Urchins

When I started this post, and titled it, it was because my children spent yesterday afternoon covering themselves in dirt.  This was not, just to be clear, an incidental process; this was not dirt acquired in the prosecution of other pursuits, but rather dirt piled on with giddy and reckless abandon, simply because the purpose of the process was to pour dirt onto themselves.

They were filthy.

But as I ruminated on the specific qualities of urchin-ness (such as appearing in a Dickens novel), I realized that they weren't really even remotely like hedgehogs, because after they had adhered their coating of mud about their persons, all they wanted to do was cuddle.

I could have done with them being a little spiny.

I think that one should make especial note of the grit surrounding Margaret's eyes.  That took real effort to balance there.