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.

I’ve been meaning to post a new entry on the blog all week, honestly I have. I’m not working this week (yay!), instead I’m off on holiday with my ex-wife and our son. We’re going to spend a couple of days in Legoland in Windsor, and have a day out in London. Last week was a big round of making sure everything’s going to be OK in the office in my absence, buying smart clothes for the trip away (thanks Mum!), buying new shoes, helping my cousin transfer 2Gb of data from her old laptop to her new one (thanks for the pizzas) and emailing/chatting with a girl who found me on the Speed Dating web site (not any of the girls I’d mentioned before, this is Speed-Dater-Girl No 4).
So all in all I’ve been too busy to even sit down and write a post here. I’m not ignoring you, honest I’m not. I guess I’m getting on with my life instead, so no complaints there.
Time to see if we can expect any delays on the way to London. See you all on Friday.

… I don’t need my thumbs for very much tonight, because I can’t grip a thing. And stop sniggering at the back.
The reason for my current lack of digital dexterity? I’ve been screwing all afternoon. Now listen – what did I just say about sniggering? Stop it at once, or I won’t let you read any further.
Ok, it’s time to come clean now. Right, that’s it. You at the back. Stop reading now. If you’re only going to find double entendres in everything I write when it’s plain I’m only using single entendres, you can look away from the screen and stare at your mouse for the next three minutes. Shall the rest of us continue? Good.
I’ve actually spent the afternoon at my ex’s new flat screwing together a bunk bed for my son. She got it off a friend a few weeks ago and ever since then I’ve had lots of planks of wood and a mattress in my front room [stares at the back row looking for any signs of sniggering. Or even stifled sniggering].
Not only does he have a bed now, but I’ve also screwed the lid back onto his toy box, screwed a handle on the living room door, and screwed together a TV stand for the living room. That’s a lot of screwing for one day.
All in all, a very good afternoon. Not a single cross word between any of us, and if we manage to keep that level of civility up when we go to Legoland and London the week after next, life will be good indeed.
Was that a snigger you were stifling a minute ago? See me after class…

Last Saturday my parents and I took the kids (son and niece) to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I think all five of us were looking forward to seeing the film. Well, maybe apart from my dad, who suddenly found he had to buy 5 cinema tickets at short notice.
Anyway, we got there, we queued up for tickets, we bought sweets for the kids and we waited 40 minutes for the next performance. The kids ate their sweets and ran around the foyer. Usually managing to keep out of everybody’s way, but not always. Son Number One managed to knock over Niece Number One’s box of sweets and send them flying all over the place. While we were still deciding if it was ok for her to put them back in the box, an attendant arrived and swept them all into the bin. She must have had a radar on or something. Maybe there were sensors in the floor – “WARNING! Sweets dropped on floor over here! Put “Operation Sweep-it-up-quick” into action!” I swear, it was like something out of a futuristic sci-fi movie, with little drones and robots waiting in the wings to be called into service, and not daring to miss their cue for fear of being scrapped at the next robot review meeting.
But I digress. We filed in and immediately my son took control of the
situation. After we’d decided what row to sit on he decided who was going to sit next to who. Until we told him that it don’t really matter and everyone was going to stay where they were. He was bouncing around on his chair like a little jack-in-the-box, and I asked him if he was looking forward to seeing the film. “Yes,” he said, “when I look forwards the screen is right there in front of me!” I still haven’t worked out if he was taking me for a ride on that one.
The lights go down, the curtians open……. and we watch 20 minutes of adverts. Damn you, Perl and Dean! Then follows 10 minutes of trailers for new films, among which are such intellectual fare as “Sky High” and “The Adventures of Something Boy and Lava Girl”
Finally, the main movie starts. And was it worth the wait? Well, yes and no. Yes, it looked good. Yes, it was imaginative, Yes, it made me laugh out loud in places. But no, because it wasn’t different enough from the original to make it worthwhile, in my opinion. No, because some of the jokes fell flat on their faces. No, because they tried to introduce some back-plot that wasn’t necessary. This film had all the same elements of the original version (because they were both based on the same book) but I think the original film did it better. Johnny Depp is a fine actor but he still looks like a teenager, and Willy Wonka is definately older than a teenager.
There are two scenes in particular which kinda ruined it for me. The first was when they’re just starting the tour of the factory. Wonka leads the party down an optical illusion corridor and at the end they all look like they’re 50 feet tall. In the original film the shot lasts long enough for you to start thinking “Hang on, it looks like they’re getting taller….?” but in the new version there’s a two-second shot of them walking down the corridor and then they’re all standing by the door. Huge. And the whole illusion just falls flat on its face.
The second scene was where Augustus Gloop gets sucked up into the tube after he’s fallen in the chocolate river. This is a cue for an Oompa Loompa song. But everyone else (including Ma Gloop) just stands there watching the Oompas sing their song while Augustus is stuck in the tube. Surely his mother should have been running around imploring people to help her son?
Little niggles, I know. But they went a long way towards making me come out of the cinema thinking “it was ok I suppose” rather than thinking “Wow! I can’t wait for that to come out on DVD!”
Now, I do believe that was my first ever movie review. I think I’ll go celebrate with a bar of chocolate. Something’s put me in the mood for confectionery, I can’t think what though….

Well, did we have a gret day out yesterday or what? The weather was perfect, the kids were well-behaved, the rides were fun, and the ice cream was much appreciated. We took the kids to Gullivers Theme Park, which isn’t one of the country’s major attractions like Alton Towers or Chessington, so it was nowhere near as busy as I thought it might have been. On the way there we stopped to buy food for a picnic, and my ex was well prepared with bottles of cold water, wipes, sun tan lotion etc. Strangely for a theme park in the middle of summer it was only open from 10:30am till 5pm….. so I thought we’d better get there ASAP. The last thing I wanted to do was drag two screaming kids out of there at closing time with them shouting “but I wanted to do this ride” and “I wanted to go on that”
As it turned out, the kids went on all the rides they wanted to, sometimes up to five times (!). My ex and I got on well during the day, which is as good as can be expected really. We only had a minor disagreement at the end of the day when my son had a bit of a hissy fit about going home. She thought he was being bad tempered and naughty, I said no he isn’t, he’s just tired. (actually, I had promised him at the start of the day that if he was good I’d buy him a toy on the way home, and then on the way home I forgot. He didn’t forget though. Oops. He found a pound coin in my pocket and I told him he could buy himeself something with it tomorrow.) Anyway, although that cast a little cloud over the day, we managed to get over it without it turning into a huge argument. We were all tired by that point though!
Any yes, my wallet did take a bit of a hit, but my ex paid her share. She didn’t actually give me any money, she told me I could take her share of expenses out of the weekly child support money, but I suppose it still counts. My sister-in-law has also offered to pay my niece’s entrance money, so maybe I can afford to feed myself next week after all!
The photos from the day out can be seen here.

Dear Wallet,
I love you, and you know I’d never do anything to really hurt you. However, sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. My ex phoned me up this morning and said “It’s a nice day today, why don’t we take the little one to a theme park, and why don’t we bring his cousins along as well as it’s been a while since he’s seen them.”
Well, I could hardly refuse, could I? So I’d like to apologise to you in advance, dear wallet, for the battering you’re going to take today.
Dan

It’s been a bit of a strange week. For those of you that don’t know, I’m Jewish, and usually after someone dies there’s a week-long period of mourning called “shiva” (pronounced “shiver”). But this week there wasn’t, due to the fact that on Monday and Tuesday there was a Jewish holiday. I was expecting the shiva to start on Wednesday, but apparently not (I must admit I’ve never been all that observant but there’s still soooo much about my religion I just don’t know).
Anyway, during the shiva the family and friends gather together, say some prayers and then spend some time catching up on news and gossip, and reminiscing. And since this hasn’t happened, I’ve not been doing much reminiscing about my grandma with other people. I’ve been going over lots of things in my head, trying to put together a “100 things about my grandparents” list, but it’s not been as straightforward as I thought it would be. For a start, I lived away from home between the ages of 18 and 33, and before then I was busy getting an education and after that I was busy with my own family. So it turns out I didn’t spend as much time with my grandparents as I thought I had.
I’ve been visiting my parents each night after work. However my family is crap at talking…… the conversation goes “Hi mum, how are you?” “I’m ok dear, tired, had a house full of people all day. How are you?” “Also tired, been manic at work as usual.” And that’s it. So when I spent some time with my cousin on Thursday evening I told her I was only halfway through my 100 things list and had hit a brick wall. We tried to come up with some more things, but as my cousin is from my dad’s side of the family and we were talking about my mum’s parents, we didn’t really get very far.
I’ll post something as and when I have it.

Last Friday I visited my grandmother in hospital. She’d been in there for a few weeks after falling out of the lift at her flat (that’s “elevator at her apartment” for my American readers) and breaking a bone in her pelvis. The accident happened 8 weeks ago and she had been on the mend, improving enough to leave the hospital to spend a couple of weeks in a care home before returning to her own place.
On the first night in the care home she collapsed and had to be rushed back to the hospital. She’d caught an infection from somewhere and it knocked her for six. She was delerious for a few days, but by Thursday seemed to be more like her old self. When my mum visited her on Thursday she (mum) was admonished 3 times in the first 5 minutes by my grandmother, so she must have been improving!
I went to visit her in hospital on Friday, and she seemed weak and frustrated. She’s always been an independent and opinionated woman, and being laid up in hospital attached to a drip would not have pleased her one little bit. Her words were slurred, and her breathing was laboured, but she was compos mentis enough to hold a conversation. She told me that she’d managed to get hold of some cloths, and she knew that if she let go of them the nurses would tidy them away and she’d struggle to get some more, so she wanted me to take them home and give them to my brother to bring back when he visited her the next day. Fair enough, I thought. She said “I hear you’re losing your nephew to a camp for a few weeks.” “Really?” I replied, “I didn’t know about that. No-one tells me anything!” She asked for my brother to bring her a cheese and chive or tuna sandwich on brown bread tomorrow. I said I’d pass on the message.
Now, to be fair, not a lot happens when you’re lying on your back in the hospital, so she was telling me about all the tubes in various parts of her body. She said they hurt like hell, then smiled at me and said “Still, never mind, eh?” Then, being the matriarch she is, declared visiting time over as she needed to sleep. I’d visited with her for half an hour.
She died at 4 o’clock Saturday morning. The funeral was today. About 120 people showed up to pay their respects, and afterwards a small group went back to my parents house where we sat and talked (and ate!) for a few hours. We talked about everything under the sun, from my grandmother (obviously) to eBay. At one point we were talking about some of my grandfather’s paintings (he was a graphic designer and a keen artist, and loved painting ballet dancers. He passed away in 1997 and I spoke about him briefly in this post). One or two people were expressing interest in some of his paintings and basically my mum and aunt said “If you want anything in particular, speak up now and unless it’s specifically destined to go somewhere else, it’s yours.” So there were various cries of “That tea set was very nice..” and “She and I had discussed her record collection…” Coming only four hours after we’d buried her this struck me as being a little weird, to say the least.
There were many laughs in this family gathering, I don’t want to give the impression it was all doom and gloom, because it wasn’t. One story I’d never heard before was how she got her middle name. Apparently her mother Jean’s favourite name was Tony. Obviously she couldn’t call a girl Tony, so she decided that if she had a son he’d be Tony and if she had a daughter she’d be Tonette. A girl dutifully arrived, so Jean packed her husband off to the office to register the birth. “Remember”, she said “her names are Sybil, and Tonette.”
Rest peacefully, Sybil Antoinette.