What are the chances?

It started with a chance. Conception.   It always does.  A 25% chance on certain days in a month, but more likel a 15% chance on regular days. Not great odds - an 85% chance, in other words, of it never happening at all.  And yet it did.

I was conceived.

I was conceived as the sprouts bubbled on the hob, each with a neat and tiny cross on the stem.  Nothing  left to chance there. Conceived as the turkey bustled and bubbled and caroused the oven in a beautiful song of Christmas cheer and possibility. Roast potatoes crackled, carrots chopped and ready.

I'm not sure how they had the time.  A baby lay in a cot, restless and colicky whilst a toddler, almost 3, counted his building bricks and organised them in rainbow order; a very precocious toddler.

What are the chances?

The odds were against it and yet they made their choices.  They did.

Whoever would want three children under three? Perhaps ale had been consumed, or a whiskey and ginger or two.  Perhaps the senses were dulled sufficiently to not think of the consequences but not to stop that moment of passing passion.  That's often the best way. Too much thought can pull up the drawbridge of excitement, turn up the collar and send individuals their separate ways.

They ate their lunch in great excitement. Warmed the Cow and Gate and fed the baby, added the teat to the bottle of Ale they often joked about in later life, and let the baby have a moment to ease her way.  She slept soundly in any case.  The toddler - bored of colours - had been bathed in the sink and put to bed.

And a calm settled over the place.