Baby Jesus head assaults, Ladder attacks and the Christmas of general naughtiness

Christmas day goes something like this...

"Daddeeeee...he hit me...arghhhhhhhh," cries Fintan clutching at the large dent in his forehead.

"Declan - don't hit your brother...Declan - what did you hit him with?"

"Heeshus...." and he grins back at me and waves the small solid crib and baby Jesus at me before running off back to the nativity scene in the hallway at nana's house.

"Interesting choice of weapon Declan..."

I doubt that baby Jesus has ever been used in a full frontal head assault before.

We trek off to Church for Christmas Day. It's like walking to the North Pole and back. I've never seen so much snow in my life. We trudge down the middle of the road 'cos the snow is piled so high on the pavement. It is difficult to tell if small pensioners and Renault 5's are buried beneath the drifts. This is how I imagine Siberia on day fifty of a brutal winter. Not Dublin. It rains in Dublin! Which brings us on to the next problem.

"Frank! The taps aren't working...I think the pipes are frozen. It's ok. I can go outside and defrost them with a hair dryer or something. That's what our friends at home do." I suggest helpfully. As son-in-laws go - I am right up there with great ideas and ways to help out.

"It's ok Tom. The council switched off the water. Between seven at night and seven in the morning."

I look at my watch. It's well after 7am. This is highly suspicious. Resevoirs running dry in the wettest country on the planet (they don't call it the Emerald Isle for nothing)and now all this snow. Clearly - someone has misplaced Northern Europe and relocated it exactly where Tibet used to be.

On the way back down the road - I get the chance to lob a few snowballs at Fintan before Karina launches one right down my neck. We scramble up the drive that took four hours to dig clear of snow. Fintan stares at nana's car as if noticing it for the first time.

"Look at the state of your car nana," and he laughs. Only small specks of paint stick out to let you know that a tonne of metal lies beneath the pleasant fluffy white stuff.

I eat so much Turkey and Ham that I worry I've peaked too soon and left nothing back for the Christmas Desserts. Luckily - my reserve stomach kicks in (all men have them - basically - we're built like cows inside) and I'm able to absorb a merangue, chocolate sauce, custard and ice cream combo. Washed down with red wine and beer. Lovely.

On the way back to Chester a few days later, we board the ferry and spend the next three hours bouncing off our cabin walls. Declan generally beats his fists against the glass porthole and points at the sea with great excitement. Whilst Fintan has fallen in love with the Cabin Bunk beds. As mum pulls the bed down Fintan gasps (and I sh*t you not) - looks at both of us in awe as he says.

"What the Hell is that?!" in great astoundment. Never before has Fintan encountered a fold down Cabin Bunk Bed. And he's gonna make the most of it.

Three hours of random clambering and jumping ensue. An assortment of wails and crocodile tears as he bangs various bits of his body off corners and posts also ensues.

At one point, we turn our backs for a split second (hard to do in a 2 metre squared prison cell cum cabin) and Declan has somehow managed to find the giant metal ladder that neither of us noticed. And now he's unhooking it from it's stowed position and hoisting it at his brother in a menacing fashion. We thought Baby Jesus packed a punch. Five foot metal ladders pack even more!

I wrestle the ladder off him and try to hide it. This proves difficult - short of sleeping with it in the lower bunk.

I take Fintan off downstairs to play in the arcades for a while.

"Can we play this Daddy..please...please..."

I stare at "International Gamehunter" and the picture of lions and wildeebeast getting their heads blasted off by double barrels from the enticing shotguns connected to the machine.

"Fintan. We don't want to shoot animals...that's bad."

"Let's shoot Zombies instead..." I suggest. "On second thoughts..let's not.." I wander over to Time Crisis instead. A classic. Fintan takes blue gun and I take pink. Fintan shoots his foot alot and I kill baddies.

We drive an eighteen tonne rig across the dessert in America next and then race some 1000 CC bikes across a warzone. And then I take Fintan back upstairs to the cabin and wonder why he's so hyper.

As we dock into port we race for the lifts and jump in. We travel randomly up and down the lifts for five minutes stopping at every floor apart from the car decks (which are still locked off). At each floor. The lift opens. Families see us standing there. Declan grinning inanely and pressing all the buttons and Fintan doing likewise. And they opt for the stairs.

After five minutes they open up the car decks. It's just at this point that Declan presses the big yellow "ALARM" button.

"BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!"

"Declan. Declan. Don't press that button. Nooooooo!" Sarah and I yell at him. He laughs and points at us. He has learnt a new word over Christmas - which unfortunately - has no context or meaning to him as yet. But is very apt.

"NAUGHTY!" he laughs.

The lift opens at Green Deck 7 just as the alarm cuts out. No-one would be stupid enough to get in a lift with us now.

It is at this point that Lisa, Jon, Maya and Rian get in the lift and look up in utter surprise. As do we.

"No wayyyyyyyy?!?!?! You're on the boat too?! Nooooo?!"

Meeting your Chester Friends in a lift on a boat from Dublin is always a rather unlikely scenario - we exchange rapid Christmas greetings in a very confined space. (Think buggy, kids, nappy bags). And then - 2 floors later they pile out again.

"See you in Chester guys!"

The kids don't even bat an eyelid. Like these sorts of happenstance are perectly normal.

We get home. I bath the kids later that night. Fintan manages to headbutt me as he gets into the bath and Declan makes a naked bolt for it - runs into his brothers bedroom and pees all over his carpet.

"Nice one Declan..." I say as I rub my bruised forehead and mop baby p*ss from the floor.

It's good to be back...

The Gnome Handbag of great division, JLS Groupies in the midsts and rockin the birthday sing slam world

We land in Dublin despite the epic fog in Liverpool and Karina is there to greet us off the plane.

Fintan runs up and gives her a big hug.

"Karina? You know? We got you a bag for your birthday - it's a suprise!"

"Thank you Fintan that is so lovely..." says Karina.

Is there any way to erase her memory - to take it back? My only option is to bring on an immediate concussion. I consider slamdunkin' her into the ground - but this is probably not the best approach. She is dead 'ard and will likely pulverise me if I attempt this.

Instead we head out for a family dinner where the great present is officially revealed.

"Oh My goodness! Gnomes! A Handbag! Gnomes on a handbag" Karina is dead chuffed.

Andrew, her brother looks on in abject horror. Shock has settled in.

"We bought her a handbag? With feckin' gnomes on it?"

"Yeah - I was kinda angling for a playstation 3 but I got outvoted!" I tell him sombrely.

"Wait til we tell him the price," Sarah whispers to me and giggles. This is very funny.

"A feckin' gnome handbag? What's the world coming to?"

Indeed.

The following day - we meet Karina and her friends down the Dropping Well pub for a few jars. Half way through the night we begin an impromptu sing-off. Karina's friends begin with a sweet rendition of Happy Birthday to Karina. We reply with "Ding Dong the witch is dead! The witch is dead!" and join in with our very best munchkin impressions for added comedy effect.

They reply with a loving, heartfelt rendition of "You're beautiful" by James Blunt. And we slam them into the ground with "Who let the dogs out! Wooof wooof wooof woof!"

I've never had an impromptu sing slam in an Irish pub before but it's great fun.

Victory to the family is assured and as Andrew neatly sums it up - "however great your love for karina - our hate is greater!" Of course - in reality - that's not true - but the McGrane's if they are one thing - are a family of great messers!

In an attempt to redress the economic balance and pump some much needed euro wealth into the stuttering Irish economy - I do my fair bit - and order an excessive amount of the black stuff at the pub. The next day I will suffer - but I am happy in the knowledge that my dedication to improving the Irish debt situation will surely pay off.

We fly home on the Sunday - a family of hacking coughs, flu and general illness. At some point in the week Declan vomits everywhere - but it is a phlegm induced vomit and we feel good about that. Sarah goes away on a work course for the week - to somewhere remote and northern (Yorkshire I think). She calls me from the hotel that night after a few glasses of red.

"Sooo....guess who I've been talking to at the bar? Go on...guess?"

"Er...I dunno...Ronaldo?" I ask stupidly.

"No JLS! JLS!" She is hyper -excited. I need to talk her down. She is turning groupie on me.

"JLS!!!!" She giggles again.

"I told them they were very nice boys. They'd done very well for themselves."

"So basically - you talked to them like a grannie would?" I say.

"But they're so cute!"

"Ok - now here's the plan. You go back there and you get them drunk and bring them back to your room. We sell the story to the red tops and away we go!" I joke.

"Don't worry. I'm already headed back to leave my room key under their door!"

I am pleased she is having a good time. And mainly I am pleased because this means that when I eventually meet Kylie at some random five star hotel in Outer Mongolia - her on tour - me just loitering or waiting for some giant gas pipeline to be built. Well - then I will strike. I can sleep with Kylie with no fear of a come-back.

"Remember JLS! Remember JLS!" I'll tell her. Remember JLS!

Nursery are jealous. Girls at work are jealous. Boys at work scratch their heads and ask "Who are JLS?" Becky at work points out one little flaw in my plan...What if Kylie doesn't want to sleep with me?

"Are you mad?" I tell her. "Why wouldn't she?" There is an eerie silence. Hmmmm. I may need to work on that part of my plan. But I have time. Plenty of time...

Sarah calls the next day. "I just had breakfast next to JLS - they are amazing."

I fully expect the new fanclub to open from our address by next week.

In the meantime - Fintan has his customary injury-related trip to Casualty on Wednesday. The school call to tell me he's gone flying - hit the playground hard and bit his tongue and left a big hole in it. There is blood and shock and trauma. But by the time we get to casualty he has perked up and I read the Gruffalo to him approximately a thousand times before we are seen.

They check for bits of tooth inside his tongue and then he gets the all clear. Apparently - stitching a tongue back together can lead to high levels of trauma in children and is not the recommended approach for healing. I sigh a giant sigh of relief.

We walk back past the labour ward and I show Fintan where he was born and where mummy works. And then we eat alot of chocolate.

By the time Sarah returns at the end of the week I am a walking half dead zombie. But the kids are alive - albeit rather scruffy by the time we get to the end of the week. Luckily I had remembered all of Sarah's key instructions and written them on my hand on Monday.

"Feed the Kids!" was top of the list. "Pick up the kids!" was next. But actually - if you got the second one wrong - then the first was irrelevant. But I ran out of hand by then.

And today - Sunday. I have my first bath in roughly ten years and listen to the Duck radio play Paul Young and soothing eighties hits. For a short period of time I am at tranquil peace and my body doesn't ache quite so much. I get out of the bath and look out the window. The canal besides us is totally frozen. And the trees outside are caked in thick frost. It looks quite magical. And out of the bare trees - a small white feather floats and flutters in the still air - and swirls in the morning sunlight. And it reminds me of Milly. Perhaps it is a little hello. I say hello back and then we get on with the day....time to play monsters and chase the kids round the house...again.

Explodo rocket wheel-barrow munition-death and mump badger Wagner fightclubbing

"You know Daddy. Someone tried to blowed up the King."

"Is that right? The King?" I say - mildly confused.

"Yeah - and that is why we have fireworks Daddy."

"Wow Fintan - you learnt alot today at school. Do you know who tried to blow up the King?"

"Yeah. Guy Fawkes. He's in heaven now."

I was wondering exactly how school was gonna cover up the torture and subsequent excruciating death - but the "he's in heaven now" solution seems to hold up.

With exactly this sort of highly educational background we set to work on Saturday night with enough weaponry (I mean - legally available fireworks) to sink the Bismark ten times over. Collectively - we have a couple of hundred quid's worth of serious firepower to send up into the night sky.

We place all the kids and sensible parents inside the conservatory - they are cold but safe. Sarah lines up a front row of seats for the kids just like we're at the cinema.

"Guys...I'm not sure this is a good idea..." says Sanjib.

"You what?" says Chris.

"Eh?" I ask.

"We're far too sober."

It's true. Lighting fireworks after only a few beers has clouded our judgement. I have filled the bin from the toilet with water and brought it outside for a start (Just in case a stray rocket hits one of us slap-bang in the face). This is far too risk aware.

"Sarah!" I yell indoors. "We need more beer!"

We move onto a wine and beer chaser combo and this livens up events. Steve comes over from across the road and we give him some lighter fuse to play with.

Sensibly - Chris assembles all of the fireworks into the garden wheel barrow. Sanjib momentarily questions the sense in four men lighting fireworks in the pitch dark using nothing but a pin-sized LED that Chris holds in his mouth to light our path.

I issue out lighters and we test-light them. Check.

We hammer a few rockets into the ground and away we go.

"On the count of three lads..." I warn them before utterly ignoring my advice and instantly lighting my fuse.

"You said Three! You said Three! You B*stard!"

"There's no time...run! Run...F*ckin' run!"

And lo - the fireworks 2010 in-house extravaganza is underway.

We soon realise that walking away from the badly angled firework without turning back is a necessity. This will save our face from third degree burns.

We stand in the cold biting drizzle-misery and congratulate ourselves on our efforts.

"These fireworks pack a fairly decent punch eh?"

"Yeah - well I didn't even touch anything less than a five on the Bangometer," says Chris sagely.

And there-in lies the key. Every firework worth it's salt has a Bang-o-meter. 1 to 5. What a flipping great job - rating fireworks on the Bangometer. It is a job my mate Chris was born to fill. One day - one day I'm sure he will. If only he could master Mandarin.

It's early in the night when the first near miss strikes. A rogue rocket - blown off course by a freak gust of November wind and a badly planted plastic rocket launcher whizzes off into the nightsky in a trajectory roughly directly in our path. Four middle aged men stand holding beers failing to move as a lit rocket lands centimetres from the giant F*ck off Wheel barrow filled to the brim with enough firework explosive to leave a small hole in the ground where Chester used to exist.

Typically - we play the incident down..."Woooooahhhh...that was close...right...the kids want Catherine Wheels - quick - hammer some into the Climbing frame - we're losing them...we're losing them..."

Later that night - I feel invigorated with the sheer unadulterated joy of blowing things up for the sheer hell of it. We head indoors and set up an impromtu kids disco before discussing the merits of Wagner winning X-factor and whether a thirty foot super-sized toxic anenome could ever defeat a giant squid in a fight. I miss these conversations. And wonder if a Mump badger (if it ever existed) would truly beat a Polar Bear in un-armed combat. Perhaps we'll never know.

By Wednesday - Declan is hooping and coughing like Dot Cotton after fifty ciggies and Sarah and I end up tag-teaming in bed with him for the next few nights. Does anyone know when I will stop having to go to bed with a bloody child roll-out-of-bed protector attached to my king sized bed? There is nothing - nothing more confusing than getting stuck on a giant barrier every time you try to get out of bed in the middle of the night. It's like a stair gate - but in your bed. It's a flippin' nightmare!

Seriously - if only someone would invent the inflattable air bag carpet. Just a millisecond before the baby falls out of bed - the carpet senses and automatically inflates to protect the fall. Could make the carpets fairly pricy - but it would at least ensure a quiet nights sleep.

In the meantime - feedback from the book is positive. One of the girls at work even reported back that her hubby switched off Match of the Day to finish Dumb Luck. Can there be a higher accolade? Can there? Surely not. Surely not.

The Weekend of accidental bed wanderings, Cankles McGrane and the Duvet of Doom

Saturday morning and I stagger down the stairs and slump on the couch with my sister-in-laws and friends who've come up for the press launch the previous night.

"Boy I feel crap. But what a great night! How good was that?!" I say.

"Yeah. It was amazing."

Everyone agrees it was a roaring success.

I smile to myself. Happy in the knowledge that for once I didn't make an utter idiot out of myself. I go so far to tell everyone.

"Yeah - and I didn't make a fool of myself."

This is where my sister-in-law points out one little faux pas.

"Hmmmm...except for the bit where you wandered into my bedroom at four in the morning and tried to get me out of Declan's bed."

"Aha! I tried to get you out of Declan's bed! OUT OF BED! Not INTO Bed! Although - to be honest - alot of girls would be throwing themselves in my way for that kinda action..." I narrowly avoid a Vulcan death grip.

Later that night I ask is she has "Cankles" - I never heard of this before - but "Cankles" are when your calf and ankle combine together into one giant indecipherable mess. I have never feared for my life so. Specially cos it just isn't true! I was just messing.

The girls get their own back during the day. Fintan convinces me to get inside his dinosaur duvet. I park my hangover and get in.

"Get in daddy! Get in the envelope!"

"It's a duvet Fintan - not an envelope."

"No daddy. It is an envelope. Fold it up and post it!" he states solemly and he proceeds to roll me like a piece of dough inside his duvet - in the living room whilst Strictly Come Dancing is on. Up and down inside his dinosaur duvet.

"I can't move Fintan. My arms are trapped. What happens next?"

"Attack!!! Tickle him! Attack him! Sit on him! Sit on the envelope!"

And out of bloody nowhere an entire McGrane family and Jez and Michele and my bloody one year old (traitor) jump on top of me and tickle my feet mercilessly whilst simultaneuolsy squeezing the breath from out my lungs. I don't think I ever laughed so hard.

And later - we play the Wii and I've never seen an entire family attempt to beat the crap out of each other with so much vigour! Funny. Very funny!

But back to Friday. We've rented Bishop Lloyd's Palace for the press launch cum booze-up for Dumb Luck. Bishop Lloyd died about four hundred years previous and his pad hasn't changed much since then.

Ceilings fifteen foot high, a ten foot wide fire-place that stretches into space. Even the mantle piece is higher than yer head! And wood pannelling was obviously de rigeur back in ye olde medieval days.

The Mcgrane Massive and Jez and Michele work their magic on the venue and it is transformed into a bona fide crime scene - police tape, dead body and murder weapon - all present.

As people arrive we direct them towards the booze and then the crime scene and ensure we capture their mugshots. Needless to say - this is gonna be blackmail of the highest order. If only one of them becomes a superstar then we're going straight to the red tops...(maybe).

We dress Chris as a policeman and DCI Richards is born. Chris - being a method actor of the highest calibre - instantly takes to the role.

The problem is - he's wearing a yellow Bob the Builder tabbard last worn by Fintan in 2009 and his policeman's hat is designed to fit a three year old. Every time he raises his arms or moves his head he loses circulation in his outer limbs.

I read a section from the book and this is when I realise that doing my world famous "Irish" accent in a roomful of Irish people may not be a good idea.

I think I get away with "Tree" instead of "Three" - and maybe they never noticed my "Feckin' this" and "fecky that's". I get home. My father in law asks me to put on a pair of moon boots he just found and suggests we head towards the canal to fetch some concrete.

The following day my hangover cure begins in earnest - by 11am I've consumed the following:-

3 ice lollies - (one pinneapple, one blackcurrant and one orange)
2 pieces of bacon
1 fried egg
2 ibuprofen
3 teas
23 baked beans
Bread (lots)
2 Swizzles Manard Drumsticks (meant for Halloween)
and a slice of Victoria Sponge Cake

It works. I feel fantastic by 2pm. And celebrate by steaming round the Grosvenor park on their toy railway with the kids.

All too soon the best weekend I've had in a very very long time is over and reality gets in the way temporarily. Until the next time...

The bottle of sparkly pear deadliness, what is a Boop? and life inside yer mum's tummy...

What a massive week. My publisher arrives late Sunday. And we crack open a few beers. Then we crack open a few more. By Midnight we have progressed to the really dodgy bottle of red we got for free with our last take-away curry. The label informs me that it is a red wine - after that - yer on yer own.

Perhaps it is made from dingleberry? Or the crushed bodies of a thousand beetles? It tastes sweet - cough syrup with a kick. But it's either that or a bottle of sparkling pear wine that's been sitting in the garage fridge for the last five years - waiting forlornly for a chance to be drunk. The wallflower of the vineyard. Short of every other bottle of wine spontaneously vaporising across the known universe - this baby is gonna remain firmly undrunk. But...never say never...so there it remains. I'll keep you posted on that one - out there somewhere is a date with destiny - I can sense it. This worries me. Slightly.

So the big day arrives - as I launch myself on an unsuspecting public. My publisher informs the police to expect a crush - cops on horseback and kitted-out in riot gear are ready to beat back the mobs of screaming fans. First day of the Chester Literature Festival and I'm opening it with the New Writers slot. No pressure then.

I arrive at the St Mary's Centre in Chester. It's pretty cool. It's quite obviously a church. Or an ex church. Ornate ceilings, stained glass windows and a funky sofa chair at the front where I guess the altar once stood. This is to be my writer's chair. I will impart great knowledge from this chair and try not to look like Ronnie Corbett on it (It's the same chair! Honest! Nicked from the Two Ronnies circa 1979).

There's a respectable turn-out. Friends and family and random strangers. I worry about the random strangers - they look a nice bunch. But how will they react?

I stand up for an hour - regaling the crowd with witty (ahem) accounts of my early writing career and interspersing it with snippets from the book. I am careful to avoid any of the overly profane paragraphs for fear of corrupting the ears of the young toddlers running around the front of the venue. (In Chester, all children are made to run around outside old churches to pay their keep - it's a local tradition. Like Morris Dancing. But for kids).

It's a buzz. I love it. If ever there was a moment when I realised I could do this for a living - it was immediately after when we all set off the pub at 3 in the afternoon. At last - my ideal career!

And then it's back to reality - the cult celebrity-status high of Monday is replaced by the sad anonimity of every day normal life by Tuesday. Ho Hum. Everyday life can still be quite amusing though. On Saturday morning at 7 am downstairs on the couch with Fintan it began like this.

"Hey Daddy - what is this?" says Fintan as he pulls something from the depths of the couch.

"It's Mummy's Bra" I say.

"Is that for her Boops?"

"Er..well...yes...they're for her Boops..."

I am not about to get into a conversation about the correct pronounciation of Boobs. That way can only lead to further complications.

Later that day, my mum comes up from London and we take the kids to the Zoo. Declan hollers at the Elephants but is non-plussed by the Komodo Dragon. Fintan informs me that "Dum Dum is sad because we are leaving the zoo." Dum Dum is a forty foot giant Easter Island statue made of fibre glass. He also lives in Night at the Museum. When we get back I tell Fintan that Nanna Market is my mum. And I lived in her tummy once.

"Yes. And I lived in mummy's tummy and then when I grew up, then Declan lived in Mummy's tummy."

"That's right Fintan. That's exactly right!" I say. Proud that he understands the rudimentary points of reproduction and the family org chart. (I don't think they call them that - but I do).

"Living in mummy's tummy. That's disgustin'!" he tells me.

Hmmmm - I suppose it is. But it still beats living in a hunk of pink goo with a giant needle in yer neck and getting farmed out as dinner for a bunch of sentient robots. I leave that out. Perhaps the Matrix is for next week's night night chat.

The "Scatalogical Constant", journey's into Radio Stardom and the merits of a Tramp Entourage

Another blur of a week. The only constant in my life is the scatalogical constant. The Scatalogical Constant is like Faraday's Law or Boyle's Law but messier. This week - on Monday - it began like this.

"Daddy! Daddy! Come quick! Daddy there's something on the carpet!"

"What is it?" I shout from the kitchen where I am busy disposing of his brother's nappy in an industrial compacter.

"I think it's a poo daddy...or a slug."

"Don't touch it!" I yell. Trying my best to wrestle the nappy into the bin. One touch from them - and you're a gonner - like a bite from a zombie in 28 days later.

I get back to the living room and inspect the damage. It's all very suspicious. The 2 kids stare at me with innocent angelic eyes. Sadly for Declan he can't talk - so his brother has a clear advantage.

"Declan did it," Fintan proclaims and wanders off to dissassemble the "Tower of Doom". Rule one of playclub. Never. Never disassemble the "Tower of Doom". It makes an Ikea flatpack house look easy to put up.

The next day - my books arrive from the publisher. I rip open the box with the kind of anticipation I last had when I was a five year old on Christmas Day. I wait an extra forty seconds whilst Sarah runs for the camera to capture the moment. I open the box and stare at my babies. Fousands of 'em. Well - not quite. But alot. The shiny red and white cover with the graffitti sprawled all over it and the dead body with the bottle in it's head...and the blood spattering across the getaway car. It's a work of genius. Looks brilliant. And it's in my hand at last. There it is - in Black and White. Now I just have to set those babies free to create bedlam and panic amongst the book-reading masses. Can't wait!

I call lot's of people and tell them the news.

"It's in the British Library! They've got an electronic copy! How good is that?!"

The thought of being an electonic copy at the British Library fills me with great literary pride. This is how JR Hartley felt in those Yellow page ads. Kind of.

I go to bed content and ready to take on the world.

I have to delay that a bit to take the kids to school / nursery and go to work. But when I get back...then I will take over the world and begin this great adventure!

Later in the week I'm on Dee Radio. I rock up early and warn myself not to say anything stupid on air (which can be difficult for me - sometimes just opening my mouth is all it takes).

The DJs are dead nice and I relax. Being in a radio studio is pretty cool. I am tempted to press buttons but decide against this. Suddenly - Gavin the Dj says "thirty seconds to go" and I realise this is it. I'm on air. To a local listenership of 35,000 people.

Ok that's not too bad - I only make a fool of myself in front of 35,000 people. And some of them will still be asleep.

We talk about maintenance on oil rigs and I worry I will send the listeners into a terminal coma. Luckily - we soon turn to the matter at hand. My upcoming book launch and opening new writer slot at the Chester Literature Festival. I tell the DJ that Dumb Luck will be a crime series - so in ten years time - it'll replace Touch of Frost on a Sunday night. He laughs and I safely steer myself through the interview without swearing or pressing any big red buttons (although I do accidentally turn all the lights off when I try to "buzz" myself out of the studio immediately after). Doh!

I'm on a high! The only minor bum-note was my inability to get them to play either something by the Stone Roses, Elbow, Led Zep or Plan B. Instead - my out-tro is "Relight my Fire" by Take That. Not quite rock 'n roll - but I let it pass.

Looks like I'm taking to this media life like a bear does to crapping in the woods. I'm a real natural...(hmmmmm...maybe not). Next step is my first phone interview on air - with a radio station in Dublin.

I would ask my people to talk to theirs. But I don't have any. Next step - get me an entourage. They need to be cheap. Possibly free. And look glamorous and literary. It's either that or I get the three vagrants who hang around the offie near the city centre and smell of P*ss. This is more of a Whitnail look than I'd intended, so is a real fallback option of last resort. Or failing that - I'll carry on as is - with two little monsters hanging off me instead.

Supa Lion Pitch invading, the Deadly Flying Falcons and how to vomit your stomach contents through your eyeball

So Sarah and I went posh at the Chester races. This meant that I wore a suit and an ironed shirt and made an attempt to rub off the gravy stain on my tie - and Sarah wore a dress. Sarah's sister would have been along for the ride as well but she was too busy vomiting up her entire body through her nostrils. Oh how we bemoaned her fate - safe in the certain knowledge that she had succombed to one of nearly two million deadly viruses brewing inside of our kids - just waiting to attack some unsuspecting rellie when they visited. Oh hindsight is a wonderful thing. But 48 hours later and a conversation goes like this:

"herghhhhhhh.....erghhhhhhhh....ugghhhh...sperghhhhhhh...."

"Stop moaning...stop yer moaning Tom - you'll wake the kids..."

"Oh my God -I think I'm dying Sarah...erghhhhhhhhhhh"

"Try to moan less...can you try to moan less?"

If you could suck yourself into a blackhole of vomit - then I was swirling in it's Event Horizon - perpetually trapped in a vomit loop of doom for the whole of Sunday night. Things were made only marginally worse when Declan somehow ended up in the bedroom with me (whilst Sarah was wrestling with her own inner vomit turmoil). That bit of the night went something like this...

"Erghhhhh...get off me Declan...go away...I'm dying...back to bed...back into bed..."

"Come on! Come on! Ghhhhhhhhh Ghhhhhhhhh...WAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Which roughly translated means - Get up Dad - it's 4 in the morning for crying out loud! It's time to get up and watch the flashing box again! Need TV...need milk...I NEED MILK GODDAMMIT!"

Having never died (to my knowledge) I have never experienced Hell - or purgatory - but I have a feeling that I came pretty close to it that night.

But the races themselves they were great. The RAF parachuted in from three thousand feet which was a bit flash and the cast of Hollyoaks put on a fashion show. It woulda been more interesting the other way round - but that's the way life goes.

One of the lads from the RAF Falcons, who but ten minutes earlier, had been hurtling out the sky at terminal velocity was sipping a glass of champagne next to me and attracting the attention of an entire gaggle of tidy looking women. I myself stood idly sipping my booze and wondering why these girls seemed to be overlooking me. I asked my wife what the big attraction was... just because I couldn't jump out of a plane under enemy fire, land on a target dropzone with pinpoint accuracy and take out an enemy with relentless precision...but could they sit at a desk for nine hours and type on a keyboard? Could they drink a combination of wine and beer at the same time and still write with competence. Oh - Oh? They can? Crap. Well that's me out of a job.

Post the removal of my entire internal organs and stomach content over the week I was secretly rather looking forward to this weekend.

And Lo Fintan and I set off at 8am yesterday for the big smoke. Headed into the wild craziness - the beast that consumes all who enter it and spits out raw husks where humans once stood (yeah - you ever tried commuting there for longer than a year?!) - and so we boarded the Virgin Voyager - destination London.

I came armed with provisions to make the SAS proud. Travel Connect 4, a glo in the dark T-rex to assemble, a dinosaur magazine to read, 250 milligrames of yer finest jelly beans (orange, lemon - no marshamallow), DVD player, an array of DVDs including but not limited to Dinosaur Kings, The Land before Time, Barney (that purple b*stard!), Wallace and Grommit and Flash Gordon (I'm slowly converting him to the classic stuff!).

I met my Dad at London Bridge at midday and there we surprised my Grandad by running up to him and telling him we were off to the footie. Now - I did have some advice from Deborah my sister-in-law in Ireland that running up and surprising anyone over eighty is not medically advisable...bah...what does she know?! At which point my wife pointed out she was a Doctor. Either way - four generations of the family were gonna walk on the pitch at the New Den, get photographed with the team at 3pm kick-off and then watch a cracking match before meeting the man of the match and having their photo taken with him and getting the match ball. For any Millwall fan it's almost unheard of to be offically invited on to the pitch - usually we just run on and wait for the cops to chase us off. So this was something really special. 125 years of Millwall - from humble beginnings from a Jam factory team on the Isle of Dogs to the accolades and trophies we know today...ahem. Cue tumbleweed!

Either way - what a day - met all the Millwall legends and then the Director came down to ask my Grandad how he'd managed to support the club for eighty five years without losing the will to live. The answer lies somewhere between pigheaded stupidity, wondrous unquestioning delusion / devotion and a compulsory lobotomy that every fan of non premiership teams suffer as a matter of course through-out their life - still - wouldn't change it for the world!

So now I'm off to check out the new Kindle the missus bought me and see if I can download my book on it yet. Not far off...and then the world will be mine! All mine!

B-Boy wibble dancing, apple splatting cider mash ups and sing-clap malco-ordination issues

Well - last weekend was pretty special. My Sister, her hubbie John and my niece Lula came to stay. Seeing as they live in Bali these days and have been away for the last nine months. This was great. Ten pm on Friday night and we're dancing round the kitchen like lunatics as some funky seventies number blares in the background. Lula is dancing like a dainty fairy (and clearly not asleep), Fintan is breakdancing like a B-Boy legend (I taught him that) and Declan is whirling around in manic circles like some sort of midget dervish.

At one point I get down on the kitchen floor amongst the dead flakes of shreddies and crunchy cornflakes and kids biscuits and attempt to swim across the floor with Declan. It's a small floor and my breakdancing looks more like a stranded whale with learning difficulties flapping on a shiny laminate beach.

Either way - we have alot of fun and sink a fairly substantial volume of red. The next day after 3 milliseconds of sleep I am up. I am being dive-bombed with kids and the attack is relentless. Like the battle of Medway. Brutal. Real brutal.

We go outside and play "apple splat" to kill time. Apple splat is one of the great autumnal sporting past-times. All you need is a tree - apple trees tend to work best for "apple splat" but "plum splat" is equally rewarding. Find some sort of bat-like hitting device. I choose Fintan's bright red digging spade. And then get the kids to bowl you an apple. This can get tricky. It's best to teach them to understand the phrase "Take cover" "Duck!" "Incoming!" and how to dive to the ground in a split second.

The game was going pretty well until Lula recognised the apple supply as the secret stash of apples she had collected just the day before for "fairies that live in the garden. There are four hundred of them." For a short while it looked like I was gonna be accountable for the mass starvation of an entire enclave of rare fairies living in Chester. But luckily I was able to call her bluff and explain that they already spoke to me and were "really full already." Probably hammered on cider if truth be told.

After that - we managed a walk down the canal to the pub beer garden. Pub beer gardens with playgrounds are the best. The sun was blazing down on us, the kids were happy and we actually managed to have an adult conversation for a whole ten minutes before any child fell over and hit it's head. This is truly a miracle.

During this time I learnt that my sister and camping with bears definitely don't mix. Although if you ever get the chance to hear the funniest story about a baked potato, a tent in Yosemite and a bear - talk to my sis and John. Seriously - I nearly gave myself a hernia I laughed so hard.

And then - as quick as they had come - they were off again and there was a little vacuum where we had all been having fun and catching up all over again. No more talk of snake attacks on the way to nursery or walking to five star restaurants through paddy fields. Nope - back to reality.

Still - what with sis and I now being potentially the greatest writing dynasty since the Bronte sisters took up a quill (I look pretty good in a bonnet) - there's alot to look forward to over the next year. Two books out and who knows what next?

And Tuesday - I never even mentioned Tuesday. Sarah and I head out for a hot date to...Rock Choir. When I say this to people - they look confused / bewildered / and generally feel sorry for my wife.

"But singing is cool. And it's like a bunch of people singing rock songs. How much fun is that?" I tell them. I turn up and realise that I am the only bloke there. Even if I was Barry Gibbs they still woulda put me in the Bass section of the choir. It's good fun - but I really struggle with multi-tasking and am thrown by the requirement to sing and move my legs AND clap at the same time. I have new found respect for all the actresses in Sister Act. Sarah is pretty good at it and even seems to know what an octave is. I thought it was a type of olive. We leave and both of us sound like Clint Eastwood after he just smoked a cigar.

Which lead us to Sunday night...Sunday night and somehow I'm watching "attack of the fifty foot worm" on Backyardigans. And the sad thing is. Fintan's not even watching it now. But it's quite a good episode.

Right - I need to surgically remove Fintan from marble run which he has fallen in love with and take him up to bed. It's his third day at school tomorrow and he needs to be fresh and lively for it. I was thinking of breaking the bad news to him - "only another four thousand seven hundred and forty five days til you finish school son..." but I think that might be a tad cruel for his first week...you think?

Toy Story Mash-ups in the Jungle of Doom and Teddy Bear Airways takes off for Dubbo!

Jetlag is a cruel beast. A big fat mumma of a cruel beast.

I land back in Manchester on Saturday feeling like I've just been dunked in a vat of sleep juice. And it's straight into a full day of running around manically with the kids. Lily and Lawson are round as well. So it's double the excitement. Cunningly - I offer to take the kids to see Toy Story 3. This is a masterstroke - it's dark in the cinema. I can sleep. Ahhhh - sweet precious jetlagged sleep. Like the dead.

Two hours later and I'm in the middle of an impromptu dance-off between Lily, me and Fintan at the front of the cinema whilst Buzz Lightyear performs a quick tango with Jessie in the background. Hmmmmm. Things have not gone to plan. My head is wobbly and I wonder what sleep was.

Later that night - Sarah and I attempt to watch a film together and for the first time in my life (as Sarah points out) - I actually fall asleep on the couch. This is shocking. This is a sign of "man weakness". Men just don't fall asleep on couches. Not unless drink is involved. Large buckets of alcohol. Ashamed of my failings - I head to bed.

At some point in the night, Fintan falls out of bed with a whacking great thud. I run in. And there he is. Still snoring on the floor and now wedged underneathe his bed. I pick him up and he never even breaks snore. That's my boy!

Sunday - and I attempt to lawn mower my way through a thick jungle of vegetation. The grass is so deep out back that there are lost units from Iwi-Jima still hiding in the scrub. I wade into it - narrowly avoiding a Fireman Sam Firetruck and a toy saucepan. Neither of which would do much for my blades. Fintan shouts directions on a constant basis.

"Stop Daddy STOPPPPPP!"

"Carry on Daddy. Carry on!"

He starts digging next to our little Mexican Banditto Gnome by the apple tree.

"What are you doing Fintan?"

"I am digging for treasure in the Temple of the Sun."

Ok. So now everything's perfectly clear. When the hell did Fintan learn about The Temple of the Sun? In fact - what the hell is the Temple of the Sun?

"Fintan? What's the Temple of the Sun doing in a garden in the outskirts of Chester?"

"Carry on Daddy..."

We will never know. One of life's great mysteries - until Baldrick and the Time Team pay us a visit.

Somehow I survive an insanely brain-mushed week and make it to the Bank Holiday. We're off to Dublin to see the rellies. This combines nicely with nursery handing over "Rosemary" the teddybear. We have to take her everywhere and write up her diary for the week. I am a little confused at this. Since when were teddy bears ever female? - Boo Boo - nope, Winnie? nope, Baloo - nope, Yogi - nope, Big Ted? Little Ted? Let's face it - woman bears just don't cut the honey mustard. How the hell they ever pro-create I'll never know. There must have been a Mrs Big Ted to make Little Ted after all (assuming they're related).

So...I manage to leave her on the floor in nursery within five seconds of being handed her. This is not a good start. Surely to God I shouldn't be put in charge of something as important at this? Kids easy. Bears...very very complicated - bears have issues!

We get a picture of Rosemary and Fintan at John Lennon Airport and somehow convince Ryanair that it's a good idea if she flies the plane as well. The pilots offer to take Declan for us and have him sitting up in the cockpit as well - Sarah and I see our chance. We consider making a bolt down the emergency exit slides and a mad dash across the runway - but the temporary insanity abates.



And Lo - we make it to Dublin and we are having a fantastic meal at Deborah's house - and the kids are happy at nana and grampa's house - all tucked up in bed - and then there's a call...and Declan is giving his best impression of the exorcist - and vomiting all over the place by all accounts and Fintan is shivering with a high temperature and not very happy at all.

So we head home to take on dual sick baby duties. I opt for the elder - thinking - this will be a cinch. Late in the night Fintan cuddles up to me. It's a lovely moment between man and boy. A bonding between father and son. I smile to myself in my half comatose sleep. This is great...this is what life is made for...this is...soggy...

"Fintan - you're wet. You're wet!" Oh crap - he's just peed all over me in his fever. And I thought he was cuddling up to me. Nooooo - he just wants to get warm!

I lie in bed shivering for a bit and the Wonderpets theme tune rolls round in my head repeatedly. I can't get it out. I can't shake the bloody theme tune! "And Ming Ming too...we're wonderpets and we love you..."

Eventually I nod off and wonder what joys the new dawn will bring...

Just after dawn I find myself lugging a single mattress down the stairs and into the garden and begin scrubbing it down with fairy liquid and water. I rest my hand on the swing and climbing frame in the garden where I've set up the mattress. My hand comes back brown and sticky - I panic for a second...nope - not poo. Paint. Whooppee. Paint. I forgot the frame just got painted.

Later - I head back into the house and notice a stain on the floor by Declan's bed. I inspect it up close. Sniff. Seems all clear. Now for the test dab. Hmmm sugary - syruppy. Calpol. 13 maybe 14 hours old. I should be in CSI. These skills become second nature to a dad.

Three days previous, I had a a nasty incident with a work shirt and some marmite - for a second I made the most amateur parenting error of all time - the test dab and lick. Never - never under any circumstance test dab and lick anything that is brown. Just ask my dad - only a few weeks before, he came into the kitchen, picked up a rogue brown pellet and said the immortal lines..

"Has Declan been at the Chocolate Buttons again?" As he held up offending article for close inspection.

"No dad. He didn't have any buttons today..."

Never has a poo been dumped in a bin quicker. Ever.

Day-glo rhino hunting, Pink Floyd reggae dub drum n bass mash ups and gorilla beatings...

Friday night and we are headed over the border. Into darkest North Wales. Wrexham. I've seen it on Sky tv late at night on "Binge drinkers go crazy". It usually involves really angry women fighting in the street and blokes lying in their own vomit (after fighting in the street). And now I was headed into this warzone. I had visions of Ross Kemp running past me in a flak jacket and blue helmet with a camera crew bolting along behind him. But I'm glad to report - I was utterly wrong. Ok - there was a sixty year old woman at the pub having a full-on shouting match with her hubbie with one boob hanging out (neither appeared to notice). And there were about a million twelve years olds poppin' wheellies on their mopeds outside Maccy D's. But...that's par for the course on a Friday night anywhere in the UK these days.

The authorities must have been spraying some form of happy gas in the streets of Wrexham town this Friday night cos by the time we got to the gig at central station there was nothing but happy people all about us. Alternatively - this might have had something to do with the Rasta / Dub gig we were headed to. I managed to convince my wife, friends and sister-in-law (my brother-in-law was already a convert) that listening to a live version of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon reintrepeted as a Dub Drum 'n Bass Rasta wig-out was a great idea. And how right I was.

It's the most electic crowd I've seen at a gig for years. Some sort of strange hybrid of a million random gigs. There was the loved-up bloke who spent the first ten minutes hugging everyone (until the bouncer removed him from the venue whilst employing the innovative "deadly hand on throat vice grip" technique), the gang of about thirty ageing Trainspotters (who suddenly turned into gyrating legends once the music kicked in), the white guy at the bar wearing the fake rasta hat with fake dreadlocks (I'm still not sure if that's liable to get you a kicking or respect for paying homage to the band) and then the random mix of students and spritely youngsters like my good self. Either way - the Easy Star All Stars nailed it - horn sections, an MC who blew the crowd away and some serious grooves. Quality. Pure Quality. And on the way back - we had Queen's Flash Gordon blasting from the car whilst we did our very best "Gordon's Alive?!" Brian Blessed impressions and Wayne's World head bobbing. A truly great night.

Which leads me to Saturday night. Putting Declan to bed is always rather interesting. He's like a male silverback gorilla in heat. Usually he beats me senseless with his hands whilst I pretend to be asleep (thus convincing him that yes - what a good idea - maybe I shall fall asleep myself). Eventually I always have to defend myself and open my eyes to see where the next attack is coming from. And that's when he starts to giggle inanely and pretend snore. This goes on for many hours. He thinks it's a hoot. After days of hand pummelling - I start to feel sorry for female gorilla's.

So Sunday morning and Declan wakes in prime assault mode. The alpha male gorilla is ready to play. I am groggy and tired and the only thing keeping me going is the prospect of Match of the Day coming on in an hour (yep - 8am for all those who don't get out of bed until midday...or "lucky bastards" as I choose to call them).

He begins by smacking me in the head with a replica of the space shuttle Atlantis. And then progresses to a giant red fire engine. Fintan meanwhile is now sitting on the couch on a multi coloured chair he has placed on the couch - oh - with a giant yellow JCB digger truck balanced on top of the chair as well. The digger truck is making "beep beep" reverse noises. The red fire engine is telling me "nee naw nee naw - great fires of London...Fireman Sam to the rescue!" and the space shuttle is jammed on it's launch mode (imagine a really annoying roaring jet engine placed next to your skull). So things are pretty calm and relaxed. I take a foam sword to the nuts during the Wolves Stoke highlights (great goal from Wolves by the way) and I am immobilised for five minutes. Fintan places a blue blanket over me and rubs my leg sympathetically. He comes back with a yellow foam shield and recommends I use this to defend myself. I watch the rest of match of the day from behing a blanket and foam shield. It is safer this way.

And then we head into town with Glenn and Deborah and the kids and sit by the riverside eating ice cream and listening to the sweet summer jazz being played on the bandstand. It's like a scene from Trumpton. It is perfect and wonderful. Later we hunt for giant perspex rhino's and play hide and seek in the park and ride the toy train. And I wonder if Glenn and I could stop the train if we stood in front of it and really braced ourselves. Deborah and my wife advise against so we'll never know. And now - now it is time for bed. If only I could convince the kids!

The never ending car journey of agonising slow death and dino hunting in the big smoke

Friday. Eleven in the morning and we're now about two hours behind our schedule.

The plan was to drive down to London and arrive there mid afternoon. But we've not even packed the car. In fact - Sarah and Fintan are coat shopping. Eventually we set off about one o'clock. We set off with half a tonne of random clothes, enough calpol to sink a meth addict, enough fruit pastels, fruit shoots, chocolate buttons to put even the fittest athlete into a diabetic coma and an apple (a rather tired looking apple but this is my one nod to healthy eating and a clean conscience).

The kids sit in the back - wedged between a dinosaur pillow and a Dr Who pillow. We have many hours of pillow wrangling ahead of us. Though we do not know this yet. The Dinosaur pillow is a popular commodity amongst the rugrat generation.

We turn right out of the house and hit our first traffic jam. Crap. This is not good. Thinking quick and nimble on our feet - we overrule the satnav and detour past the jam of doom. An hour and a half later - we are actually further from our destination than when we started. How they hell is that actually possible?

The M6 has a forty mile traffic jam. Forty bleedin' bloody miles we crawl along - listening to Dinosaur Kings on the portable DVD player until I actually catch Sarah and I debating the lyrics to Dinosaur Kings. Turns out I've been singing the wrong theme tune for months now.

Six hours later (Yep that's right - it's actually quicker to fly to New York than drive Chester to the capital!). Six hours later we are on the world's must useless ring road. The M25 should be rechristened as the DZ1 (Deadzone one). This is where cars go to rust and die. And we have joined them! The entire car contemplates a new life - a new life lived within the confines of a very small non-mobile but highly expensive metal box. Cabin Fever has set in. We calculate that our journey has given us an average speed of 27.1 miles an hour. Holy crap! There are bycycles that go faster!

We call San and liz every once in a while to let them know that we still plan on making it to London and their house some time in the next Millennium. They prepare wine and beer and a fireworks display for our eventual arrival.

Halleluiah! We made it! The kids run around the house like mini beserkers - "We have legs! We have legs! We can run! We are free!" they cry and proceed to rip up the joint with their new buddies. Toy dinosaurs rain down from heaven. Fintan cannot believe his luck. Another house with a small boy who has a similar dinosaur obsession!

The next day we are up at the crack of dawn and it's a military operation to get the two families out the door and on the tube by 9am. This is a feat of massive skill, courage and planning combined with a tactical smattering of dire threat (if you don't have your shoes on in the next three seconds we are going back to Chester!).

And lo - after dragging buggy and kids up and down three sets of escalators and at least six flights of steps (oh to be disabled in London - crowds - no lifts - more crowds...arghhhh!) we arrive at the motherlode. THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM.

Fintan momentarily loses the ability to speak. He is beyond excitement. "Is this where the dinosaurs live?"

"Yep Fintan. And Dexter the monkey and Larry the NightGuard and the biggest dinosaurs in the world." It's always good to give them some context.

The kids stare in awe at the Diplodocus in the atrium. And Declan spends the rest of the day pointing at every dinosaur and gurgling the word "diplodo?!"

Our mates Paddy and Siobhan meet us and spend the next three hours as "parent backstops". This is great. We now have an extra two pairs of eyes to help spot our kids in the crowd when they inevitably wander off. Paddy soon puts this into action and grabs "the kid in the green t-shirt - he's yours isn't he Tom?" only to realise it's someone else's kid he is coralling towards our buggy. This would normally be fine - but at six foot three with long sprawling hair down past his shoulders and dressed in black jeans, black t-shirt and a black leather waistcoat - there is the danger that he will be mistaken for a heavy metal ninja loose in the museum.

Later - after the blue whale (which should be renamed big f*ck-off giant whale really). After we visit the "Big F*ck-off giant whale" we head to the Darwin centre and the "Cocoon". Which is actually pretty cool. It is within the gleaming crisp white Cocoon that Sarah tells me that Declan's bum is an absolute mess and we must change him at once. No time to find a toilet outside the cocoon. Liz and I make a protective exclusion zone with our buggies as we stand looking ever so conspicuous besides a mosquito DNA interactive exhibit.

It's like a scene in an operating theatre and Sarah's the kick ass surgeon.

"Clean nappy." Her hand waves behind her.
"Check." I hand it to her.
"Cream..cream now! He's wriggling!"
"Cream - check!"
"Take the dirty nappy now...now..he's moving...he's moving...don't drop it..."

"Oh sh*t!" I say.

"You didn't?!" sarah says.

"I did." And there it sits. A big dollop of Declan's poo sitting inside the clean crisp white future cocoon of the Darwin centre. We crease up laughing. I make a grab for the offending item and squirrel it away in a plastic bag that I then forget about. We walk around the museum and Hyde park with it dangling from the buggy handle for the next two hours before I finally work out where the whiff is coming from.

Later that day - we meet up with more mates and sink an ocean's worth of wine that evening. We debate the Mulberry tree in the backgarden and consider whether mulberry's are good for anything other than tarts. Jam maybe? Fintan falls into a potty of urine later that night (that's another long story!) and we trek back Sunday with trepidation and fear in our hearts. But four and a half hours later we are home. We are alive and we've just had the best weekend ever. Seriously. What a jam-packed mega weekend - in every which way you can reckon!

Mega desk graffiti and the importance of crossing that road...

So - it's Saturday. I'm doing boring stuff - bills, filing, more bills. I stare down at "George's Desk*" - it's a beautiful old antique desk with green leather covering and gold trimmings around the side of the leather. The kind of desk you see lawyers sitting behind in those big John Grisham movies. I write at this desk. It is solid and inspiring - and it's been a reliable desk to me over the years. And now it's covered in five inch high scrawls. Big giant indelible pen scrawls on lovely soft antique green leather.

It doesn't take a Sherlock to work this one out. The same letter arcs it's way randomly across the desk. "F....F...F...F...F...F"

"Fintan! Is there something you want to tell me about daddy's desk?"

Patter patter patter patter...excited child appears at desk. Excited child looks at desk and daddy's face. Excited child suddenly goes very quiet. He thinks for a while.

"I was just trying to write your name daddy..." he puts on his best attempt at cute little rascal. I vow that I will remain annoyed and lay down a strict law. Insead I tell him that his F is very good - except my name begins with a T. Ahhh of course - you were writing your name first. Ok that makes sense. Fintan loves Daddy.

Somehow - in a millisecond he distracts me - my lecture goes out the window and to make matters worse - somehow we have ended up playing "Robot Dinosaurs that shoot beams when they roar" on the bloody computer instead. How the hell did that happen? I'm meant to be paying bills and writing my book - not laser blasting enemies on my flying dinosaur!

Still - it's good to savour these moments. Life has a way of sneaking up on you when least expected and jabbing you in the kidneys. So you gotta enjoy it. Every minute of it! (Except the bits when you have to pay the bills!). Like the poor bloke yesterday.

Yesterday I took a little stroll at lunchtime. Down out of the office and along the golf course. The Welsh hills in the background, surrounded by rolling green and the odd bunker - and a buzzard circling high above in the clear blue sky. It's a gorgeous day. Beautiful. Up ahead some workmen are digging a hole and laying new tarmac cos the sewers have collapsed. And there's a dark and deadly backlog making it's way to the posh houses overlooking the golf course.

One of the guys is on the grass. Collapsed. Not looking good. And there is panic nearby. We cross over the road to check things out - jumping the sticky tarmac and sensing something serious is afoot. My mate races back to the office to get the first aider and with luck a defribulator. I sit down with the chap and try to give him words of encouragement. Which is probably about the last thing you want when you're in the middle of a whopping great heart attack. But...I'm pretty sure that you're meant to keep people talking - keep them conscious or they might slip away.

It's all very surreal. I move his bright yellow workman's tabbard from off his face and mouth. Breathing through tabbard cannot be easy at the best of times and definitely not when the tickers gone awol. I give him a reassuring pat on his arm and remind him that the ambulance is on it's way. My main concern is that if he is gonna die and I fail to rescucitate him. Well - at least he had someone with him. He wasn't alone. And then I try to remember the rescusitation techniques and hope the ambulance arrives soon. I don't fancy breaking ribs and chest pumping - but I will of course do it if he goes.

My mate from work comes running back up the road, directing the ambulance down the lane as he goes.

We let the ambulance crew take over and eventually head back.

"Wow - that put's things in a little perspective," he says to me.

"Yeah. I think I need a cup of tea..." I reply.

Later that night - with the kids in the garden - friends round - BBQ nicely grilling our lamb kofta's in the corner (we've gone dead posh!). I wonder if the guy made it. I hope he did. The lads on his work crew said they'd worked together for 36 years. Wow - 36 years with the same buddies. That's impressive. That's a year older than me. Jeeeez. That bloke's been digging holes and fixing sh*t backlogs for longer than I've been alive.

I slug back another beer and enjoy the moment at the BBQ. Lily launching herself off the slide whilst sitting inside a giant plastic box (don't try this one at home kids!); Fintan and Lily bashing the living crap out of Chris with foam swords. Both the Sarah's bashing the living crap out of Chris with the foam swords they just stole off the kids. These are good times - good times indeed and they seem all the more precious when you realise that any day could be a Friday like the bloke at the golf course. So enjoy them. Do it! Get out there! Have fun. And must of all - no regrets!



* Note on George's Desk. It's not Georgian - as some might think. It used to belong to a family friend called George. Hence "George's Desk". But he jacked his job in back in the eighties. Learnt how to sail a boat and then spent the next thirty years sailing around the Med and the Caribbean on his forty foot ketch. George was never very good at cooking - I seem to remember that dry spaghetti was his speciality - but he was a good laugh and a rogue seadog if ever there was one. Hopefully he's still out there somewhere - sailing the seven seas and wondering whatever happened to his desk. Again - just to be perfectly clear - he only called it "desk". I don't think anyone talks about their property with their own name prefixed beforehand. That would be weird. Frickin' weird.

Flip flop cockroach death and dinosaur kill beatings...

Rule one of living in Houston. The cockroaches are bigger than sheep. They will take at least three shoe bangings before they die. I learn this when I come home Sunday night and find one chillin' in my bath-tub. Death to all cockroaches! I nail it with a flip flop and then hunt for more (cockroaches live in packs and always have a buddy - just like diving - that's a fact).

Rule two - everyone probably carries a gun - so be nice to them.

Rule three - July 4 fireworks are pretty cool. So cool that they make fireworks that explode in the shape of spaceships and flowers. For November 5th - all I ask for is access to the same munitions supply as the city of Houston. Wow - what a show that was.

And now I'm back. Jetlagged. But back. Then I am gone. I am offshore and gone. And then I am back. And now my head is a mess and there are jelly moulds with more intellect than me. Travel has taken it's toll.

But I am glad to be back at last. I wrestle the kids on the couch for 2 hours - which ends with the boys beating me with toy dinosaurs against my nuts and laughing in hysterics. I only restore a semblance of authority when I stick Driver 3 on the playstation and demonstrate how to drive a stolen car at high speeds around the streets of Miami for half an hour.

Fintan wants a go - so I warn him that driving cars is for grown ups - and being chased by the police is very naughty.
I turn the game off after he drives into a wall, reverse shunts a police car into a petrol station and blows it up and then works out how to get the man out the car and how to shoot telephone kiosks. From now on. Driving games are banned. We will stick to Wall-e.

Wow - there's a minefield of stuff out there (as opposed to a "mimefield" which is a section of booby trapped french mime artists buried in combat zones) that I now need to re-audit with my "dad head" on. I never even noticed all that bad stuff on Driver - previously that was all the good stuff - before I realised I needed a moral barometer for my kids.

I scrutinise "Dinosaur Kings" with religious zeal - is it ok for dinosaurs to kill each other?

My answer is clear today when Fintan makes a robot out of some lego at the dentist's and proceeds to kill all the imaginary lego dinosaurs - "cos the volcano killed them". I am strangely happy - Fintan - four year old Fintan has grasped the supervolcano concept and the comet death concept in an instant. And who said Walking with Dinosaurs was a load of crap?

Sarah and I stay up late and watch clips from Live Aid on BBC4. And it feels like a different life. Freddie Mercury in his prime - U2 - Bob Geldoff swearing at the tv. And it feels great to reminisce - great to be alive. But somehow - I wish I was doing something like that right now - why aren't Sarah, me and the kids at a gig right now? Sitting in a tee-pee nodding our heads to some trance-like beat? Ok - cos that's insane - but tv is great at making things look good. Specially from the comfort of the sofa!

I take the recycle bin outside, then the normal bin - I ponder what to do with the half drunk bottle of coke - is that a recyle or a normal bin? Can I be arsed to empty the bottle and then recycle. Is being that lazy a bad thing? I wonder if the glasses of wine we've sunk have made me over analyze the minutae of life. Hmmmmmm.

Tomorrow is a new day and I suspect I have a soft tyre...God - when will this tyre obsession end? I'll let you know how it goes.

Today - it rained so much a man just jet skiied down the main road - thank you Hurricane Alex for your rain dregs

On a scale of bad timing - finding out your baby boy got admitted to hospital just as you're listening to the stewardess give you the final safety spiel and you're taxi-ing down the run way is not good.

Previous to that latest update - my biggest worry had been missing the England Germany match. I had been praying for some sort of miracle - a mini Heathrow-Specific tornado - a 3 hour delay to the flight to enable full viewing of the match. But it was not to be.

I did request that the pilot keep me updated on the scores through-out the flight - never mind checking the autopilot or which way the plane was pointed. There was a footie match at stake! And not just any match. The most important match in the last 4 years (well - except for Millwall winning in the play-offs). But...the family update just before take-off put everything in a little more perspective.

So...I waited 9 hours til we touched back down before I found out that - despite drips in arms feeding him with antibiotics. He was gonna be ok. Fevers. Boy oh boy. How do kids manage to time them for Sunday nights at 3am? How?

So - here I am again in soggy, humid Houston. Since I got here - it's pretty much rained non stop. And the rain here is big - like the state. Twix-sized rain drops falling non stop for hours on end. This Hurricane Alex has alot to answer for. I packed shorts, shades and sunblock for the weekend - not a rubber dive suit!

One of the guys in the office has taken to driving his tank (seriously - you could fit my VW Golf in it's glove compartment) the hundred yards from the apartments to our office. How I mocked him early in the week. How I laughed. Last night - I saw the error of my ways. A 100 yards dash through a wall of torrential rain. Not good. And - I thought I was being clever. Bringing an umbrella with me. I might as well have walked out with a paper cocktail umbrella over my head for all the use it was.

Still - tonight I shall find beer and sustenance and watch world cup football. And I shall look for July 4th fireworks. Fireworks are man's finest invention. Big exploding colour in the sky. What more could a guy ask for?

Speaking of which - I don't know if the locals here were joshing me - but one of them seemed pretty adamant that only one single vote back in the 1780's swung the balance between the US speaking English or German as the nation's official language. Wow. Imagine that. One vote deciding between a life of bratwurst or bacon and eggs. I guess they landed sunny side up.

Never walk through a vast field of nettles in flip flops...whilst carrying a baby

Today is immensely sunny - so hot that my son informs me that if I were to sit on the sun I would get sunburn - this is a revelation and I thank him for his ready advice. He also wonders why his mum goes red in the sun and I explain it is because she is Irish and has freckles.

After work - I sit happily in a traffic jam listening to a bluegrass cover of Highway to Hell and decide that relocating to the Caribbean would be a really great idea. Logistics and money are not to be held up as reasons to banish this great idea.

I make it home and have to drag the kids into the garden. The power of Dinosaur Kings is truly mighty.

I have learnt from my mistakes earlier in the week - and now I stick sandals on their feet. Stones, thorns, sticks, slugs...there are many dangers to the feet of young children. I know this now. After my son managed to stand on every thorn between our garden and the playground down the street. So we clamber up the well constructed (cheers Chris!) wooden climbing frame and launch ourselves down the slide repeatedly. This is hard as I tend to get wedged half way down the slide and Fintan asks "Is your bottom too big daddy?".

"No. The slide is too small." I remind him.

Later - after spells in the wendy house - crammed up against the red plastic roof - feeling like the adults in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Later still - we venture into the "secret garden" which is actually the really dangerous bit next to the garden which leads to the canal and is full of nettles in a wall ten foot high.

Stupidly - I encourage Fintan to "grab a big stick and follow me!" as I wade in armed with a tinder-dry puny stick in one hand and a baby in the other. Declan is delighted. "Wahhhh!" "Wahhhhh" clap hands.

"Yep Declan - it's water. Brown dangerous canal water. Imagine it's the Med or something."

Fintan tells me that if we fall in we will drown unless we have armbands on. He's probably right. It reminds me of the river in Ank Morpork and that river only exists in my head.

Needless to say - wading through a thicket of nettles in flip flops with two kids is the stupdiest idea ever. I sting myself to pieces. Fintan tells me trees are made of metal and we spend the next half an hour looking for dock leaves for my brutalised bare legs.

We head inside. I crack open a bottle of Spitfire and settle in to watch Glastonbury from the comfort of my sofa. I'm jealous. In another lifetime - that was me. Sitting in a pile of noodles for ten hours in a big field near some standing stones as random bands rocked in front of me. I never went hungry though - that Glastonbury - I believe to this day that I absorbed those noodles by the power of osmosis - through my butt cheeks. Honest. Honest to god I did.

I will stay up late tonight - to catch Snoop and reminisce with the missus over glasses of wine. I may even decamp to the Wendy House, light a bonfire, play guitar badly and stay up til dawn. What do ya think? Sound good?

Never let the baby drive through the bear enclosure - ok?!

It wouldn't be an Arnold holiday without at least one visit to a foreign hospital and some other random disasters thrown into the mix. For those who know us - I doubt many would be surprised if our entire family got obliterated by a freak meteorite shower or slowly eaten to death by a previously unheard of form of deadly skin fungus. Unlikely things just seem to happen to us. We are like "weird sh*t" magnets. Mega-attractors.

So - the holiday started well. A few last minute shopping items to get in town - some shorts for me - sun cream etc. Things start badly in the car park when Sarah reverses straight into a really large concrete wall at pace (Sarah disagrees with the "pace" statement - claiming that only the back window actually imploded with the impact). So that's ok then.

After the obligatory slow motion expletives that follow any crash - I decided to take over the driving and we make a hasty exit from the car park. Helpful passers-by and fellow road users wave frantically and point out the obliterated back window and the shards of glass flapping uselessly in a trail behind us. I have no time for such dilly dallying - this car is taking us to the airport in the morning. Window or no back window!

Needless to say - the turnaround is too tight on the windscreen and we wave goodbye to it at the garage and walk back into town.

The omens aren't looking good for the holiday. We take the clapped out banger to the airport - the one with the carboard holding the glove box together and the dashboard warning lights awash with reds and oranges so it's lit up like the cockpit of a 747 before take-off. I do the manly thing and reinfalte the soft tyres and we are ready for holiday.

The South of France is beautiful. We race past vinyards and beautiful medieval towns and there is a deep yearning in me to drink beer and wine and sit in the sun.

The kids love the pool and the slides. I get stuck on the pool slides like some sort of embarrassed beached whale - but a few tips from other holiday makers and we realise that the dad's have improvised with sun tan lotion to grease themselves up before launch. (There's no way I'm gonna be left for dead by no three year old ever again on that slide!).

Day two and me and my mate (his family came on holiday too - just to make sure we didn't get into too much trouble!) - me and my mate have drunk enough wine and beer as we light a BBQ on the campsite - to impress the girls with our daring feats of climbing. I make it to the top of the tallest tree I can find. There is an ominous creak and I weigh up the possibility of certain death as the tree collapses. A Darwin Award beckons. The kids are delighted - waving up at us and yelling "higher higher!". Our wives are laughing - but there is fear in their laughter. This could be a trip to casualty - they are thinking. We survive with mere flesh wounds and grazes to show for our antics.

Day four - a Sunday - why is it always on a Sunday? And we have to take the youngest to the docs with a cut. Sods law - all the docs are still sleeping off the misery of Uruguay France nil nil. Using my best broken French - we make it to Perpignon hospital and steer our way through the French medical system with random shrugs and the phrase "Je n'ai pas Le EC11".

Day five and it is a dull day. So we drive like the clappers to a safari park a hundred clicks distant and take the hire car into the lions den. Hire cars can go anywhere! Again - there is a moment of utter fear when the baby - Declan - sitting in Mum's lap - accidentally opens the passenger door of the car just as I've come to a halt slap bang next to the really big angry looking bear a foot from said passenger door. "Bing Bing Bing Bing" alarms in the car, Declan claps his hands wildly at the big angry bear staring at us. The kids in the back smack each other in the head with McDonalds balloons and a tiny red light in the Ford C-Max tells me "La porte - la porte!". Holy crap - the baby's just opened the door in the bear enclosure!

Luckily - the bear hasn't become quite attuned enough to "open door alarms" and he misses his opporunity for a full and fresh dinner.

From then on - I let declan sit on my lap and drive through the lion enclosure. It is clearly - a much safer option.

And then - as quickly as the holiday began. We are back home in Blighty. Well - except for my wife's phone - lost randomly in the passport entry queue at Manchester airport. We get back just in time to watch the world's crappest match of football ever. My friends ask - where is Algeria? North Africa. But the real question is - where were England. Where exactly?

How to get frisked by a lady viking and other interesting facts...

Flippin' eck. Things I have learnt over the last few weeks.

Never climb to the top of a castle battlements with 2 four year old boys with a penchant for running wildly in random directions who think they are probably dinosaurs. This is not good when there are sheer drops down 100 foot and only a metal barrier somewhere near the top of their heads to stop them. This must also be a big worry for Time Bandits, Hobbits and Sleepy and Bashful.

Never attempt to light a barbeque when it's so windy even the fire-lights blow themselves out.

Never also use a giant "for sale" sign as a windbreak-cum-fanning device for the bbq. A few minor burns later and I have learnt my lesson. I think.

So - last Friday - I headed off to mate Mal's wedding in sunny Sweden. And quite literally - I was flying solo this time. Leaving my wife and kids to fend for themselves in Blighty whilst I did my best to sink at least ten barrels of Swedish beer whilst doing my Swedish chef impression at the bar. As a hint to future tourists - these impressions don't necessarily go down as well in practice as they do in your head.

Malmo is a pretty cool place in the summer. Like Paris chucked into a mix with Eastern Europe. And the wedding was ace. A true cultural experience.

So we all pile in to the church - English contingent on the right - Swedish on the left. And the groom loitering around outside looking absolutely terrified. Then again - the best man wasn't far off. Odds on the lads fainting at the altar were pretty high. Ahhh, weddings are such relaxing occassions. And here's where it all goes a little European...

I was busy pointing out to the mother of the groom that it was traditional for wives to be at least twenty minutes late. And then the father of the groom was joining in..."yeah - they made my wife drive round the block twice just so she was proper late!". So there's a definite tradition here. But no...in Sweden the bride and groom walk up the aisle together. Where's the fun in that? Where's the amusement in watching your mate sweat and peer nervously over his shoulder for half an hour. Like a condemned man waiting for the firing squad.

Still - my good buddy Dom and I gave it our best shot in the "singing hymns in Swedish" stakes. As he pointed out - being half Polish Half East Yorkshireman gave him an edge in the linguistics stakes. I on the other hand quickly became unstuck - and following the lead of the best man and groom - adopted the classic "lip synch" silent singing approach. "Rhubarb rhubarb...hurdy gurdy rhubarb rhubarb".

Wedding over - we got down to the serious act of drinking champagne in the sun in the grounds of a beautiful pig farm (yes - a pig farm!). Although - as one of the guests pointed out as we first arrived. They look like cows! Cows on a pig farm?! Is that allowed? Again - the Swedes seem pretty chilled - so perhaps this wasn't a problem for them.

After a meal of lamb at the pig farm (the pigs had clearly bolted! - pigs after all are very intelligent - have you read animal farm?). We enjoyed no less than 12 speeches over the whole wedding (well - things did get a little hazy - but it was around and about twelve). The groom's work colleague, the brides best friend, the brides cousins, the brides father, the best man, the brides uncle. And every single speech was absolutely cracking. Where do they go to learn to speak so eloquently in public like that? And in a foreign language! Still - the best man lived up to British tradition - although I'm not too sure if "Willycopter" translated so well into Swedish. Sometimes there's just no translation for a word...thank god there were no actual demonstrations to explain it (as far as I'm aware).

In my capacity as "Dance canary" - which primarily involved staggering between the dance floor and back to my mates if a good tune came on...we managed to catch the last air guitar minutes of "Livin' on a prayer" before following up with a bawdy circle-hugging finale with "Come on Eileen".

I woke the next day feeling strangely and vaguely ok. I had perhaps forgotten about an incident at the hotel with a fire extinguisher and some of the details surrounding the Bohemium Rhapsody re-enactment a la Wayne's world on the bus on the way home. But..I shall never forget the detailed full-on pat down from the blonde female security guard at Copenhagen airport. Wow - that kinda thing just never happens in Britain. Next time - I'm gonna hide even more change in my jeans pockets!

Call me Olympian - Velcro Olympian - Drunk Velcro Olympian

So - it's been a loooooong week. So let's go back to last Saturday. Chester races - Roman Day.

It's hot. The hottest day of the year so far. The weather man says it's gonna be 29 degrees.

Like some sort of ancient wagon train making their way across middle america - so we set off from Sarah and Chris' house with our wagons (mountain buggy / Mclarens / Bugaboo's) laden to the max with the essentials. Beer (cold beer), ice (to ensure the continued coldness of the beer), picnic consisting of superheated tuna sandwiches (we must not waste ice on sandwiches - never!), quavers, strawberries and grapes, wine - much wine, champagne (well - why not?), beer - did I mention beer? Oh and the kids.

Fintan sits shotgun - riding on the front of the buggy with Declan crammed behind him. I stumble forward under the weight - two for a tenner deckchairs slung over my shoulder.

The wagon train wanders past a sentry post of Roman Soldiers - Fintan doesn't even bat an eyelid. We trek to the centre of the race course and like Christmas Turkey - we begin to roast.

The day is interspersed with spectacularly random bets (the jockey is Irish, the trainer is Irish, the Horse is Irish, the colours are Irish etc) and are quids down. But the highlight of the day is surely the free bouncy castle and "Velcro Olympics Assault course" for the kids. By the end of the day we manage to convince the spotty teenager in charge of safety - that it is in his best interests to let Chris and I race each other over the assault course. Four year olds gasp as two drunken idiots launch themselves at full pelt through the assault course. I nearly have him at the second hurdle - but after that - it's game over. I can only manage a pathetic treble roll out of the assault course padded tunnel and land off the side of the matts. This is a painful lesson in stupidty.

The next day I notice I have seriously sunburnt feet. I always forget the feet. Always!

The rest of the week - I am offshore again at the crack of dawn on Monday (boy those morning flights kill me!). And on my return I am the walking dead. Succombed to some sort of deadly man flu. I call the doctor on Wednesday for an appointment. The friendly receptionist informs me that there is an appointement in 2 weeks time - in June.

"I'll be dead by then! What's the point in an appointment then?" I demand angrily.

She is unimpressed. I am almost tempted to actually die just to teach her a lesson and prove my point. "There - vindicated!" I'd have on my Gravestone.

A tonne of antibiotics later and I'm getting better (I know you care!). Until today - today was rather rubbish - my chest no longer feels like I am breathing through glue - but my nose won't stop bleeding. This rather freaks Fintan as he thinks he has trodden in it (it's all over the floor). Lucky for me my wife is an expert in this sort of emergency.

"Stick your head back and it will stop". An hour later I am drowning in a constant flow of blood down my throat.

"On no - sorry - try sitting forward and pinching your nose - maybe that was it".

Ahhh - what joys does tomorrow hold? Self lobotomisation? Death by Umbongo? Who knows. Who knows...

Just how bad is it to forget your wedding anniversary?

Today it is sunny. Today it is hot. Today I am listening to the greatest home-made compilation CD in the world as I head to nursey, drop the kids off, and steam down the A55 towards the border - and beyond - into the great valleys of Wales and into work.

Back in Black - AC/DC nicely moving into Led Zepellin - Houses of the Holy and onwards taking in a rare remix of Fools Gold and on towards a gloriously chilled cover of Toots and the Maytals Pressure Drop and the grand finale by way of Muse. As I drive to work - the music blaring, window down and me nodding my head like the Churchill dog - as I grin to myself - I finally realise what I have become.

I have become a complete and utter Dad. The metamorphosis is complete. I am Sad Dad - with proper Sad Dad music - and I quite like it.

I have a wedding in a few weeks in Sweden - and I'm thinking of warming up my repetoire of dance routines this weekend. Because tomorrow night - me and the missus are out on the town - out on a date - wahoo!

I could start with the classic "Bez" - two steps forward - roll head - glaze eyes - shuffle backwards - and repeat. I may also attempt to "twirl" my lucky wife on the dancefloor this weekend if I get a chance. But these are early days - it takes many decades to perfect the "seamless Dad twirl".

So - I will stick with my signature Dad dance of late - the "Butt dance". This involves a booty-like butt wiggle and bump and grind on the dancefloor whenever Beyonce or Black Eyed Peas come on.

Recently - I am proud to see that my son has taken this tuition on board. He now sports a classic Butt dance routine whenever I stick the stereo on full volume.

And the reason for this great adventure - this "date" (a rarity with kids!). Well - Lisa at work bumped into me outside the toilets (I wasn't loitering - honest), we got chatting about Ashes to Ashes - Is Gene Hunt God? Are they in Purgatory? Are we real? If you glue a badger to a tree in the woods and it dies and no-one see's you - is it really dead - is it really your fault? And just as we were parting company she reminded me "it's your weddding anniversary this weekend isn't it?"

Wow. Thank God someone in my life remembered - cos neither my wife nor I did. So - Lisa - thank you. Everyone should have their very own personal Lisa for moments like this.

I'll let you know how it goes!

I spent the night with a crane driver called Andy - and I quite enjoyed it

Yep - it's true. I spent an entire night on top of a Crane Driver called Andy.

Luckily - there was a thin layer of plastic (no - it's not what you're thinking!)and 3 inches of mattress separating our bunks. Ahhhh - the joys of a shared cabin on an oil platform! Although - I will say - we did enjoy Outnumbered on the tv for a while and then entered into quite a learned debate about the differing offshore regulatory and safety reigimes employed around the world (yep - sad I know!).

After which point - I felt sorely tempted to utter a quick round of "Good night John Boy, Good night Ma, Good night Jim-bob" Waltons style - but thought the better of it. Not always a good move in a confined cabin a million miles from home. With the refrain from duelling banjo's ringing in my ears - I fell into a groggy sleep - courtesy of the world's crappest head cold.


Up at the crack of dawn yesterday and 12 hours later - on a chopper to BBQ central at my mates house. For a birthday party for their one year old. Of course - as soon as I hit the beach - I called Chris from my phone to reserve me his finest burger...he'd put one aside for me. There's loads! No fear!

I rested easy, safe in the knowledge that my burger was safely removed from the eating frenzy. I lumbered up to their house 2 hours later - bags in tow - and joined in the celebrations.

I went up to my wife and told her what I had done the previous night. Yes - I had slept with a crane driver the night before. "That's funny - So did I!" she said.

Ahhh - it's good to see the humour still thriving in our marriage. Without humour where would we be? Would Ronny Corbett ever have gotten married? Would I? Or maybe I'm getting that confused with alcohol. Without alcohol - definitely - no-one would get married, get together, get pregant, get into trouble. Imagine how organised life would be? Just imagine!

We sleep over. Our four year old next to me - the baby on the floor with mum! Half way through the night there is an almighty thud. It is the four year old rolling straight out of bed and lying face down on the floor still asleep. And now there's the missus shaking me and asking me why I'm holding onto a pillow instead of our son. Ooops. Easy mistake to make. Imagine if that pillow had fallen from the bed? Imagine the damage that could have been done to it. Pheweee. Close shave.

So we swap places and I sleep with the baby on the slowly deflating airbed on the floor. Does anyone actually own an air bed that doesn't deflate within at least one hour! I think it's some sort of inherent failure mode built into air bed design. B*stards!

Still - I sleep well. Dreaming of Miss Hoollie and singing a Balamorey song in my dreams. (Long story - but I'm not a weirdo!).

Today - a breakfast of kings at my mates house - and I'm in charge of the kids at key moments. Needless to say - only a trapped finger - a brush with the oven and a wrestle with a dinosaur later - and we are all well.

And the FA Cup is on in 2 hours...and the League one play-offs to boot! Oh yeah!

I never did get that burger though!

Surving Monkey flu and other great trauma's - things I learned this weekend

It is actually possible to survive on one hours sleep over the weekend and not spontaneously die of "lack of sleep" - but it is not recommended. At one point I think I started hallucinating about being asleep - only to find that - arse - I was still awake but in some sort of sick loop of anti-sleep nightmare. Kids and their temperatures eh?

Stupidly - I wondered how things could get worse. And bang on cue - at about 2am on Saturday night - my wife began her bout of turbo vomit. This sounds selfish - I mean - it was the rest of the family getting sick - not me. But the thing is - it's a known fact that man-flu is particularly brutal on well - men. So. I was right to be in fear for my life. Luckily I'm made of stern stuff. It'll take more than a dose of Outer Mogolian Monkey Flu to knock me off my game.

And that's why I was racing around the garden most of Sunday being attacked by a four year old with a "joker soaker". In the old days they called them water guns - but even guns containing water seem a little bit un PC these days. One minute you've got yourself a water gun - the next - you're upgrading to a water cannon you nicked off the police at the South African world cup...it's only a matter of time before we progress to bin bags full to the brim with a gallon of water and launched from an intricate trebuchet device I put together in the back yard in my spare time.

And so today - we awake way behind schedule and I realise that I have the strange pleasure of waking the baby up. It's such a weird occurance - I feel I should get out a video camera or something. But no. That would be wrong. So together we wake him and get him ready for his busy day ahead. Today - the baby thinks - today I shall mainly grin alot and smile and see if I can ram both fingers really far up my nose. Ahhh - such simple pleasures.

As I get out the car at nursery and carry the baby in - the four year old holding onto the bags with one hand whilst he protects the scratch on his left palm (now covered in a Mr.Bump plaster - the money the Hargreaves estate must have made out of that one!). Well - he suprises me with his wise comment for the morning:-

You must only ever cross the road with an Adolf.

An adolf? I ask.

Yes. An Adolf.

Are you sure you don't mean an adult?

No daddy! An Adolf!

So...there you go - only ever cross a road with an adolf. If you haven't got one - you better go and get one quick. That's the law.

What a balls up - the great British election and other objects - down the crapper

So...the big news of the day...the big news on everyone's lips is...should I pick the Bob the Builder ball out of the toilet? The half flushed toilet? Ok. So - my son just crapped on it (don't ask! - but somehow his younger brother put it there whilst he was in mid contemplation). I could probably deal with that ok. But then he let rip with a full-on rocket cannon of urine - just to make sure it was fully soaked.

I'm sitting in the study at the time - looking up car service garage numbers (such is my insanely mundane life) when I hear those key words that are a dad's worst fear.

"Don't worry. Daddy will get it for you."

Even if the little one booted his football or launched his favourite dinosaur into the world's most populated minefield - this phrase would still be pronounced with great flourish. Like dad's are suddenly immune from IEDs and dog sh*t. (Which reminds me - since when did dad's get the job of washing ten tonnes of dog crap off the buggy wheels without the benefit of a bio-suit?).

So - I retrieved said ball and it was whilst soaking it in 100% industrial strength Domestos that I realised that the ball was a sodding sponge ball! Dear God - the crap was embedded! Seriously - I'd like to say "They don't pay me enough for this Sh*t" - but actually. No-one pays me. No-one pays any of us. That's just life. And hey - that's probaby no bad thing really.

And as for the election. A hung bloody parliament! Well there goes the nation for the next twenty years. Greece is probably just a precursor for the giant sh*tstorm of financial armageddon headed our way! And we don't even have a bloody legit prime minister! Crap. That's just about the worst possible outcome in the world ever. We might as well get Jimmy Saville to run the country!

And so - with the balance of power for the entire nation hanging in the balance - the family did the only thing it could do in these times of great uncertainty - we headed to the pub for a few swift pints (cravendale for the kids - Black bear for dad - and stella for the wife cos she's dead 'ard).

Back home and a quick blast on the climbing frame (yes it is still standing!) and I'm mesmerising the kids with Nick Jr as we speak. I start with the Clangers and hope that Bagpuss will have the desired effect and send them into a dead sleep. But no. Somehow the old Skool tv does not hold them. Does not exude the same transfixing power as it did on us.

I flick to Roary - and Peter kay sends them on their way. God bless you Peter. God bless yer! You fancy a job as PM?