Mark has been doing sports camp this week, and tonight was the watershed - the end of the cricket season.
Ask me why I am relieved? Well, it will lighten the whites laundry load considerably.
No more frenzied attack with the Vanish required for the grass stains on the knees of his white trousers. Hooray!
Of course, Rugby season will swiftly be upon us, bringing with it laundry issues of its own. I have particularly strong feelings towards the coach who makes them roll in the mud at the end of the session on the grounds that if they aren't filthy, they haven't been tackling hard enough. Clearly, he is not responsible for laundry duties in a boy dominated household.
But there are a few precious weeks of respite to look forward to, when it's football all the way. Football, I like. Dirt is largely confined to the skin of the knees. No special laundering required.
And the boys, who were given a pair of football boots each to try, by the lovely folk at Sports Direct, can't wait either.
Because if, for me, sports are all about the laundry implications, for them they are definitely about the kit. If you want to feel popular, show them a website full of boots and tell them to choose whatever they like. I was Mummy of the Year for a brief moment there. Before they got distracted by discussions of the merits of blades versus studs and how bling it was appropriate to be with one's boots before you would attract ridicule from your team mates.
I'd never really considered buying boots on line before, but I'd do it again. At least while they were debating which pair to choose, I could go into the kitchen and have a cup of tea. Because if ease of kit laundering is criteria one, access to good spectator refreshments must come a close second in the parental sports preference league table.
Wonder if their delight in their new footwear extends to actually cleaning their boots after training?