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!
Friday 30 July 2010
Saturday 24 July 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday 14 July 2010
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.
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.
Saturday 3 July 2010
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.
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.
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