Mexican Table ninja assassins and other journeys into Adventureland...

On the scale of eventful months. Its been eventful. In which - Sarah ends up in hospital for a few days and gets put on bed rest for her and the baby, and I stupidly attempt to take the kids to Disneyland Paris on my own. My cardinal error was not informing all the authorities - the fire, air and sea rescue and ambulance services that I was entering France. It is a well observed fact that a member of the Arnold family cannot under any circumstances go on holiday without at least one visit to casualty.

Flying in the face of such certain odds, I set forth with the kids from Chester train station. Stage one. Get to London in one piece. A mini bag of Jammee Dodgers prove my saviour on the train. Ten points to Branson for that sales gimmick!

I trek from Euston to Kings Cross with Fintan carrying his mini backpack full of dinosaurs (you need at least thirty seven for a journey of this magnitude). I point out where I used to work to Declan who shows absolutely no interest until I produce a fruit shoot from my bag.

We meet up with "Nana Market" and take a double decker to the South Bank.

"Look kids. The Houses of Parliament!" I try to explain about the gunpowder plot a little. No reaction.

"Look - the River Thames!". Nothing. Tough crowd.

We get off at the South Bank and walk past a bunch of thirty years olds skate-boarding badly whilst trying to look cool - and the kids go mental.

"Look Daddy! Wow! Look at that! That's awesome daddy!"

We stand next to a big sign that Uncle John designed for the Olympics and take some pictures. Tourists look at us weirdly (we are standing next to the London Eye at this point and for most people - signage doesn't tend to float their boat quite as much as iconic landmarks).

We get back to the hotel and we have a "picnic" in the room, followed by bouncing on the bed for three hours.

And then we're off. The next morning we hit the Eurostar and three hours later we're at Disneyland Paris. And we're alive. I double check that I'm still in possession of two children. Check. Two kids.

By now - I feel surgically attached to the massive black ruc-sac on my back and the Mclaren thats glued to my arms with a child inside. Our ability to subsist relies on every carefully picked object placed inside that bag. Nappies. Haribo. DVD Player. Power Adapter. Ipod. Colouring Books. Crayons (for me). This is a greatly packed bag. Until I get to the hotel and realise that in my panic - I've packed only one jumper for each child. And it's about 2 degrees outside - with a thick fog sweeping in and threatening to turn us into giant icicles. Oh well. As long as I keep food off of them. They'll look as good as new. By day two - we are harboring small alien lifeforms in the fabric of their tops and ketchup is layering upon chicken nugget which is layering upon fermenting milk stains. By Thursday we'll have created a nicely rounded French Cheese.

The park is ace. Declan literally has some form of mental overload when he sees Woody and Buzz Lightyear at the parade. He manically shakes his head back and froth (like a victim in Scanners before their head explodes). And he points in gobsmacked awe!

"BUZZ LIGHTYEAR!" he screams for all his worth. Fintan waves frantically at Peter Pan and Goofy.

This is ace. I'm loving it. And despite the immense crowds. So far - I haven't lost a child yet.

We shoot the crap out of the Evil Zurg on the Buzz Lightyear ride and whilst we cruise around the "its a small world ride" I explain how "mummy used to work in Disneyland Paris - she worked on the potato cart". They don't seem overly impressed. Perhaps this is a right of passage for all Irish women.

Day three and I'm feeling pretty damned confident with this whole looking after the kids on my own in a foreign country malarkey. We begin to integrate with society fairly quickly and by lunchtime we are ordering "Le Royale" from the restaurant in Adventure land and are practically multi-lingual.

We meet Sanjib and Liz and the kids and things are going swimmingly. The sun has come out and its practically a heat wave. Eighteen or nineteen degrees. Which is pretty remarkable for Autumn. The kids are laughing - we are jesting - the families are catching up and all is happy in the world.

We stop at a Mexican-themed restaurant and that's when the giant heavy wooden table contrives to fall on top of Fintan's leg. I stare in horror. The Disney waitress stares in horror and offers us ice. Fintan freaks out - which is fair enough cos the table is really heavy. I take a look and get that gut-awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. A Mickey Mouse plaster might not cut the mustard here. A large chunk of leg is bruised and bleeding and I know whats' coming...the medic at the Disney site doctors stares at the injury and gasps.

"This will need at X-ray at once!" he says seriously. And I'm filling in accident forms and wondering quite how I explain to my wife how I managed to let a really heavy table land on our son and break his leg.

"Hello Sarah. Now I don't want to panic - Fintan's okay - but we just need to go to Casualty with the nice Disney man and get his leg seen to..."

"WHAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT?! What the *&! The table fell on his what?!" Well - you get the picture. All in all - she took at well...I think.


Three hours later we're in a Paris casualty and Fintan is sitting on his hospital bed waving his free Mickey Mouse cuddly toy at the Doctor. In pigeon French I manage to say...

"le Tableuex - Kaput...Leg / Jambon - Le Garcon est ma pere!" and do my best mime impression of a table falling on a small boy's leg (we are after all in the great city of mime - the founding nation). What I think I may have actually said in translation was:-

"The table fell on the Ham and that boy is my father!"

An hour later. We are whizzing back to Disney - back stage - behind the scenes - where it all happens. It's an intriguing netherworld. Musicians sucking back on their last Galloise before they enter the happy fray once more.

And most importantly - there are no broken legs.

I look down at Fintan and smile at Declan.

"There are easier ways to earn a fluffy bloody toy guys. Much easier!" and we laugh as we head back for another two days at the park!

Swim like a Brick Son! Drive that Train Pa! Get out of the Duvet Cover Dad! Now!

I haven't blogged for a few months as I've mainly been eating Tolberone and working hard. But - I'm slowly weening myself back off the hard triangular stuff and coming back down to earth.

It's been eventful. Way back at the end of August in a far flung distant memory, we went to the South of France. The highlights included:-

1. Racing around the campsite on an oversized go-kart with Declan riding "side- car" on mine and Fintan in another.

2. Not explaining to Declan what happens when your two year old "side-car" pilot decides to lift up the handbrake at speed.

3. Going to the local beach...the main advice being..."drive down the beach and choose a nice spot by the sand-dunes...if you go too far and you see that no-one's wearing any clothes - well - that's the nudist part of the beach...if you go really too far and you get out and there are only men wandering around without any clothes on...you've gone to the nudist gay part of the beach". As it turned out - we went to the bit of the beach where it mainly blew 3 tonnes of sand into everyone's butt cracks and generally stuck to any and all areas of exposed flesh where suncream had been applied. We might as well have covered ourselves in treacle before we set off. Honestly - I'll never get the hang of beaches.

Towards the end of the holiday when Declan was getting a little more adventurous around the water (adventurous and stubborn is probably the more accurate term) - we had out first mini drama of the holiday (no family holiday is complete without a drama of some sort).

We were sitting by the pool watching Declan (who had up to that point shown an absolutely healthy fear of deep water) lean over and fall head first into the pool and then do his best impression of floating face down and not moving. The "Play Possum" instinct had kicked into overdrive.

Before I could shift a single toe and dive in and save him - Sarah had launched herself straight into the water (sundress and shades still on) and dragged him out.

For a brief moment I had considered jumping in to rescue both Sarah and Declan but decided that having a giant lump bellyflop on top of you was probably the last thing you needed in these sort of situations.

So we dragged him out and he coughed and spluttered and looked at us and said "I sinked Daddy!" In fact - he spent the entire day telling everybody he met just how brick-like he was in a water situation.

Fintan mainly explained that it was ok because he could have swum to the bottom and rescued him if Declan wanted. So even Fintan seemed to take to the "Brick" usage for Declan. For the rest of the holiday we tied an inflatable spider man rubber ring and two layers of cotton wool around him just in case.

I mainly enjoyed teaching the kids the "art" of making BBQ fire. This involved the three of us sitting around the sizzling meat as flames started licking up this rather blackened looking Olive tree by our chalet. Although I don't think this French cycling bloke was too impressed. He set up his tent and campfire just next to us and every night when he returned from his bike-riding exertions, every night he washed his clothes and hung them up proudly on his improvised washing line strung between the olive trees. And every night I created more bitter smoke and fire than was practically sensible even for a gas BBQ in the middle of a French tinderbox. And every morning he set off for his cycle with the acrid stench of BBQ'd chicken embedded in his jersey. Oops.

Still - what a holiday. I highly recommend any holiday located within a vinyard. Even if there was the collapse of all society - you'd still be within striking distance of at least ten thousand gallons of red wine! Wahoo! Easily enough time to hold out til everything settled.

Last week we set off to Llangollen so my father-in-law could drive a massive old steam train for the day. A small percentage of the Irish population travelled over to watch the special occassion - and most of us ended up on the train being driven by Frank. Which was quite a novelty. We sat in the "first class" carriage and I handed out "fingers of fudge" to the family whilst we waited for Hermione, Harry and Ron Weasley to turn up. We contemplated whether it was actually possible to call a finger of fudge "a fudge" and decided that it was humanly impossible. And then Sarah's brother Andrew and sister Karina encouraged everyone to stick their head out the moving train in turn whilst they took pictures.

Now - I don't know about you - but apart from a love of the fairly solid association my head enjoys with the rest of my body - I've also seen that episode of The Young Ones where Vivienne sticks his head out the train and gets decapitated. And I was keen not to watch that in real life. It was only when we actually went through a tunnel about a second before Sarah was about to stick her head out - that they finally stopped that game. And there I was relying on the sensible one to help me out (aka Deborah!).

We got to check out the footplate / hotplate (whatever they call it where the driver stands with all the coal and the furnace) which was pretty impresive and insanely hot.

"Flipping eck that's hot," I said to the Train man supervising Frank my father-in-law.

He stared at me in much the same way as a swimming instuctor would stare at a grown adult pointing out that the wet watery pool he'd just got into was "rather wet".

After that I attempted to sound vaguely knowledgeable about pressure certs for the engine and the grade of coal that worked best on this engine (Polish or Russian coal is best - although the Welsh coal is the ideal grade).

Before we knew it - we were rattling back to Llangollen and running down the empty carriages in delight. Andrew and I stopped off in the original Flying Scotsman bar carriage (wow - it must have been something in its day) and by 5 we were home and sinking a few jars and glasses of wine.

A pool tournament ensued - the highlight being after twenty minutes of play when Sally my mother-in-law attempted to pot the stripes using the black ball.

"I didn't know we had to use the white ball to pot them..." she told us through fits of giggles.

Later still - after waiting nearly seven hours for our take-away to turn up. I demonstrated my unique "putting a duvet cover on a duvet" technique. This (especially after a few jars) involves physically climbing inside the duvet cover to find the corners. And until someone invents an easier way of doing it - that's the way I'm gonna carry on doing it. All I'm gonna say is - hats off to those guys in the hotel industry and all those nurses. What a job - in and out of covers day in and day out. How many are accidentally zipped or buttoned up inside them to die a tragic death - we'll just never know...never...

Cowpat minefield buggy rallies, the F1 car battle of great trauma and the African drum fest of much tranquility

Three weeks ago we're making slow progress as we traipse across a giant field full of Declan-Sized cowpats. Things are made slightly more complicated by my brave yet foolhardy attempt to wheel a buggy across the field towards the "Pageant of Power!".

"Don't jump in the cowpats Fintan! Dirty Dirty!" Sarah hollers.

"Where are the stanks? Want Stanks!" Declan declares from the luxury of his mountain buggy. This is extreme off-roading for a buggy and I cringe every time I hit a rogue cowpat. Some of these are way too fresh and squealchy for my liking. But mysteriously - there are no cows. Up ahead I see a line of food stalls - their delights wafting towards me. I know what I'll be ordering...Fillet bloody steak and chips! Payback for the cow mines dotted every yard across the place!

We head into the enclosure. This place is brilliant. The noise is bonkers. I feel the urge to shout really loudly at my kids just because I can. The roar of engines and the distant hum of RAF helicopters whoomping towards us drown out everything.

Fintan jumps into a helicpopter and gets strapped in - ready to fly. Declan is a bit more suspicious and remains firmly emplaced in his buggy seat. Next thing we know - there's an almighty "KABOOOOOOOM!" and the kids nearly crap themselves. They look at me for confirmation - is it a friendly kaboom or a bad kaboom.

"Tanks! They've got tanks!" I shout at them manically. It's like being a kid all over again. All those hours spent with my toy soldiers blasting the crap out of them every weekend (the odd skirmish with my pet dog Maisie gave some of my Fusileers realistic amputations and war injuries) were about to realised in a truly humungous scale. They were re-enacting an entire battle in the field one over.

We race over to see a bunch of soldiers running across a field firing at a tank. Smoke everywhere and the thump of dummy rounds. Up ahead - RAF helicopters drop flour bombs (rather than flower bombs - which may or may not have been a more symbollic token) onto the forces below. The kids are mesmerised.

"Stanks daddy! Stanks!" screams Declan in delight.

"They're tanks Declan. Tanks. Not Stanks!" Fintan corrects him.

"NO FINTAN! STANKS! NO FINTAN!" he roars back.

These kind of arguments can actually go on until the end of time itself - so I nip it in the bud and we head over to these kid-sized Landrovers. I plonk Declan in next to Fintan and off they set. Wizzing across the field - leaving their "driving instructor" aka a terrified fifteen year old boy - to steer them back on course and away from the giant duck pond in the middle. Next we take on the kids rollercoasters and the fun-house before we head over to the racetrack and watch the classic cars hammer the gas and race round the track. The noise is immense and the kids are loving it.

There's a display area for the classic cars. I spot a classic Ferrari and a few F1 cars on display. And there's a large number of one-off antiques that have the kids enthralled.

"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!" Declan grins as he stares at a 1918 classic that is about as long as a train and shaped like a missile. It looks stunning.

I turn my back for a split second and next thing I know I hear Declan shouting "Roary the racing car!" as he attempts to clamber into the priceless F1 car on display. I make a dive for him and manage to stop him clambering fully inside. Declan senses he is losing his opportunity and in desperation he clamps his wee little hands around the F1 wingmirror.

"Noooooo Declan....not the wing mirror! Let go!" I plead as a crowd gathers. None of the crowd look bemused. They look worried. Worried that an irresponsible dad has lost control of their kid and let them run amock amongst probably the worlds most highly valued assembled collection of historic cars ever seen.

"NOOOOOO Daddddeeeeee!" Declan moans as he hangs onto the car wing mirror for dear life. This is his only chance to drive Roary. Of this he is sure.

"Let go Declan!" Fintan joins on. My little deputy sherriff!

Eventually - I peel him off and we move on to to look at the racing boats - before finally we head home - but not before Fintan jumps in the police-car driving seat, presses the onboard police computer and begins pressing the buttons randomly. I look inside the cop car. It appears that he he genuinely connected up to the police network. For all I know - he's just sent out an APB to set up a roadblock on the M56.

"I think we should get out of here...he's turned it on..." Sarah whispers to me.

We smile at the nice policeman showing the kids how to don riot gear and we do a runner (not before Fintan "arrests" himself and demands to be put in the back of the police van. We duly oblige).


The week later - my sis is up with John and Lula. It's just amazing to see them again. We have an action packed time of it. Conwy castle, fish and chips looking out on Conwy harbour. It's perfect. And the next day we're off to Liverpool on the train.

We head round the maritime museum at Albert Docks - on the top floor they have an African Slavery section because of Liverpool's involvement with that historically. It's very educational. But the most amazing part - was the re-created African village and the African drummer dude in the corner of the village.

John and I surreptiously wander over to the guy playing his drum and Gazoo. We grab ourselves a drum and begin to hammer out a beat. I feel a bit of a malco but the guy soon gives us a hand. Sarah and the kids wander over and soon the whole family is sitting with an African drum between their legs and we're hammering out a funky beat to the main guy's lead. After five minutes we start to get more confident and he adds a few alternate rhythms. Declan is going mad for it and Fintan has somehow grabbed two more drums and is trying to play all three at the same time. Like a crazed "Animal" from the muppets.

We're beginning to slip into a happy trance when our lead drummer begins to sing. It's beyond mesmeric and I could truly stay there all day in this happy little drum bubble. But eventually we leave - to make African masks and to head outside and clamber over HMS "The worlds tiniest warship ever" which is having an open day in Liverpool.

The naval officer says it's okay for Fintan and Lily (Chris joins us half way through the day) to steer the ship and there's nothing to worry about - they can't break anything. But then as Fintan grabs for the big red button below the ship wheel - the Naval officer panics and updates his line..."They can press anything - except that button..." he adds. And there is fear in his eyes. I wonder what the button does. And urge fintan to press it for a laugh...but he doesn't. Shame really.

The day ends with a Vulcan fly-by to mark the anniveray of the Liver Building (100 years or so?!).

"Spaceship Daddy" Declan screams.

"Wow - it was a real spaceship daddy!" says Fintan beaming.

Tanks, Warships, Vulcan Bombers - is there no end to the military delights the North West will lay on just to keep my kids happy....?!

Melty metal slide death, drunken rambo dancing and other adventures

"Where are we going daddy?"

"We're going to a wonder emporium..."

"Where's that?"

"Near the playground that burnt down."

"Ok."

"Do you want to see the burnt down playground daddy?"

"yeah - why not."

So on the way to the Wonder Emporium (it does exist). We detour via the mangled mess that is the playground. It's a sad sight. Fintan and I gawp at the melted blue panneling around the climbing frame for a while and stare at the buckled metal slide as if it were some long lost work of Dali Surrealism.

What's the world coming to when someone burns a playground to the ground? Honestly. Maybe it's some sort of council directive. Bringing us back to the 70's. All we need are a few smashed bottles of magners strewn about the see-saw and the swings wrapped around the metal rails fifty times and we'd be there! Austerity measures see...out with the new and in with the old and defunct! Future proofed for decline!

We visit the giant life sized dinosaurs at the zoo for 2 weeks in a row now. The T-Rex is literally as big as a house and some of the dinosaurs spit water at us. Declan mainly screams "T-REX!!!!!" over and over again in wild abandon whilst Fintan tries to creep up on the water (aka venom) spitting dinosaur for five minutes. The kids won't pose in front of the dinosaurs - so in the end we get Fintan to take a picture of us next to the T-Rex. I am dead chuffed.

Later - Fintan and Declan throw coins in the magic waterfall (in the tropical realm).

"What did you wish for Fintan?" I ask (trying to get an early heads up for Christmas).

"I wished that no-one would eat the water buffalo any more daddy." He is quite adamant on this point.

I feel a pang of guilt. Stupidly - I told him as we looked at the water buffalo in their Zoo enclosure that I once ate a Buffalo burger and it was mighty tasty indeed with some ketchup. Note to self - this is never a good idea. After mentally scarring my child so early in life - I decide to be more tactful with Declan and change topics. So I pick him up to show him the crocodile.

"If you fell in the water with that crocodile Declan - he'd probably eat you!"

Declan stares at me - fails to register what I've said - and concentrates on screaming "A crocodile everybody! a Crocodile!" with great amazement.

My great problem seems to be - I'm trying to tell too much of the truth - I think I'm forwarning them - preparing them for their adult lives. Say - if they do ever stumble across a crocodile in the wild (deepest Wirral maybe) - they'll know that crocodiles are inherently dangerous to man. But I think my argument is flawed. They're just kids after all. Maybe they don't need this kinda forwarning just yet?

Only last week - I was sitting with Fintan and got dragged into the whole "But where is Jesus then?" conversation that periodically crops up.

"Well - he's in heaven with his dad - God"

"And did God make the universe daddy?" (This is the lowdown from school).

"Well - yes - he made everything." And here... here's the bit where I should have just shut my mouth. But stupidly - i decided to expand.

"Although Fintan...there is a theory - the Big bang theory that the whole universe came out of nowhere in a giant big Bang. See - there's this bloke called Hawkings..."

Never - ever - on any account go down this road. Within about 2 sentences you're so out your depth - it's truly frightening.

Friday week - Sarah and I were at a wedding - beautiful setting - amazing surroundings - by a lake. Rock band playing some fantastic covers. Within an hour - Chris had managed to peanut my tie and wedged it round my forehead Rambo style. I looked about the bar. Like a manic whirling dervish - Chris was busy creeping up on every besuited smartly dressed gent at the wedding and whipping their ties up and over the face and onto their heads. Within half an hour - the room was awash with an army of staggering boozed up Rambo's pogo'ing on the dance floor like deranged loons. Later still I slow dance with Sarah - and later still - somehow - I am twirling Jay around the floor like I'm some sort of Rumba dance legend...

Things get even better when the cover band closed the night off with the Stone Roses - She bangs the drums. Which was a turn up for the books as I think they were an Oasis cover band by natural trade - and were hoping for a rousing medley of Oasis hits to finish off the night.

Later that night at the bar - while I expounded to my fellow revellers on the merits of nicking the portaloo's at the wedding and hiring them out at Glastonbury under the monicka "poshbogs.com" - charging a tenner a dump (scuse the vulgarity - but there you go) - later - I bumped into the lead singer of the band. Stupidly I tried to see if he was interested in joining my poshbogs.com enterprise with my fellow wedding party goers (Jay and Sean). Never has a bloke given me such a look of utter aloofness in my whole life. It was like being sneered at by a weller / gallagher combo all in one glance. Brutal real brutal. But he'll be sorry when we hit the big time. I mean - these toilets had carpetted floors for gods sake! Carpet. In a portaloo. It's the future i tell you. The future!

I wander outside and simulate a flying butterfly silhouette against a massive tree in the distance (by cunningly standing next to the giant search light that's been set up for the wedding). Soon - I move on to batman signals - into the night sky. I am pleased with my efforts but am soon railroaded by some younger party boys - from the jackass school of hard knocks and japes. Next thing I know - there's two blokes simulating a certain manouvre Brokeback mountain stylee - and it's being projected and backlit up into the nightsky and a row of 50 foot trees for every party goer to see....Oh god - what have I started? And with that we make our exit.

My job is done here....for another night...

Romans Go Home! Twenty Foot Giant Cub Scout men in dresses and Swiss Yodel mugs...

"One day daddy - will we go into space?" Fintan asks as we watch Dr Who.

"Yes. One day - you and I might even get to go into space for a day trip. But when I'm very old I imagine." (I already have a secret plan to remortgage the house and buy me a Virgin Galactic space ticket - but I haven't mentioned it to the wife yet!).

I warm to my theme. "One day Fintan, everyone on earth will leave in spaceships and journey off to other planets and other stars. 'Cos eventually, the Sun will expand and first it'll eat up Mercury and Mars and then us. So we better be gone by then or it'll get pretty hot!"

I am pleased at my little educational explanation about the way the universe works. I am giving Fintan a solid grounding in Red Dwarfs and interstellar space travel. What more can a kid ask for?

"Daddy...?"

"Yes Fintan." We are busy watching some "playdough" people in Dr Who melt in a Vat of acid.

"Is the Sun going to blow up the earth before or after Jenny's party?"

Oh crap. This educational malarkey has backfired in pretty spectacular style.

"No. Don't worry about it. The earth won't get eaten for millions of years...billions probably and we won't be around then anyway..."

"But where are we going to go Daddy? Where?"

"Well - in our spaceships. Or in the Tardis."

"Daddy. Are you made of Playdough or real?" he asks.

"Ok," I decide. Time to turn off Dr Who. Explaining time and space travel to a five year old is opening up way too many cans of worms for me. I got so many cans - I have a practical can factory.

We resort to the tried and tested favourite. "Monsters!" combined with "Raft". This segues nicely into a game of musical bumps combined with front rolls. Things are going well til Declan attempts a double roll and a single strand of spaghetti from lunchtime comes launching out of his mouth along with some bolognese.

"I sick daddy!" he grins and hands me the strand of spaghetti covered mucus globule.

"Thank you Declan - that's lovely."

We go to see the army of Romans busy camping in the centre of Chester. There's 'fousands of 'em - all over the city. For a supposedly genius Empire - you woulda thought they would have invented woolly trousers for North West England. The short Roman pleated skirt look might be fine when you're busy eating grapes in yer Chaise Lounge in Rome for the summer - or chilling at the Roman baths at Ephesus. But - Chester. No good. And that's probably why they stopped at Hadrian's wall.

"There's no way we are going any fookin' further up North. It's fookin' freezing."

"Centurion. You will go where I command. To the North!"

"Fook that. I forgot my thermals!"

We watch a pretty fiery re-enactment of some Celts bashing the crap out of each other in the amphitheatre. Then we walk over to the main Roman encampment and watch this gnarled looking authentic blacksmith making swords at his Roman Furnace. He's wearing what appears to be a small discarded potato sack. It's indecent enough for familes to start covering their hands over their toddlers eyes. Eighty year old men in potato sacks. 9 out of ten for authenticity. One out of ten for decency. How he doesn't burn his nadgers off - I'll never know!

Overall though - it's pretty cool. All these guys look like they wear this kit out every weekend. Entire families are dressed up.

A Roman Centurion comes up to me. "Have you got the time mate?"

"Yeah. It's one twenty." I tell him.

"Cheers mate. Lads!" He shouts to a gang of Centurions and their wives sitting around a fire. "The re-enactment's in ten minutes."

"Can't wear watches can we? We'd look stupid!" he jokes and wanders off to get his sword and man-sized shield.

What? As oppossed to wearing a red pleated skirt and sandals in the middle of Chester on a Sunday afternoon. Nooo.....don't want to look stupid.

Having said that. As a unit or column or whatever they're called - they look pretty impressive.

I pass a druid lady giving the Romans a right bashing to a group of onlookers (What they ever do for us eh?!).

"We had the written word! We had the written word!" the old druid gal warned us sternly.

"And they knew it! The Romans knew it!" (She's taken this all very personally - all things considered).

"And that's why they marched down to our Island stronghold in Anglesey and destroyed our great library and our great books. To wipe us from History!"

"Is there any evidence of a great Druid Library?" someone in front of me pipes up. He's got a kid in a buggy and looks a reasonable sort. She glares at him.

"Well... No. But I'm sure there was one. There must have been.."

We move on. And I think to myself that I might like to dress up at the weekend and bash the crap out of my mates in mock battles. All I need to do is grow a three foot ginger beard and put on twenty stone and I'm practically a Celtic warlord cum Braveheart extra in one fell swoop! (whatever that means).

We head home and the following day I'm in Switerland again. Switzerland is a nice place. The mountains and the lakes. It really is picture postcard. And they have double decker trains. Double Decker trains rock!

I skype the kids from the hotel. Sarah brings the laptop into the living room. There's Declan grinning back at me sitting on his potty watching the tv.

"Hiya Daddy! Come home!" he says and then turns to get back to business. Skype is truly great. But - it's still hard being away from the little blighters!

At the airport on the way home I am tempted to buy Sarah a yodelling Coffee mug. But - something stops me. I think it is a vision from my future...I am in casualty...the nurse is trying to remove some china shards from my head...Somewhere in the background my wife is talking to the police and saying something about "Yodel that one you stupid eejit!". So I opt for a tolberone instead. Chocolates are much safer!

Today I head into town and take surrepticious delight in finding my book on the bookshelf in Waterstones wedged somewhere between Dave Balcadi and Agatha Christie. Not bad company. I take a photo for my blog. And wait for someone to eject me. There might be rules against taking photo's in bookshops. You just don't know these days.

I pass a twenty foot giant, trundling down the centre of the road. There is a twenty foot Giant Cub Scout with a passing resemblance to Baden Powell (in a dress - what the heck is that about?) immediately behind the first beardy giant. And following up behind are a gang of at least thirty more giants. One looks a bit like Maid Marion and another is in a lovely gold dress.

"Look Fintan! Look!" Giants on the road. Giants!

"I know that Daddy. I know that." He looks at me as if I'm possibly the most embarrassing dad ever.

"I already seen them daddy."

The London Book Fair of Excessive Booze Overload and Train Fire Calamities

"Daddy! Blow Dandelion!"

"Ffffthppppp..." I am covered in a few grams of toddler spittle as we play the amazing new Dandelion game in the garden.

He comes back with more. Thousands more. It occurs to me that the "Blow Dandelion" game shall unleash a further plague upon my garden. But really - you can't get more than there are already. The only thing keeping them at bay are the other weeds - vying for attention. Next week - next week I shall lawnmow. But today - today I shall enjoy some playtime with the kids.

If I reflect on the last 2 months (which kinda explains the lack of blogging time) - I would summarise it as "controlled bedlam". My average out the door time is now somewhere around 05:45am and sometimes I finish work at near midnight. But...and here's the weird thing - I'm loving every minute. Whether I'm half way up a giant silo, standing on top of a really big turbine or whizzing through Crewe - the gateway to everywhere...

Last month we headed down to the London Book Fair to check out what was going down in the book world. Being a dedicated author and all - I took my wife along and we spent a good half an hour checking out the general hubbub of publishers and agents hard at work...and then we went in search of alcohol. Now - the London Book Fair is humungous. I never realised Earl's Court was so big (and had such horrific accoustics). Mice whispering in the farthest corner sound like elephants having an on-musk mating battle to the death. (Which made my impromptu work conference calls the most disastrous telcons in history. It was like talking to someone on Mars using tin cans and string - with ten thousand bees buzzing in your ear).

Either way - they had a Pizza Express inside. I love Pizza. Specially spicy Pizza. And specially red wine, beer and Pizza. And then more beer and my wife's Pizza too when she's not looking.

The queue for lunch is orderly but large. There are about thirty people ahead of us. We wait so long - I think there must be a Pirates of the Caribbean ride at the end of it. We strike up a conversation with the couple in front of us.

"Hello - big queue eh?"

"Yes. It is..." These people aren't overly chatty. They are proper book business people. Everyone eyes up everyone elses label IDs on their shirts. Labels are bad - labels create a pecking order. Luckily my "Tom Arnold - Byker Books - Author" has some vague bargaining power (it doesn't get you a Ferrari or a free back rub or anything - but people spark up a little and open up a little more).

"So what do you do?" I ask the lady.

"I'm an illustrator for children's books," she says.

"Wow - that's cool,"I say. For we have both children and books and I am wondering if she drew anything good or not.

"So - you do anything famous?" I ask. It's probably uncouth but what the hell.

"You know the Gruffalo?" she says.

"Holy cow - you did the Gruffalo? That's the best book ever - our kids love it - and the artwork is just phenomenal - you did that?!"

Sarah has already picked up the signals. Back up back up - mayday mayday - pull out pull out. But I am a bloke and blunder on - gushing about how cool that is.

"No - I was the author's illustrator before the Gruffalo..."

The tumbleweed crosses our path. A dead crow caws above my head and for all the spin I try to put on it - she senses my obvious disappointment. I am a mirror into her soul.

Oh well.. Pizza time!

They bolt for a table and don't even offer a goodbye. Miserable B*stards.

Everyone is young, female and thin....or fat, male, grey haired and old. Many are American.

They all drink mineral water and stare at us in disgust as we order an actual bottle of red wine - on a Monday at lunch in a Pizza Express! Shock and awe! Where was Joanna Lumley when I needed her?! Damn these responsible booky people.

We're having such great fun that we order a few more wines and leave with a spring in our step and 14% pumping through our veins. We chat to many more people and drink the free wine at the Scientologist stand. No-one else is - so we might as well. L Ron Hubbard wrote lot of books. Seriously. He's in the Guinness Book of Records for it!

We get to London Euston at about 5:30 and stare at a blank board. Not a single bloody train is going anywhere. Crap.

"Due to a fire on a train - there are no trains from Euston currently. All trains to the Midlands - please make your way from King's Cross. For Liverpool and Chester Please go to Paddington and take a train to Reading..."

"F*ck off!" I curse the announcer. Has he ever attempted to get to Chester via Reading before? We'd be better off nicking a push buggy, strapping a particularly flatulent weasel to the back of it and making our way under fart power back to the North West than go via Reading.

I decide to ignore their advice (the Vigin train person tells us it will be 4am before we get home via "The Reading Method").

"Let's go to the pub until this whole "fire" thing blows over.

So we sit and wait a few hours and low and behold..things free up again. Nine thousand tired groggy commuters stampede towards a train that holds a few hundred people at best.

As we are pegging it down the councourse - Sarah says to me..."If we get split up I'll meet you on the train..now give me my ticket." Wow - she means business.

It was like something out of the apocalpse or a 1950's Horror movie(or Monday night commuting in London). Random panic...men stampeding over women. Wives leaving husbands - children screaming...

"Sarah! Sarah - where are you?!" I am bolting down the platform in a maelstrom of panicked commuters - whistles are blowing and I've lost my wife. I am having a major dilemma - do I board the train or do I not?

Is she on it...or not. If I leave her behind then I am officially paying for that mistake for the rest of my shortly to be divorced life.

In hindsight - I wish I'd had a chance to shout my "Last of the Mohicans" line at her..."Sarah - where-ever you are...whatever happens...I will find you..." But it's too late for retrospective melodramatics.

So I board and clutter down the train just as we pull away. To find her sitting happily ensconced in her seat texting me...

Men really don't stand a chance do they? We really don't...

Mario Kart 100CC humiliations, sweaty beer drops and the wheel change of lost dignity

It's been a busy month - with mad dashings all over the country and overseas. My planning has been ambitious - resulting in early morning darts at 5am and arrivals back home at midnight. Weary but happy to sink a glass of red wine and kiss the kids goodnight.

This month I was particularly proud of my ability to change a car tyre under pressure. Ten minutes til my conf call and I manage to wrestle the rusted hulk off the car and replace it with the old faithful in the boot. There's a girl in the car park at the office on her mobile phone chatting away as I frantically spin the nuts off and jack the car up (not in that order). For the first few minutes I make a vague attempt to hitch my trousers back up as I bend down and kick the wheel brace repeatedly (the nuts take a while before they budge!). Thinking - "I must save her embarrassment and my dignity".

But eventually the builders butt is out and I don't care. There something strangely liberating about the air whistling between the crack as you carry out dirty, man's work. I would ask that this line is never quoted back to me out of context to wheel changes. Or I guess - it might sound a bit weird. Either way - I was so proud of my wheel changing achievement that I took a picture. Genius! Pure genius. My wife just thinks this further confirms how utterly stupid I am.


Later that week we head off to the Levellers on a Friday night. I meet up with my mate Tree and we reminisce about old times. At one point during "One Way" a few drops of something splash into our pints from the ceiling.

"Ahhh - it's ok Tree - it's just sweat."

The sweat of two thousand crusties jumping up and down until even the ceiling needs to cool down and dump a fine drizzle of rain down on us.

Behind me there's a man wearing a 1993 Levellers t-shirt and waving his walking stick in the air like a crazy man. Elsewhere there are savvy looking kids with dreadlocked, slightly balding dads pogo-ing on the spot and at one point in the night a truly humongous Sumo Sized bloke pogo's through the crowd towards Tree. He has launched his t-shirt in a fit of delirium and is wobbling along to the Riverboat Song with arms flapping wildly in the air and naked belly undulating to the rhythm. At a certain frequency his belly will never be able to stop moving. This is a worry. The worlds first perpetual motion machine locked within a fat scary b*stard. He has seven or eight breasts and at one point I lose line of sight with Tree and fear the worst.

"Man down! Man down! For God Sakes Tree get out of there!"

Tree emerges from the otherside - intact. I look at the missus - Sarah is worried that she has drunk man's sweat in her pint. We swap to red bulls and coke.

At some point in the month I'm in Switzerland. Switzerland is great. I buy a miniature alpine horn for the kids and instantly regret it. Apline horns make a really painful noise when the kids blow it at 6 in the morning. Think VuvuZella - but worse. Pray the world cup never makes it to the Alps!

I buy Sarah a lovely well-thought-out present (a pair of comedy Oven gloves with a Swiss woman in traditional Alpine dress on the front). I have excelled myself - this almost beats my "Steve Irwin - Crikey! Australia Zoo" tea towel I got her on my way back from Brisbane and my "Cowgirls know how to do it Houston style" oven mitt from last year.

Sarah takes it well - I have set a tradition now. Comedy kitchen utensils for my wife. And she was hoping for jewellery and stuff! (Ok - so I get some of that too - or I'd be dead by now!).

Yesterday is a turning point in my life as I accept that my time as the dominant alpha male is over. I must hand over family responsibility to my son. For he now has the dominance within the pride. It goes like this.

"Daddy - I can be Bowser cos he is my favourite and you can be Yoshi".

"Ok - let's go. Hang on a minute - Fintan - why am I in twelth. What's going on here."

"Daddy - it's ok. You're just a bit slow. It's ok though."

"Right - final lap - you're going down now son...here I come...!"

I pray for a lightning bolt or a mushroom but get a sodding green turtle shell. Fintan is in eighth and somehow I am in eleventh. This isn't supposed to happen. Initially I am laughing - thinking - I've been here before - messing about - the tortoise and the hare and all that. But this time the hare has left his sleep for too long. By the time I realise the real danger of losing to my five year old son - it's probably too late.

I'm catching him - I overtake (this is only 100cc by the way - not even 150CC!)and then he mags me - lightning strike and I am splatted and out for the count. Finishing ninth to his eight.

For me - this is a big moment. I am proud of him but he doesn't seem to realise the magnitude of genuinely beating his (slightly inebbriated) dad at Mario kart Wii.

"It's okay daddy - it's the taking part that counts," he tells me - quoting the kids from his after school club. I pray the world will eat me up. Truly a new low has been reached. I lamely defend myself.

"150CC Mushroom Cup - SNES - no-one could beat me Fintan. Serious. It's true. Back in 1994 - I was a legend!"

"Daddy - have you ever played Rainbow Road? I'm very good at that."

"Rainbow Road - I nailed that!...."

Time moves on and I remain planted in it - back in 1994.

Giant Tortoise raisin death, "What's a run?" and Red Bull Dependency...a life in gigging

It's a Monday night and I've got a free pass - so I'm off "gigging" to see "The Streets" in Liverpool. As usual - public transport lets us down at the first hurdle. There is a bus replacement service from Chester to Hooton (where the F*ck is Hooton?!) and then a train into Liverpool. This is crap news for a Monday night and my mate Chris is not impressed.

His track record on public transport is not good.

"Tom - I've only got on a train three times in the last five years and every time it goes wrong." says Chris.

"Yeah - fair enough. There was nothing we could do about the train catching fire last time. That was out of our control..." I say. (This was a Just Jack gig last year).

"And at Christmas - there's nothing you can do about snow like that..." I add.

"I nearly died in that snow. I had to walk 2 miles in snowdrifts above my knees - just to get to the nearest pub in Hooton."

"Aha - so at least you're familiar with Hooton then. So that's good."

Either way - we sit on a bus last serviced in 1937 and chug towards Hooton. And soon we are gig-bound and the night is looking up. We follow a couple of thirty year olds in baseball caps and low-slung jeans up the Lime Street Escalators and bundle in to Ma Eggerton's pub just outside. To say the pub does a disservice to spit and sawdust is an understatement - but I have great affection for it.

We walk into a heated arguement at the bar. "F*ck off alright! I wanted the day off alright?!"

"You F*ck off! What's your problem eh?!"

And that's the bar staff. The bar manager and bar maid are close to a full on cage fight. I seem to remember a similar barney last time I was in here. The locals don't bat an eyelid as the bar maid storms out mid shift.

I order a beer and remind myself not to complain about the head on it. They could serve me a jar of tepid cat p*ss and I'd probably just grin and bear it. This place is proper 'ard.

The Streets delivers a quality set. We nod heads - bob up and down - wave hands in the air and stupidly - very stupdily - I down the entire bar-supply of vodka and red bull during the night. It doesn't quite give me wings - instead I am buzzing all night and wondering for the rest of the week why I seem to have used up my entire back-up of "energy" for the next seven days. Curse the Taurine! Curse it!

Come the weekend I am better. I take the kids to the Zoo and meet up with Chris again. I detour via the Tropical Reptile House for the first time in years. It's cool in there and we run around looking at the wild exotic birds that are allowed to wander freely about you. Declan tries to feed a box of raisins to the giant, near-extinct Galapogos giant turtles and pulls a mini fit when I take that option away from him. (I am not gonna be responsible for killing off the last of a species!).

Later at home we have the annual "cleaning of the car ceremony". It's a bit like the trooping of the colour. A fair deal of pomp and circumstance and tubthumping from me. The first layers of green moss fall away with a quick scrape but some of the meaner looking fungi have had a whole year to take hold and even Fintan's "cloth whiplash technique" fails to budge these hard-core dirts.

"I can't feel my hands daddy...my hands?!" Fintan cries out after an hour or so.

"You'll be fine - just stick them in the bucket again," I advise. But he's beginning to look a bit blue around the edges and it is about one degree outside. But crucially - not snowing or raining.

The day is capped off with England beating France in the rugby. I should savour this moment as mere days later - I am to suffer the great double excruciation of an entire Irish clan of in-laws reminding me that England just lost to Ireland in the Cricket World Cup. And then having to actually explain the Cricket rules to my wife.

"So O'Brien just scored the fastest century in world cup cricket ever - that's pretty amazing..." I tell my lovely Irish wife.

"What's a century?" she says.

"A hundred runs..." I say.

"What's a run?" she asks with genuine curiosity.

At this point I should give up - but I forge ahead. She asks another question.

"So are England Rubbish or are Ireland really good?"

This is very hard to answer - because Cricket is a complicated business and this is also a trap.

"It's complicated. An individual can play very well but the team still loses. You can play for five days and still draw," I tell her.

"But England lost. So Ireland must be better." I can't fault her logic.

I decide it's best to dwell on the Ashes victory instead. Much better.

Sarah checks her facebook and it's awash with Irish friends and family in delighted celebration. One comment reminds us that "cricket is just a protestant version of hurling" and my brother-in-law reminds me that "cricket is for girls".

Later still - Sarah concludes that even if Ireland had just beaten England in a wheelbarrow race - the place would go mad celebrating. And why not - when's the next Wheelbarrow World Cup?

She is very happy. I am mildly grumpy as we go to bed. I dream of wheelbarrows and men in Kilts (weirdly). So perhaps Scotland are next to beat us?

Saucepan wife attacks, Eagle soaring Fox death and "no Lego Disassemble!"

Never on any account attempt to build anything Lego with a hangover. It's way too complicated. The Lego Police Van I was convinced into building with the kids had a twenty one page instruction booklet. Twenty one bloody pages! That's madness.

And when I finished. I still had five parts left over and the bricks on the side didn't line up with the sodding windshield. And then when I turned my back for a split second - all my hard labour is for nothing.

"Fintan. Where's the Police Van gone?"

"I broke it daddy. But you can fix it..."

"BOKEN!" Declan joins in with great animation.

I silently cry to myself. Hours of reassembling the same lego car lay ahead of me.

Later in the week I am in Liverpool with work. We park the car and are wondering whether to leave our laptops and mobiles in the car or take them with us. It's at this point that a man (I swear this is true!) walks down the street with a car door above his head. God knows what's happened to the rest of the car!

"Perhaps we should bring them with us?" we decide.

Mid week and Fintan and I are watching Human Planet. It's incredible viewing. This kid from Mongolia clambers down a rock face to steal a baby eagle from it's nest. Then he heads back to his yurt and trains it up for the next five months to hunt foxes so they can all eat. It's an amazing relationship. Fintan and I sit in wonderment. Fintan and I will never raise an eagle together and ride horses across Mongolian Plains. We shall never sip milk from the teat of a horse or get drunk on fermented yak milk. Hey ho. I can probably live with that. After all - is that kid with the eagle ever gonna sit and watch the entire series of Kung Fu Dino Posse on repeat for an entire weekend? Who's laughing now...?!

So - all is pretty wondrous up until the bit where the majestic young eagle swoops down and has a brutal claw to paw fight to the death with the rather terrified and angry young fox.

"Daddy. But is the fox dead daddy?"

"Er..yes. Remember in the Lion King. The Circle of Life? Well - it's like that isn't it?"

"Yeah - but the fox is ok isn't he?"

"But they ate him Fintan. He's in animal heaven now."

Tears begin to form. And things are looking bad. Oh Crap. Time for a rethink (note to self - never show Fintan Bambi).

"Actually Fintan - I just found out. The Fox is fine. It was a stunt fox for the programme. He's ok."

"Ok daddy. That's good. Cos you don't want to get eaten do you?"

"No - no you don't Fintan!"

He's gonna get a shock when I try to explain what's in Chicken drumsticks. I mean - I have tried - but it just doesn't sink in!

Later still - on Friday night - I decide to wear the kids out by dancing them to death for an hour. I put on Herp Albert (works a treat every time) and the kids do a little circuit where they climb on to the top of the couch and then jump off. This is ambitious stuff for Declan. He narrowly avoids head-butting the corner of the coffee table at least thirty times. Couch jumping is not for the faint-hearted.

Stupidly - I decide to bend over and pick up the rogue Triceratops with the three spikes that I've already trodden on twice today. As I do - Fintan seizes his chance - he's like a WWF wrestler - on me in a flash. Landing a flying pile drive to the neck and hanging on for dear life - using my neck as a grip point.

"MONSTER! Ride the MONSTER ARGHHHHH!" He screams in delight.

"I'm CH..o.k....ING Fintan..." I rasp. But have no option but act like a crazed monster and run around the room as black spots start flashing across my eyes.

I reverse slam dunk Fintan onto the couch and he roars with laughter. In the meantime - Declan has copped on to this new gag and clambers onto the top of the coffee table and makes a daring leap onto my back.

"Monster!" he yells.

Eventually I am brought to my knees. (Actually - this is whilst I am doing my body popping break dance moves on the floor). And I end up with both kids sitting on my back whilst Sarah looks on and laughs.

Which brings me on to my lovely wife. Only yesterday we are in the kitchen and I'm trying to make soup or something for lunch.

For some reason I thought it would be funny to poke Sarah with the spoon I was about to use for my soup.

"This is a great game," I think. So I flick her bum a few times with it and giggle to myself. Now admittedly - I had picked a bad time as she was emptying the dish washer at the time. So perhaps I could have been a bit more constructive.

I get a warning. "Tom. If you don't stop prodding me with that feckin' spoon - I swear I'm gonna hit you with this pan."

I laugh. She's such a joker - I think. I prod her again (this kind of messing is irresistable to all men!). Next thing I know - "Bang" - she's only gone and swung the frying pan at me!

"Arghhhhh!" I wail as I raise my hands in feeble defense!

"I told you! I told you!" And she is laughing and so am I. Thank God it wasn't the Le Creuseut. Or you'd be burying me under that casserole dish!

Later we head into the "secret garden" outside and feed THE DUCK. Half a loaf of bread and only one sodding duck bothers to turn up to be fed. Declan roars at the duck for a while. "BREAD. DUCK! BYE BYE DUCK!" before we head back inside.

Tomorrow is Valentines day - and I am fully prepped - kind of. Well - apart from flowers and stuff. But - where exactly is a bloke supposed to hide flowers for a week before hand? In the car? And - well - this is the really sneaky bit about Valentines Day. They make it so damned early in the year. Before spring has sprung and before you can legitimatley grab a handful of flowers from a neighbours garden. There aren't any snowdrops about anywhere - let alone Roses. Last year was bad enough. I was that man desperately riffling through the crap half dead petrol soaked flowers in the sand buckets at the Shell Garage (in the end I realised that a dead flower from a petrol station was worse than no flowers at all). And the Spar was open so I was saved! This year will be different - I assure you. Honest Sarah - it will!

The hangover of "fecky dog poo" and the lizard of ultimate evil

Friday night - and I'm out for a few beers with the lads from my old work. Two in the morning and I'm regretting my insane decision to leave my coat behind at home. The taxi queue is over two miles long and it's minus four outside. It is a certainty that I will be dead by the time my name is called for my taxi.

So - using my in-built geographical homing instinct (pigeons and men are very alike) - I stagger home. I am preserved from much of the cold by the many precautions I took through-out the night and am greateful for the large numbers of beers that insulate my body from the cold.

I creep in the door of the house - careful not to wake the kids. I make myself some marmite and toast - again careful not to wake anyone.

Then I stumble up the stairs and tip-toe into the bedroom, turn on the light - remember to turn the light back off because it's the middle of the night and attempt to creep to the bathroom by feeling along the wall until I come across it.

At this point Sarah is wide awake and for some weird reason - not as excited about the night out as I am.

I wake the next day feeling like a herd of bull elephants just trampled on my head. So - I know exactly what to do.

I raid the freezer for provisions. Cornetto - check. Orange fruit lolly check. I crawl back up the stairs to bed and for the brief seconds that they last - the hangover is at bay. This is stage one of many stages on the road to hangover recovery.

Stage two - ibuprofen.

Stage 3 - bacon eggs and toast. We are out of bacon so this is a bit of a calamity.

Somehow I am in charge of Declan for a few hours as Sarah and Fintan are off to the airport to collect nana. At this moment in time - Declan probably has more brain function and working cells that I do. After an hour of reading Thomas the Tank engine stories I am done in. Percy is doing my nut in. We watch Charlie and lola but I find it too stressful. There is a space party Lola wants to go to - but she already has other commitments. This is a serious moral dilemma and I don't know how the storymakers are gonna resolve this one. Either way - it is too much stress so early in the day. So I flick on the news and watch people rioting in Egypt. Hmmm - this is fairly stressful too.

So Fintan comes back and we play football in the frozen wasteland that is our garden.

"My hands are cold Fintan. Can we go in now?" I plead.

"Put your hand in your pocket daddy."

"Ok."

"Can we play with the waterguns daddy?"

"No - it's like minus twenty out here. Even the canal has frozen over." I tell him.

"Please...Pleeeeease daddy."

"No."

Five minutes later and after a nightmarish Mexican standoff - I am trying to de-ice a pump action watergun Fintan has found beneathe a tonne of decaying leaves.

Later still - I find myself attempting to stem the gag reflex as I hold Declan's tiny shoes in front of me.

"I wish people would clear up after their fecky dogs!" says nana.

"So do I! I spend every weekend cleaning dog crap off the buggy or the kids shoes!"

So yet again I am outside with a boiling kettle full of water and a clump of kitchen towel. Scraping a wodge of dog crap off of Declan's shoes. This is turning into a hangover of brutal proportions.

We finish the day by heading off to see The King's Speech. I wasn't expecting much - but it's really good. People even clap in the cinema when it's over. And the last time I heard people do that - it was 1984 and Ghostbusters was on at the Odeon in Bromley.

Sunday - and we head to the Zoo. We pull up and about thirty seconds later - Chris and Sarah and their gaggle of little ones pull up a few cars down. How random is that?

We wander round the zoo - where I am mainly astounded at how hairy the male urangutans are. They need a haircut - seriously - one of them looks like chewbacca crossbred with a red setter. But they are immense. And pretty cool.

But it's the monitor lizard who looks the most deadly today. He gives Declan and I the evil eye and looks ready to take a bite out of us - if only that damned protective glass wasn't in the way. His eyeballs keep on focusing in and out and eyeing me up. And his nose is right up against the glass - as is mine.

Then it's off to the batcave and home.

On the way home - nana asks a very probing question that leaves the whole family stumped.

"Why are there no Yellow Ducks?"

She's right - we have a bath tub filled with various yellow ducks of random size - but when was the last time you ever saw one? Yellow chicks - yes - but yellow ducks? Someone out there must know - someone!

And on that note we drive out of the zoo - past the noah's ark at the entrance and home.

"Bye bye Arthur's boat..." says Fintan.

"Bye Bye rhino!" says Declan.

Bye bye indeed.

Chicken Tikka spicy breakfast curries and my transmogrication into the ultimate DIY couch potato

It's been a great start to the New Year. I'm working for myself - free from the shackles of corporate evildom. I shall be a benign and fair boss. Like Solomon - wise beyond my years and my door always open for a friendly chat.

I start as I mean to go on. And early in the New Year I head down to Staples and buy a comfy chair for my office.

"Do you want us to assemble it for you? - it's only a fiver?" a nice lady asks me.

"No...no...I think I can manage it..." I chuckle. What does she take me for - some sort of DIY neanderthal?

And then I think of the bouts of swearing and cursing that will follow. The frantic search for the lost Alum key - the kids running off with the crucial screw at the crucial moment.

So I change my mind. I choose a particularly fine lazyboy chair in the show-room and sit back with my ipod on full volume. I listen to icelandic warblings courtesy of Sigur Ros and look over to the man from the Staples backroom who is busy assembling the chair on the shop floor in front of me.

This is actually fantastic fun. Every now and again I offer him helpful pointers like I'm some sort of DIY expert who regularly builds small outhouses and log cabins in his spare time. And if it wasn't for my pesky back - gone again - of course I'd assemble it myself.

"Yeah - those bits are always a bit fiddly aren't they?" I encourage him as he grunts and grumbles to himself.

There is definitely great satisfaction in sitting back watching someone else labour for your benefit.

And at a fiver - it's fairly good value entertainment. I might just head to Ikea to watch someone assemble an overly complicated flatpack bathroom.

Meanwhile - back at super crazy madhouse mansions (AKA "home"). Things get off to a good start this morning.

Sarah is getting her haircut and I'm in charge of the kids. I get them dressed and feed them breakfast whilst I tuck into a hearty meal of last night's reheated Chicken Tikka masala on toast - with cheese spread and ketchup.

This seemed like a good idea at the time but minutes later I'm drinking a litre of milk straight from the carton and pumping sweat furiously.

A few milliseconds later I'm on the toilet reassessing my choice of breakfast, when in charges Fintan. He's worked out that if he rattles the bathroom door until it falls off his hinges then he can get in.

He's holding an etch-a-sketch.

"Daddy Daddy daddy - look! Look! I've drawn four dinosaurs. But which have the same tails? Which ones daddy?"

"Fintan...Fintan... jesus Fintan...I'm sitting on the toilet. Fintan. Can this wait a minute?"

"Er...no daddy. Which one? Which one?"

"I dunno I dunno...that one?" I point wildly at the red squiggle with the big teeth in the corner.

"No daddy - look again!...It's that one," he whispers to me.

And then his brother wades in...

"Bottle daddy? Bottle?" he grins at me and waves an empty bottle in my face.

"Guys Guys Guys! Will you please let me just go for a crap in peace!" I tell them.

Declan promptly sits down as if in protest and claims the bathroom for his own. No one ever told me about this before I had kids. No-one. Where is this in the rulebook?

Finally - finally I realise that nothing is sacred - nothing is holy. Nothing and no place is safe from the avenging marauding masses of the children. They can morph through walls, snap CD's in two at a moments notice. Smash bowls randomly against the kitchen floor and turn lights on and off until all the fuses in the house blow and we are plunged into darkness.

So we head to Shrek Forever After at the cinema and the kids and I gorge on a sugar high of epic proportions. This is heroin for kids - a nose bag fulla cola bottles and jelly babies and pink shrimps. I find myself strangely moved by the final scenes of Shrek. It's like an Ogre based fairy tale remake of "A Wonderful Life".

I look at the kids and remind myself to enjoy these moments with them. Before it's too late. Although - it would be good if I could promote my book more, finish the sequel, win a few more work contracts and take over the world. But for the moment I am content with this. More than content.

I break away from Lego Star Wars on the PS2 to write this blog. Fintan is telling me:

"Calm down dad. Calm down dad. If you calm down you can do it." During a particularly challenging scene. Role reversal has finally set in. I find myself roaring at the tv and cursing the bloody game as I take the controls fully off Fintan and try to complete the mission. In the end I hand them back and Fintan completes it on his own.

Humiliating or have I created a child prodigy?

My wife already knows the answer...you're a feckin' eejit. That's what it is!