There are few things better than charging down the hill after M'Laddo. Even if that does mean chasing after him with the 3 wheeler. One handed.
M'laddo has pretty much recovered from his heinous foot injury (you know, the one where he went to hospital 3 times before they decided he had actually broken his foot three times), and is now tentatively learning to run again. Well, I say learning to run again, the wee fella is already able to outdistance me with inappropriate footwear. Note to self, do not wear open toed sandals when trying to keep up with a kinetic two year old.
When I'm having a bad day, or things are getting me down, thinking of running around with M'laddo puts a smile on my face. He has the inate ability to bring light and colour into my dull life.
I took the nippers out for a stroll on Sunday morning. The weather was nice (not too hot yet) and the lady wife wanted to do some ironing. I’d been up since 3am with the wee lass (don’t ask) and was going a bit stir crazy and it was only 9.45am.
Walking off our estate, the first thing to note is my eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I always thought this sign said “no cycling” through the park but, judging by the number of bikes I’m always buzzed by on my daily walk to and from work, it says something entirely different.
The hill is a bit of a killer on the way back and on the way down it’s a fight to stop the pushchair running away but at least we have the Roman walls to keep us company. You’ll note the iron railings, after a brief flirtation with madness, common sense prevailed and they’re not being removed. You see, the council considered removing them in case vandals hurt themselves climbing over them to destroy the Roman wall. The same council that puts up no cycling signs and then doesn’t bother enforcing them. They might as well put up no trouser signs for all the good it does- at least it would save me from wearing the crotch out on my work pair.
*I’ve given up on obscure song title references as all it does is banjo the google indexing. Ho hum.
Reading all the mummy blogs out there has really helped emphasise to me how differently us chaps think to lasses. There sometimes seems to be a gulf in thought process between what I'd do and a lot of my fellow bloggers. To aid the ladies in understanding the workings of a modern man/father/sleep deprived lunatics mind, I thought I'd do a short list of the 5 things on my mind at the moment.
1. Post Apocalyptic survival plan
Initially this wasmy zombie holocaust survival plan but that was just silly. What if we were invaded by Americans/Aliens or a plague wiped out 99.99% of the worlds population? Some flexibility would be needed that focussed slightly less on destroying the brains of the undead and more on subsistance. The plan basically involves knowing where the most useful repostories of stuff would be (guns, camping gear, water purification pumps, comicbooks, solar chargers for gadgets etc) in the event of an apocalypse that disrupted both power and water and probably food supplies as well as ensuring tinned food is all well in date.
2. Where does earwax come from?
This has been puzzling me a fair bit recently. M'laddo seems to generate enough of it that we need to muck him out weekly. The trouble with letting it get all the way into the outer ear bit is that it thins out and sets like superglue, requiring the application of a warm wet flannel, much to the distress of the wee fella. I can't think of any substance in the ear that could get transmutated into wax, so am left considering the very real possibility that earwax is the key to an entirely new branch of physics where things can be conjured out of nothing.
3. Why does the battery meter on my EEE 901 netbook keep on dropping out of the systray?
I know the fix (thanks to my google-fu: ctrl+alt+del, kill the explorer process, go to the apps tab, hit new task and type explorer) but not the reason for it doing it in the first place. No one does. It is a mystery of X Files proportions.
4. Where do other people find the time to do things?
I usually drift in and out of sleep a bit whilst wifey wonderfully tends to the fractious children all night and then get up 'ere dawn has cracked and head off to work. I'm usually back by about 6ish but by the time we've put the nippers to bed and tidied up ecetera ecetera (you don't see people spelling that long hand any more do you?), we're either both knackered or it's time for bed. Where do people find the time to read books? To write books? To watch films, play golf/football/tennis, do some gardening. follow a engrossing and constructive hobby? Do I sleep too much? If I do, why am I usually tired?
5. What supernatural effect do I have on trousers?
I always wear trousers out in exactly the same way. I wear the crotch tissue paper thin and eventually you can see my pants through them. This has baffled many a tailor over the years because most of them (certainly on the suit side of things) have never seen this before. Whilst I don't walk the (bow legged) walk like John Wayne, I certainly don't shuffle around with my knees together intentionally destroying what in every other respect are usually perfectly fine trousers.
There you go then, the last five random thoughts I've pondered over on my 5 mile round trip to and from work. Whether this gives you an insight into the working of the male mind or just confirms that secret suspicion you've had all along that I'm a bit bonkers, I don't know but if you know the answer to the earwax question frankly I don't care.
Cheers! Mines a Pimms & lemonade on a scorching hot day at the grand opening of Butlins rather swanky new Ocean Hotel at Bognor Regis. I have to admit the last time I was at Butlins the year was 1984, the weather damp, my trousers were short (as indeed they are today) and my age 9 years old. There was a distinctive feeling of Hi Di Hi about it all back then, helped by the chalets and the canteen but as I sit on the fourth floor balcony watching the dancers on the palisade down below doing the conga to Ricky Martin, I feel things have moved on somewhat.
Butlins have apparently spent £20m on this hotel and if it doesn’t sound like a backhanded complement, there’s something distinctively un-Butlins like about it. The lifts play you disco, the rooms are equipped with flat screen tellies, aircon hums nicely on a hot day and it seems just darn funky- full of lime greens, oranges and other bright colours. It’s a million miles away from what you might remember as a nipper yourself or have seen on Giles and Sue’s Supereaters in the ‘50’s the other week on BBC2.
The dancers have been replaced by some acrobats now, much to the joy of Mladdo who is having the official time of his life, even if once the costumed animals get too close, he decides shyness is the best option.
We’re great in this country of taking American concepts and robbing them of the very thing that makes them a good idea to start with (for example we love queuing for ages at fast food outlets and our amusement parks are nothing like as amusing as the yanks have) but at least here I think we’ve got a British company that’s on to a winner.
My only current reservation is how well it will integrate into the existing Butlins Village but since we’ve got a couple of days here to find that out, I’ll be able to report on that later.
I have to say a big thank you to Butlins for the invite and to Lynne Parker for organising the two nights free accommodation and generally looking after us all so well. I’ve been put under no pressure whatsoever to write a positive review but basking in the glow of a slap up meal with 5 puddings and free flowing Pimms, I’m in a garrulous and generous mood.
And now M’laddo wants to go and look at the things. I must away. Adieu
When wifey agreed to review EA Sports Active, little did she realise that she would get a copy of it at the time of her operation thus rendering her unsuitable for its attentions. At least in my boy naivety I thought that was the case but since she's passed it over to me I've begun to reassess and am now wondering if she's smarter than I give her credit for. Yes I am carrying a few extra stone I could do with shifting, even though with 5 miles of walking a day its beginning to shift.
EA Sports Active is a Nintendo Wii game that's supposed to get you fit. Wii Fit (clues in the name there) was supposed to get you fit, sold millions and didn't really get anyone fit. All it did was bang on about your balance and let you do the ski jump. This is a different kettle of fish really. It eschews the cute little Mii's that most Wii games give you to represent you on screen and gets you really going at it.
I've only had a couple of sessions so far but I can tell you it's much harder work than Wii Fit and when I build up the courage to hit the 30 day Challenge (which will have to be soon as its got to go back- boo hiss EA- in September) I imagine it will hurt a bit.
