I remember coming home from school one time and seeing my brother covered in mud in the garden. He had been playing with the hose while mum and dad were out. I helped him get cleaned up , but he had gotten mud everywhere and it wasn’t easy. When mum and dad got home, they quickly figured out what had happened , but they found it funny. We still laugh about it today. Notice how the verb tenses help tell the order of events. Some of these actions occur now in the present (remember, laugh) and others at various points in the past. By saying “had been playing”, we mark this action as occurring before “coming home from school.”
