuously and produce a room-filling incriminating pong, and J disagreed rather dramatically with lunch. It was pizza; can’t go wrong with that eh? Except these pizzas had mushrooms on, which I’d cheerily ventured (hoped?) that the kids might pick off. Only they didn’t. J manfully did his best and then swiftly vomited it all back up onto the pristine kitchen floor. Though of course she was too polite to say, I could see the cook having a private Domestic Sod-this moment whilst her other half was struggling hard to swallow the F Word.

Actually, I exaggerate. C and P are friends who go back a long way, especially C who was a flatmate at university. She’s seen me smelling of less than roses myself, and worse the wear, once or twice, from the result of too much cider (though I seem to recall I was OK on the mushrooms). I’m confident (I think) that she knows and loves me for what I am, and by extension would be ready to accept my boisterous family, warts-and-all, into her spic-and-span but welcoming home. The issue then was not with her but with me obsessing about my kids coming across well and not as a bunch of junior house-wreckers. So I was the one making a meal of things while she was as chilled as the contents of her now finger-smudged fridge.

Three (take-it-on) Me-Chin stars then to the chef for her culinary efforts, and for remaining cool as a cucumber in a crisis. Even so, if we were likely to a) encourage said friends to have children of their own and b) ever be invited again it was time to defuse the situation. And so, bearing in mind my failsafe mantra – “if in doubt, just get out” – we quickly decamped to the park. Here I’m pleased to say the lads had a great afternoon running off (what remained of) lunch, liberated from the proximity of breakables and generally having a ball with P’s excellent air-pressure missile launcher. And while the children let off steam, I was able to heave a sigh of relief and gas to my heart’s content. Good friends, good times and good job the kitchen floor was uncarpeted don’t you think?

At the end of the day, though I can’t pretend I didn’t feel a tad green-eyed at the orderliness we were leaving behind as we clambered back into our chaotic car. There are muddy scuffs on the backs of our seats, raisins squashed into dark corners and an Aladdin’s cave of leaflets, discarded straws and rice cracker crumbs on the floor. The glove compartment’s heaving with very uncool travel song cassettes, the back windows are partially obscured by ridiculous outsize Thomas blinds and there’s a thick wad of sick-bags purloined from P&O *just* in case of motion sickness and / or unforeseen mushroom overload.

And the car is just the tip of the iceberg. Back home there are sticky hand-prints on the walls, muddy buggy tracks in the hall, and the sofa – formerly cornflower blue – is now bilge-water grey from having been used variously as a trampoline, a space rocket and an improvised den. There’s grit underfoot where some of the sandpit’s strayed inside, paint chipped off virtually every skirting board and the unmistakable whiff of little boys emanating from the toilet. As regards our kitchen, the shelves are heaving with tins for the discerning baked-bean eater, the fridge can barely be seen for magnets, party invites and mini-masterpieces, and you can only get into the cupboards if you’ve the dexterity of a master lock picker. “Cup of sugar neighbour? Of course. Caster or Muscavadon’t think you’ll get it in under 20 minutes mind.”

Oh and naturally there are toys, toys, toys everywhere.

Sigh. Don’t think we’d qualify for Grand Designs or simple living, though Hell’s Kitchen might apply? Still, every best wish to C and P in their new and very lovely home. But this chaotic, lived-in, plastic-infested home is the authentic us now. It’s evidence of life lived to the full in our hectic, well … full household and I wouldn’t change it for the world. (Well that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.)

Home is where the heart … and the toys, boys, noise and associated mess … is.

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