We were playing hide and seek in the garden today. I complained that I can’t find anywhere good to hide, because I’m so big. Every hiding place for me would need to be about three times bigger than he was.

“Do you know of anywhere like that?” I asked him.

“Your mouth?” he quipped.

Today was a good day. In fact the whole weekend’s been pretty darn good. Saturday I spent the day with my son at my parents house, copied some of my dad’s old cine film to dvd, copied it from there onto my PC, and started playing around with tidying it up. More on this in another post I think.

Yesterday I got out on the bike and rode 60 miles, up onto the hills, took some photos and rode all the way back again! Have a look here and here for a couple of pics. I also took a car for a test drive, as my car has now done 107,000 miles and I think it’s time I changed it before it fall apart. Again, more about this in a future post.

And then today my ex and I took our son for a day trip to Morecambe, where we played on the beach, soaked up the sun, and ate far too much junk food. Take a look ay my favourite pic of the day.

And to cap it all, the sun shone. Sheer perfection, couldn’t have wished for anything better.

Ok, so it may not be so impressive to some, but this is the first time I’ve done this!

This is a short clip from a Super 8 cine film my dad shot on my first birthday, back in December 1967. I had hair on my head back then!

Oh, and don’t be thinking your speakers have broken… dad’s cine camera didn’t record sound

Earlier this year, before I decided to start blogging again, my son, my niece and myself sat in the hallway one afternoon and came up with some awful alliterations. Bear in mind when reading these that my son was 7 and my niece 11 at the time:
Sam’s spicy sausages sizzle in the saucepan for Sunday supper.
Daddy’s drunk dog drums on dead ducks.
Ollie the olympic octopus overflips in October
Zebra’s zips zig-zag on Zoe’s zither
Mummy’s mad monkey minds me on Monday midnight eating many mostly mini minerals
Crocodile Carl can’t catch cream cars.
Charlie Chimp chugs chocolate and chews cheesy chips on Tuesday in Cheshire
Happy Homer’s “hello” hat
When Water walks he waves wildly at William and Wilberforce
See Simon sitting on the soldier’s shoulders so he can see the sky
Tom’s tabletop tap-dancing tortoise.
Well, we had fun with them, anyway!

After I did my workout at the gym yesterday (and I only ache a little bit in my arms and shoulders, nowhere near as bad as I thought I’d be) I went to pick up my son to spend the afternoon with him. I got some instructions from my ex. “If you take him to McDonald’s for lunch, get him fish fingers, not chicken. He can have the chicken at KFC or Burger King though. And no toys, no matter how much of a tantrum he throws. Also, make sure he gets some fresh air.” When I asked why he couldn’t have the chicken at McDonald’s she said something about the additives in it. Like the others are going to be any better?
So come lunchtime we go to the local McDonald’s. He gets himself a table, and I join the queue, which fortunately only has two or three people in it. I wait, and wait. I wait some more. There’s only one till open. This is in a fast food restaurant, at 1:30 on a Saturday. I turn around and look at the queue behind me. It’s stretching out of the door now. I look at the menu over the counter. It says you can have chicken nuggets or chicken strips in a Happy Meal. No mention of fish fingers, so I guess the real reason my ex didn’t want him having a Happy Meal was because of the toy. She thinks I spoil him too much, and to be fair he does pester me for a toy every time I see him. He needs to learn that I love him even though I don’t shower him with gifts every day. It’s his birthday in a couple of weeks (6 years already! Where does the time go? and he’ll be getting lots of toys and presents then). Eventually I get to the front of the queue. “I’ll have fish fingers and fries please, with a fruit juice.” “Sorry, we don’t do fish fingers.”
Fuck this for a game of soldiers. I stormed out, dragging my upset son behind me. “We’ll go to a different McDonald’s, we’ll get you some fish fingers”. He calmed down after a minute or so, and we got back in the car. Ten minutes later, we arrive at the second McD’s of the day. Guess what? That’s right, they don’t do fish fingers either.
Fifteen minutes after that, and we’re at KFC. He can have the chicken nuggets there, so no problem. They do a deal with the kids meals where you can choose to have a dessert instead of a toy, so bearing in mind my ex’s instructions, that’s what I get him. He throws a (mild) tantrum when he finds out there’s no toy. “I’m not eating anything unless you get me a toy”. “Calm down, eat your dinner.” “I’m not calming down until you get me a toy”. He whines and whinges, but it’s only half-hearted. So are the punches, kicks, pinches and scratches. I’m not giving in to him, I’m hugging him, wiping away his tears and telling him to calm down. After five minutes he suddenly reaches over, grabs one of my french fries and eats it with a mischevous grin on his face. “Oi! That was mine you little devil, eat your own!” He’s laughing his head off by now, tantrum over. We finish our “meals” in peace. He enjoys every last mouthful of his dessert. He’s forgotten all about the toy, and doesn’t hold it against me. Near the end of the meal he picks up the KFC bag and says “let me see what toy I would have got”. No more tears, no more tantrums.
The KFC is three-quarters of the way back to his flat, so I’m not driving him all the way back to my house just for an hour. We go and visit my aunt, and play on the swings and slides in the park opposite her house.
I thought I did very well. I gave my ex her child support money when I picked him up, so she wasn’t waiting for it. I complied with all the instructions – no chicken at McDonald’s, no toys, and some fresh air. I also bought him a warm winter sweater because he’d come out in just a tee-shirt (and his coat) and it’s chilly in my house. I took him back thinking I was going to be in her good books for once.
This morning at twenty past eight I get a phone call from my ex. The conversation goes something like this:
Her: “He tells me you didn’t get him a toy because I told you not to?”
Me: “That’s right”
Her: “That was only for supermarkets and stuff. Of course he can have the toy that comes with his meal, that doesn’t count.”
Me: “Well you should have told me that.”
Her: “Do I have to be that specific?”
Me: “Apparently, yes, you do.”
Some days you’re the windshield and some days you’re the bug.

I’m going to take this opportunity to wish a happy birthday to my mum, who is not ashamed of the fact that she’s 60 today. I bought her a card with a badge that read “It took me 60 years to look this good!” and she’s wearing it with pride She’s also driving around in her new car (ok, so she got the car a couple of weeks ago, but it was still a birthday present to herself) with her brand spanking new personal number plate on it. It took her a while to find a plate that she liked, because she’s got four initials, and UK plates only have groups of three letters on them. I had a look around for her and found a plate which had all four initials on it, but not consecutively, and also her age… I was rather surprised when I mentioned it to her and she said “Ooh, I like that one!”
I quite fancy the idea of having a personal plate myself, but I’m going to force myself to wait until next year, when I’ll be able to buy a plate that has my initials and my birthdate on it. My birthday falls on the sixth of the month, and 06 plates can only be put on cars registered between March and September next year…. so if I buy the plate I’ll have to get a new car to put it on. Which kinda makes it an expensive plate, doesn’t it?
Eeek… I just realised that both my parents are now pensioners… does that make me officially middle-aged?

I’ve had a quiet day today. Pottered about the house, done some laundry, went grocery shopping, watched a dvd, the usual last-day-of-a-week-off slobbering around you want to do before it all gets hectic again. I’ve eaten my curry and staggered upstairs to the computer. As soon as I sat down an email popped up. it said:
hi Danny
it’s Friday-8.15pm and you’ve not written on your blog-last line of Monday’s says ’see you all on Friday
Catch you soon
Thanks for reminding me What have I been doing this week? What on earth can I find to write about? Oh yes, I went away for a few days, didn’t I? That’s right, with my son and my ex-wife. Before we went away I told my ex that I was a little surprised to get a text message from her asking me if I’d like to go away with them for a few days. I asked her why she’d asked me and she replied “because our son would enjoy spending the time with you.” Which I thought was a good enough answer… when I told people I was going away with my ex they all thought she must have had an ulterior motive, but even if she had then it’s not apparent to me even now we’re back.
Since my cousin S bought a new laptop at the end of last week, and since we were able to transfer all her data off it last weekend, I was able to take my new purchase (her old laptop) away with me. Why take a laptop on holiday? Well, I thought I’d use it for several things:
making notes for blog entries
watching dvd’s in the evening
downloading photos off the camera to free up the memory card each day.
As it turned out the laptop wasn’t too good at playing dvd’s, but I managed to use it as a dumping ground for photos and blog notes. Here are the entries, tidied up and editied for your delight and delectation.
Monday afternoon, 5pm
The trip down was easier than expected. I thought we’d have to stop at least three times along the way, for everyone to stretch their legs, go to the toilet, throw up or whatever. But we only stopped twice. That’s once at a service stop, and once for half an hour in a traffic queue. The road we intended to take was completely gridlocked, but fortunately we were able to give up on that and take a different road down to London. We set off at 10:40am and arrived at the hotel at 4pm. Not bad at all, actually.
Son was pretty much well-behaved in the car on the way down. We travelled 200 miles on the motorway without a single cross word between any of us, but when I stopped the car just outside town so that my ex can get the directions to the hotel out of her bag, we had a little tantrum. He wanted to have a box of cereal (we’d brought some breakfast stuff with us because, guess what, travelodges aren’t bed-and-breakfasts). Anyway, he asked for a box of cereal, mum said no, not until the morning, and the trantrum kicked off. It wasn’t a major tantrum, it only lasted about 10 minutes or so, and everyone managed to calm down enough for me to find the hotel.
The hotel itself was basic. Very basic. You get a bed, a table, a chair, a wardrobe, a shower and a kettle. I haven’t seen any signs telling me not to use the kettle in the shower, though. The wardrobe doesn’t have a door, so I guess the cleaning staff can criticise my taste in clothing without having to expend any extra effort. There is one major disadvantage to this hotel though, and that’s the fact that it doesn’t have a car park. I have to park the car across the road in the market car park, for which there is an hourly charge. I’ll see in the morning if I’m going to leave it there tomorrow night as well.
Ok, so this is time to relax and recouperate after the long drive down. I’ve unpacked, showered, and have another 15-30 minutes to myself before we find somewhere to go for dinner. I suppose I’d better use part of that time to get dressed.
Update:
Dinner at TGI Friday’s was only spoiled by the small matter of getting a call from the office at 6:20pm. I had to wander over to a quiet area of the restaurant and try to give the boss a solution to the problem down the phone line. Not the easiest task in the world, and didn’t exactly bode well for the rest of the week. Still, I was too far away to get called back at the last minute, so I wasn’t going to let it get to me.
Tuesday 16 August
First day at Legoland. A good day out, not perfect, but not a disaster either. The lad was quite well-behaved, although a bit gringy at times. He loved going on the dragon rollercoaster with me, and on the “pirates fall” log flume with him mum. Lunch was at a burger bar in the park, and I had a fairly quiet afternoon while the others spent an hour queuing up for the log flume ride. We managed to hold off buying any toys for him until home time, and we left about 3:30 because my ex was getting tired. The rest of us could have carried on for longer, but since we’re going back on Thursday we can do all the things we never got a chance to do today.
The car park overnight cost £4.80. They charge £1.20 an hour, so we’re either going to have to grin and bear it for tomorrow when we head into London on the train, or try and find somewhere to park for free near a train station. I don’t think we’ll be able to do that, though.
The weather was gorgeous, although we took too much stuff with us.
Wednesday 17 August – Day in London
All in all an excellent day out. Son No 1 was as well-behaved as we can expect him to be after dragging him on and off trains and up and down stairs all day. He got gringy occasionally, and mum decided on the train on the way into town that he wasn’t going to get a McD’s for lunch because he was being rude (fake burping and answering back).
In the morning we went on the London Eye. My ex was nervous before going on the London Eye, and she sat on the bench in the middle of the capsule all the way round. Something to do with being scared of heights, although she admitted near the end of the trip that it wasn’t as bad as she thought it was going to be. I must admit I wasn’t actually aware she was scared of heights, she likes going on planes and rollercoasters and such, but I guess there’s still something you can learn about someone even three years after you got divorced from them.
We weren’t too sure what to do in the afternoon. We had the idea of taking him to the Natural History museum or the Science museum, and I had thought last week about seeing if we could take him to see a West End show. After we’d been on the Eye we packed everyone and everything up and went to Leicester square on the tube. There’s a ticket booth there that sells last-minute tickets for the shows. Unfortunately when we got there we discovered they didn’t have anything for the show we wanted to see – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. So we thought we’d get a bite to eat and consider our options. It was at this point we had some tears from the lad as he realised we weren’t going to McDonald’s. However, they only lasted 5 minutes or so. We went to a deli and had salt beef, houmous etc, he had some chips. He was happy enough.
On the way into town I had bought a Time Out magzine and over lunch we phoned the Palladium to see if they had any tickets for the matinee. We were in luck – there were some tickets left, so we packed everything and everyone up once more and got back on the tube. I must admit that I wasn’t at all nervous about travelling on the tube following last months bombings – I was much more concerned with getting everyone to the right platform at the same time and with an absence of tantrums (from anyone). Fortunately, all the tube travelling went off without a hitch.
When we arrived at the theatre we were greeted by a man outside selling tickets. Against my better judgement I bought three tickets off him for just over half face value. I was nervous as we went in (what if we had bought counterfeit tickets and they wouldn’t let us in?) and I was nervous as we took our searts (what if we had bought counterfeit tickets and someone else had tickets with identical seat numbers?) I was only able to relax once the lights went down and the show started.
I challenge anyone not to enjoy a West End musical (or Broadway, much the same thing) when you see it in the flesh. I’m not a big fan of musical films (The Blues Brothers being a notable exception) but I can watch a stage musical any day of the week. The sheer amount of thought, planning, rehearsal and imagination that goes into a show is mind-boggling, and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, and I’m pretty sure the lad enjoyed it too. In fact, he was enthralled for the most part. He got a bit bored 5 minutes before the end, but then again that was after a two and a half hour show. I thought it was fantastic how they’d managed to rework a very familiar story to make it work on stage, and still make it a very familiar story. I’ve just realised how this sort of contradicts what I said about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was disappointed with that film because it wasn’t different enough from the original. I was impressed with the Chitty show because it had to be different from the original because it was being presented through a different medium, yet they still made it close enough to the original to be what you expected to see. You see?
Enough of my digressing. I asked him on the way out what his favourite part was, and he said it was when the car floated. “Not when it flew?” I asked him. “No, silly” he replied, “things can’t fly inside! It was on strings!” But secretly I think he was well impressed with it all anyway. He was as well-behaved as any other child in the audience, they all wriggled about and asked loud questions from time to time. I don’t think he distracted anyone too much, although his mum did think he was being a bit too active. Poor kid can’t sit still for more than 5 minutes.
So… a hugely expensive day, but well worth it. You can’t go to London and go on London-exclusive attractions without spending money, and I approached the day with the attitude that we’re going to have a good time regardless. And we did
Thursday 18 August
Second day in Legoland. We were much better organised for this day than we were on Tuesday. We dumped our little buggy at the door and hired a big double buggy that was big enough for one boy, one rucksack and one packed lunch for three. See how much more organised we were? We even managed to take a packed lunch with us on the last day! There’s not a lot I can say about today, the weather was gorgeous (as indeed it had been all week), and the lad didn’t get bored or play up too much while queuing up for the rides. I think he was just excited to be there, and he took everything in his stride. He knew that we’d already bought him presents and souvenirs, and didn’t ask for anything else. We did the other half of the park that we didn’t get to do on Tuesday (it’s definately at least a two-day-visit place) and even then there were loads of rides we didn’t get a chance to do.
We left at six, and since everything was already packed in the car, we headed straight for home. We were hoping that he’d fall asleep in the car without too much trouble after having had a tiring and busy few days, but maybe it was only us that had had a tiring and busy few days. Six o’clock we left, quarter past eight he finally decided to lie down, and quarter past nine he was asleep. We were home by 10:30, and had to wake him up again to get him in the house… ah well…..
Final thoughts: well, I don’t know what my ex made of it all, but as far as I’m concerned it was a successful trip. Our son had a whale of a time, and although we all got short-tempered from time to time we were all able to avoid shouting matches. And that’s what it was all about, really, wasn’t it?
Next year, if she wants to go away for a few days with him again, I’m going to suggest a week in Tenerife. I’m sure it’ll be cheaper!
By the way, some of the photos from the trip can be seen on my Flickr page.