Hug a tree, drink from the damned gravy boat and grow a mullet

Phrases I never thought I'd say until Lockdown:

"I think I have a mullet"

"I'm too hung-over to risk the chainsaw today... or this week"

"I've started drinking from the Gravy Boat - and I don't care who see's me!"

"I miss licking the whisk...I really missed that"

"Caitlin come quick - your friend is here...in a canoe!"

"Pass me the feather duster"

"What the hell is an integer?"

"What's Kaboodle?"

"MyMaths is shit"

"If you're going to rollerskate in the house - you need to wear a bike helmet"

"Daisy - stop licking my feet!"

"Are you still eating roadkill then Paddy?"

"What does Squirrel taste like?"

"No...I don't know the name of the bar in Deep Space 9"

"You are sooo Joe Exotic"

So - apart from the general collapse of the world economy and all our jobs being on their arses.  This has been a good time for birds (well - except for chickens. Chickens always get a raw deal. Specially on a Sunday in our house).

 So far, I've been leaving bird seed and some out of date porridge oats outside for 7 weeks now.  They're not big fans of the oats, but the rest is going down a hoot.  I've taken my bird feeding to a second level and have invested in a massive bag of "Fat Balls" which is apparently like crystal meth for our avian friends.  My next step is to buy a heavy duty catapult so I can see off the magpies on a permanent basis.  They are no friend to any other bird.  My life literally consists of working in my small office and staring out the window at - you guessed it - the birds.  Sometimes a delivery man arrives.  At least this provides the dog with a purpose.

Last week - we had crap sleep.  Three in the morning. The dog somehow breaks out the kitchen (I suspect she has retractable opposable thumbs) and is going batshit crazy.  Barking and howling at the front door.

I am too tired to pick up any weaponry and instead stumble down the stairs to confront any attacker. I turn on the outdoor light and spot a fat smug-looking fox sitting by our car.
Daisy - get in your basket! I order her.  She carries on barking.

The next night.  About 2 in the morning.  "Wooooo wooooooo wooooo!!!"

Full volume fire alarm is going mental in the kitchen.  Daisy appears totally unphased (I suspect she has moulded some carrots into rudimentary ear plugs and is sleeping through the whole kerfuffle).

It takes me a few minutes to unscrew the alarm from the wall and rip out the battery.  There is no fire.  But there is a faulty alarm. This makes me mad.  It never went off on the previous seven hundred occasions that I genuinely burnt the toast or set fire to the grill with the extra fatty bacon in it.  It just bided it's time and waited...waited hundreds of days, thousands of minutes to strike.  What a bastard.

I binned him the next morning (despite the warranty still being valid I might add!).

I can tell this lockdown is getting to me.  I'm lowering my standards - and they were excessively low in the first place.  I mean - I've eaten pizza that has already been put in the bin.  I've reheated Chinese take-away 4 days later and thought nothing of it.

However, I've always drawn the line at drinking from the gravy boat. There is something sacred and sacrosanct about the Sunday dinner.  We still lay out the placemats which great grandad gave to me many years past (maritime themed pictures of epic naval battles).  The image of HMS Victory is the most prized placemat.  Although I have a secret fondness for the Temeraire - The Fighting Temeraire no less.

Anyway, we've enjoyed the Roast Beef, roasties cooked to perfection and the tenderstem broccoli.  We've saved the near tragedy that was the slightly char-grilled home-made Yorkshire puds and washed it all down with some Cote Du Rhone and Frank Sinatra in the back ground.

As we tidy up, I carry the white gravy boat with the thick as treacle-just-the-way-I-like-it gravy back to the sink.  The sink where it usually gets washed away down the drain (where Daisy then heads outside to lick directly from the drain). I am careful to make sure the coast is clear before I take an almighty slug straight from the boat.  Now - don't judge me.  There is no greater hidden pleasure than drinking straight from a piping hot gravy jug.  I can tell you...right up until Caitlin walks in and catches me mid slurp.

"DAD! What are you doing!"

"I will deny everything Caitlin.  There is no need to take this any further.  This is between you and me..."

"MUM! Dad's drinking from the gravy boat! It's disgusting!"

"I'm being food economical.  We can't waste anything in the lockdown!" I tell the family.

I feel slightly ashamed but also slightly liberated.  Try it.

Meanwhile - we are now becoming zoom pub quiz legends. Meeting up with friends on Friday's and Saturdays for grown ups and kids quizzes still.  It's great to catch up - even with the 40 minute break on zoom before redialling back in (obviously no-one actually pays for the service do they?).

And during the week - and in between the shed-tonne of kids school work - the children are baking Victoria Sponge cakes, Banana bread and heavenly treats with their Auntie Karina.  Wow - they taste amazing.

On Saturday we do our 5K hour exercise for the day in our hockey tops so the club can post all the pics online.  I pick a new route for us that brings us into Chester, past Eastgate Clock then left at the Cross and down to the Bear and Billet and the river.  Back via the Grosvenor park.

It is so strange, seeing a high street shuttered down.  Each with their little A4 Covid-19 sign letting everyone know they are definitely shut (like we'd been hibernating on Jupiter for the last few months).  I wonder how the hell the restaurants and pubs will ever get round to opening. I pass each one and reflect on fond memories - but mainly long held grudges.  Why do the bad memories stick when the good ones fade?

Hello sweet Nando's  - where it took nearly 2 hours (with a crying baby!) to feed us once.  Hello The Falcon - where the locals tried to attack us on a work night out many many years ago.  Hello Cross Foxes where my friend Jon was the chef and we would meet with the babies and sit in the no smoking section and feel like bad parents!

But strikingly - I find that I am looking up at the sky and the buildings a lot more now.  Some of these old buildings are magnificent. They are still here - five hundred years later.  So I imagine there will be shops and bars and gatherings in them five hundred years from now and this will be but a footnote in history.

The walk is invigorating.  Caitlin runs free through the park.  Arms behind her like a Spitfire.  Like Captain Tom's spitfires on his 100th.  The boys climb trees in a rolling pincer movement through the park.  I even hug one.  It's actually quite rewarding and cathartic.  That and the gravy boat - don't knock it till you try.

Quarantine Holiday - My wife was blonde but now she's brown...

Well - this week I was determined to be a little more creative and bond the family together.  Like a hybrid of the Von Trapps meeting a bunch of dysfunctional hillbillies somewhere just outside of Mold.

Armed with only red wine, some Doom Bar and no parental talent whatsoever. I reworked (destroyed) the Oasis and the Royle Family theme tune.

Have to say - really enjoyed it.  Those especially hard of hearing will get the most out of this.

The full album lockdown medley is surely only months away...

The week in which we had to race to Hospital, draw Rainbows and Tigers work out how to beat the Covid19 testing queue

So what have we learnt this week?  Day 7 of lockdown and we have reached a serious turning point.  Not only has Caitlin's fever been 39 plus for over a week and a nasty choking cough has developed.  We are down to our last two bottles of red wine in the house and we are in lockdown. We have also learnt that kids are great at painting rainbows and Australian Astrophysicist's are inherently stupid and prone to sticking magnets up their nostrils.

I spend 3 hours on Saturday night devising a fiendishly intelligent virtual pub quiz for later.  My kids round of questions goes down ok (I mean - surely everyone knows the name of the dog in Annie?).  However, apparently not everyone makes the connection between Back to the Future and Horatio Nelson.  Admittedly, it's a tenuous link.  But surely everyone knows the date of the Battle of Trafalgar and the date plugged into Doc Brown's DeLorean?  Sarah calls me a "Feckin' Eejit" at least twenty times.

By ten at night the families on the virtual pub quiz agree that all question setting duties are taken away from me.

My sports questions equally hit a brick wall.  I thought everyone was familiar with classic channel 4 sport Kabadi?  Although the first sending off in the FA Cup final is met with hazy reminisces from past cup finals of our childhoods.  I still remember that Normal Whiteside goal. Same match I think.

Next morning is strange.  Normally I would be randomly shouting this at the kids:

"Where's your bloody gumshield?!"

"Kids - where are your shorts?"

"Fintan - where's you stick bag?"

"We are leaving in 2 minutes!!! 2 minutes!!!"

To which the reply would be total silence mixed with possibly faint groans of acknowledgement.

But today.  There is no hockey.  It's weird.  Not moving.  Not being able to move. And this is from someone who has been borderline fat bastard for about twenty years now.  Squash and hockey are the only things that vaguely kept me active - and I miss my post match pint in the pub after (for hydration purposes only).

I receive a call from Aussie Steve (he was on the Zoom pub quiz the night before and knows how precarious our wine situation is).

"Hey Tom, you want me to swing by with some cordial for the kids and some wine for you guys? I can come round now or later?"

"You are a life saver mate. Is it okay if we wait 'til this afternoon.  It'll give the kids something to look forward to".

Life in isolation, without direct human contact with other humans is just downright bizarre. Hats off to Robinson Crusoe and Tom Hanks. Although Hanks did end up making friends with a Basketball.  I assume if was plutonic or perhaps there was an X-rated version out there.  One where Hanks takes it to the next level with Wilson.  Once you've held that cuddly naked little ball in your hands and played on the beach with it for months on end.  Things are bound to head that way. How else did it stay inflated all those years?

So later on Sunday afternoon. Steve, Lou and their kids arrive and stand at the end of our drive with the wine and cordial deliveries.  They break the news that there is no Diet Coke left in the whole of Christendom to Sarah (Sarah cries small ickle carbonated cola tears in her grief) but deliver the red stuff (Boom!).

The boys come out and then quickly race back inside for a football.  The two families kick a ball on the grass between us for five minutes.  At one point the ball falls short.  In no-mans land.  Stuck neither 2 metres here nor there.  It reminds me of the scene in McCartney's Pipes of Peace video when the Germans and British troops hop out of the trenches and play footie.  Strangely, its quite emotional and odd, the notion of kicking something as simple as a ball between friends.

Declan tries to pick the ball up and throw it to the kids.

"Nooo!" we warn him.  We don't want to give them the virus.  It is pretty clear now that Caitlin has it.  She is not great and her cough and sputtering is getting worse.

I continue to work from home which is great and keeps a sense of rhythm to the week and pays the bills!  But the pressure is immense when you are worried about your child as well.  But like everyone, we just have to keep heading onwards.

Day 11 and Caitlin has a terrible night of coughing, sputtering and fever.

"That's it. We are calling 111,"I say in the morning and Sarah fully agrees.  We don't want to be a burden on the NHS but this is day 11 and she is not getting any better.

We dial and wait in the queue.  Eventually we are assessed, then assessed again.  Then we are told to make a Doctor's appointment (which we duly do).

"Has your child been diagnosed with Covid19?"

"No - we're in self isolation and unless you happen to be Prince Bloody Charles or a feckin' Tiger in Brooklyn you can't get a test for love nor money!"

I mean how the feckin' hell can they be testing Big Cats in New York Zoo's whilst there are Doctors and Nurses on the frontline waiting for vital tests?

However as Sarah points out.  "They're an endangered species....and sadly humans and Caitlin is not."

So unless anyone is thinking of adopting a pet liger at home, can we focus on the human to human transmission (And I love the Big Cats as much as the next guy).

The doc assesses us and then calls Paediatrics at the Countess of Chester and we're told to come in.  Aunty Deborah had also done a facetime medical assessment for us, so I was hoping we were ok to stay put (Doctor Deborah is very clever).  But I guess they need to observe her directly now.

We peg it to the hospital in the Nissan (the bloody new Skoda lies dead on the driveway and we couldn't get anyone to fix it whilst in isolation).  Ahh the irony.

The roads are 28 days later empty. They are Royal wedding empty.  Christmas Day empty.  They are Covid19 empty.

I am in a slight daze.  My brain registers the yellow speed camera.  It flashes at me.  I thought I was doing the speed limit.  But maybe a few miles above.  I pass that camera almost every day but fear and panic does strange things to you.

I race into the hospital and we find the Covid19 entrance for children.  I park in the yellow hatches with the big sign saying no parking and wonder if I'll get another ticket (the yellow sign tells me this is so).  But hope there is lee-way for these abnormal emergencies.  Today is not normal.  For anyone.

I kiss Caitlin and Sarah goodbye and send them into the ward whilst me and the boys head home and wait.

We pass the time by watching Mindhorn on the BBC. If you like stupid.  You'll love this  Any show with a lead hero with a bionic "Eye of Truth" and comedy cameo's from Sir Kenneth Branagh and Simon Callow gets my vote.  Did you know Simon Callow - the guy who died in his kilt in four weddings - went to the same Pimlico school as my mum.  Apparently they kissed once.  Which always surprised me as I think he's married to a man. We have a much needed dose of genuine laughter.  It takes my mind off things whilst Caitlin is having bloods and being generally prodded.  Blimey those medics are brave!

Eventually she is checked out, they are treating her as if she has the virus.  But as I say, unless you are Royal or a Big Cat there is zero chance of a test.  Her breathing is ok and I collect them later that night.  We are mentally wiped out.  What a night.

I ditch my usual after work cycle and we have a drink.

By the weekend, Caitlin is improving.  I am so happy.  In celebration I start to clear the woods by the canal and begin to burn all the old deadwood out there so we can clear a space.  Daisy keeps me company and barks across the canal at the passing dogs and their walkers.

I spot a couple with a grey dog and a kid in a buggy.  So far, so lovely.  They are throwing bread for the ducks. Again.  A nice gesture in these times.  I prod the firedrum with my new found "fire stick" and watch as they repeatedly throw bread at this strange floaty upside-down fluffy clump.  They move on after a while with their baby.

I look out to the canal and spot a dead duck, it's white belly floating upwards and some guts spilling out.  It's head is clearly underwater and it's apparent it's not playing peek-a-boo with any of its mates.  This duck is no more.  It is a dead duck.  It's tiny little orange feet are sticking out, Rigor Mortis style.

How the feck did that family not notice they were feeding a dead duck?  Maybe they did and this is the new zombie norm?

We order a Chinese take-away of the night and I am gutted that despite the tastiness of the meal (it is glorious in all its fatty co-agulated chemical glory).  But there is no quarter crispy duck left on the menu.

I rue the chance on the canal...maybe there's still time to grab that little blighter and mix him with some sweet little celery and hoisin...maybe...

Here's Caitlin's latest rainbow...

Lockdown-Aggeddon, Missing teeth and Mission "Hide the Roots" - A Strange Mad Max vision of the Present

Last week started fairly normally considering the entire planet has gone into total Corona-virus implosion quarantine.

Rest of the planet they're shutting schools, pubs and businesses.  In good old blighty we're still sending our kids off to school, playing our hockey matches, heading to work.  We're a little bit jittery cos the football has been temporarily shutdown - but this could just be a giant Everton conspiracy to wind up the Liverpool fans.  That's where my money is at.

Still - Declan has his birthday party.  9 kids bouncing around a giant trampoline park.  They literally hand out plaster casts at the front door here but miraculously none of the kids we are responsible for get injured...there.

We ferry them all home and they go berserk.  One of the lads hands Sarah his tooth and this is early doors - not even 9 o'clock.  I take the night watch and make it to about 1.30 before finally losing the will to live and running out of beer and wine! (Responsible parenting at its best!).  I start the kids off with the new version of the Lion King (so dull) but quickly lose the room and regroup with Godzilla.  I read them the riot act and head to bed.

I wake at 4.30 in the morning to the sound of 9 crazed 11 year olds "creeping" into the kitchen for midnight rations.

I bounce down the stairs, vaguely awake and prepare my best "angry dad" voice.

"What the feck is going on here guys! No Way!"

"We've not had any sleep. No sleep at all!" they all tell me.  Eyes wide and buzzing like Jack Nicholson when he sticks his head through that door with his axe.

I can believe this.  I stare at the pillow I genuinely find stuck in the lights in the conservatory.  It is carnage.  I leave the pillow hanging sadly from the lights.

I go back to bed.  Wake up at 8 and make them all a massive round of bacon butties. As they are leaving, one of the lads pipes up.

"I had a nose-bleed in the night. Do you wanna see it.  It's on my phone."

So Sarah and I review the evidence which clearly shows 9 kids battering seven bells out of each other with pillows, pool cues and any other weapon that came to hand.  It's like watching an amateur WWE match.  Brutal but strangely compelling.

Bye kids.  We wave them off one by one.  Not quite realising that social distancing is only a day away.  Followed by the bombshell on Thursday that school was shutting.  Basically forever.

"Don't worry kids.  It'll only be for a week I reckon." I say with the wisdom of a total incompetent moron.

Boris goes and blows it out the water and takes us all by surprise. No exams.  No more school.  Just like that?!  Suddenly, the world gets a little smaller and a lot more serious. Holy crap.

Never mind the run on the bog roll.  I can easily go native.  There's plenty of space to dig a hole in the garden and start using up all those dock leaves.  But I am distinctly worried that my marmite supply might be hit hard by this pandemic.  Although - I could possibly combine the two and find a corner in the market?

I buy an emergency 250g of the black yeasty stuff and rest easy. I can survive this head-on now.

I wander round Debenhams on my way home.  Curiosity, nostalgia and a strange and terrifying mission getting the best of me as they dismantle all the perfume stalls and pack everything away.  Note to everyone - I don't make a habit of loitering around perfume counters in Debenhams.  But I have been sent on possibly the most important mission of this entire pandemic.  My mission is to buy blonde highlights.  Never has one man been so out of place in such a task.  Stupidly, I ask a man to help me. He is scared.  I see it in his eyes. Eventually I realise I am in the wrong shop.  I have to facetime Sarah to navigate this dangerous hair path.  I buy three packets of hair dye and highlights in a variety of colours.

It feels quite spooky in Debenhams.  Like a twisted version of Home Alone or Elf in the department store.  It is possible that pandemics feel more joyful at Christmas?

I am the only one in there. It is Sunday and Armageddon approaches.  I am so disorientated that I actually walk down the up escalators and nearly kill myself in the act.  I carry alcohol gel with me and use it liberally.

Then on Monday, it all changes.

"I'm 2000 in the queue," says the missus. This is after all, Day 1, of the Bojo Lockdown.  We were already ahead of the curve by an hour with Caitlin falling sick with a fever.  But - even 1 hour feels a long time when you can't go outside.

"What queue?" I ask.  I can't see any great queue's forming down our eerily silent street. Except for the bloke who just rocked up in a clapped out red motor carrying a laminated sign.  (Turns out he's closing our playground down on orders of the government).

"The queue to get an online delivery next week!" Sarah seems pretty determined to ensure a supply of bread, milk and red wine for my cornflakes.

We have a chat.  I tell her we have enough noodles with curry powder to feed a small battalion for an entire Winter campaign during the Napoleonic war.  (This is where my Brexit stash from the garage is really coming into its own.  It's now been relabelled as a Corona-stash).

By the time we umm and ahhh, the decision is taken out of our hands.

"Damn," she says.  We missed our slot in the queue.  We're now 21,000 in the queue.

Hmmm.  This thing is turning serious.  But I am not as yet overly worried.  We live by a canal.  I have seen people fishing in this canal.  Mainly there's these kids who fish for metal.  But there are also real fishermen. The kind that wear commando khaki and have a giant tub of wriggling maggots and a twenty foot pole (no pun intended). I can easily turn my hand to fishing? And I can easily divert part of the canal and set up some sort of water wheel to make fresh bread (anyone know how you make bread?).

The metal fishers are better though.  They've dragged out about 3 bikes along our stretch and further down towards the Cheshire Cat Pub they lobbed in their giant magnet on a rope and dredged up a grenade.  A bloody grenade! I secretly think they love dredging up old second world war weaponry.  But it must be really pissing off the local bomb squad. This happens every few months.

Day 5 of lockdown and Caitlin's fever. Last night was a real doozy.  Caitlin's fever was 39 plus and her hacking cough took a nasty turn.  She kept doing these really scary chokes - as if she had a chicken bone caught in her throat.  Holy crap - I don't think I slept at all with worry.  I picked her up and plonked her in our bed and mainly checked her temperature and felt totally useless.  Luckily she had Pikachu with her.  I have never met anyone with such a Pokemon obsession.   Did you know that Pokémon stands for Pocket Monsters?  Ahhhh - so many wonderful life-enriching pointless facts about those fun-loving guys.

I'll keep you posted on how Caitlin is going, but I know there are many many people out there in the same boat.  We just need to be sensible and keep positive. The NHS are doing an ace job.

In the meantime, I have a serious fear that by the end of this my BMI will have hit treble figures (is that humanly possible?).  I will literally be a giant fatberg held together loosely by cheese, marmite, beans, gama ray beer, shiraz and possibly the dog.  The longer this thing goes on - the more likely it will head South by June.

If this happens, I am prepared to cook Daisy.  Her usefulness teeters on her ability to provide a day pass through these months in terms of outdoor dog walking.  If not, she's a gonner.  I nearly took her to the local kebab house last week when she ate the bloody candles off Fintan's birthday cake.  I wouldn't mind but she puked them out a minute later. Bright pink and white vom all over my dining room.  What a twat that dog is.  Honestly.  Total twat.

Bet she tastes good in a bun though!

This is Caitlin's Thank You to all the hard working Key Workers out there - now on our front door!  Thanks everyone!!!

The mysterious case of Crazy Daisy, the Giant six foot pirate parrot, the "armoured dildo" and the missing snowglobe

I'm standing in the kitchen with Fintan. School bags dropped on the floor and a trail of school related items lying strewn across the hallway.

"So Dad, today in school "Bob" (name changed to protect school kid's identity!) asked me - "What's a dildo?"

I stare at Fintan, nearly spitting out the tea I'm drinking. He stares at me with innocent puppy dog eyes. I am his dad - of course I will be knowledgeable and wise on such matters. I do my best to keep a straight face and sus this whole conversation out.

"Why do you ask Fintan?"

By this point, Declan and Caitlin have come into the kitchen - sticking to me like limpets and keen to know what great revelation will be uttered from my lips.

Fintan continued..."Well - we were in school in the playground and it came up. "Philamena" (sic - name change!) said she'd seen one on an Argos ad"

The tea goes down my windpipe into my lungs. I choke a little.

"Yeah," said Fintan as he warms to the topic..."Ralph (name change!) said he thought it was a small animal that curls up and lives in the desert. I told him he was wrong. That's an Armadildo. A mini Armadildo...I saw it on Planet Earth once."

I breathe a sigh of relief. My lungs gurgle with PG tips, "Yes Fintan - you're exactly right - a Dildo is short for the Armadildo. They live in South America. Relative of the pangolin I believe.." And lo I dodge another bullet and continue my half arsed easy on the truth sexual education of the kids.


It would be an understatement to say that this year has been a breeze. It has been intensely busy and stressful at times. I'll give you an insight into why...

It's January, it's bloody freezing and we're driving out towards some big house in the countryside which has a giant tree wizard guarding the entrance. See below if you don't believe me!

We get buzzed in and stick our shoes in some sort of anti-septic footwash. Later I wonder why you'd bother since dogs pretty much eat other dogs poo constantly! However, we stick our shoes in the footbath and coo at the cute little half blind fuzzballs mewing about us.

I already had strong advice that once you visit a puppy seller it would be easier to cut off your right testicle than leave without one and in so doing - destroy the fragile hearts of your children. I however, did not feel the need for a right testes and was pretty adamant that I could weather this puppy storm. I was a man, leader of my family, hunter, gatherer, confident in all I surveyed and master of all. I for one, would never waver.

"Kids - we are not getting a dog. No way. We're just looking at them. I am not walking a dog and cleaning up dog crap for the next 15 years of my life. I've only just got you guys out of nappies. Not gonna happen". I draw the line in the sand.

"Awww daddy, they are so cute. They are just like the puppies in Paw patrol..." Caitlin is already deeply in love with all of them and hoping to smuggle a few of the canine blighters out in her coat.

"That's good Caitlin. But we are NOT getting a dog. Understand?"

The boys start holding a few dogs. Sarah has a few she is "testing" out. I stand back. The walls are closing in, there are dogs closing in on me from all angles. I'm beginning to panic.

I stand back. Holding ground. Wave after wave of puppy cuteness attacks me as they bring out a few more from different litters.

I spy a white and patchy brown fluffball in the hands of a young (human) mum (literally - this is the equivalent of a dog catwalk (can dogs go on a catwalk?).

The fluffball catches my eye. Oh God. Don't do it, I think inside my mind. But my mind is a simple thing and easy enough for a 5 year old to read.

"Aww daddy, we should get this one..." and I have to admit - I am rather taken with this one. Oh crap. Where's my resolve. No! They warned me about this at work. Visiting a puppy litter is the exact equivalent of shooting up pure heroin. No one can escape from its clutches.

"We'll take this one..." I say as I pop my debit card into the reader. Such is the puppy effect that grown men don't even ask the basic question, like, how much is the seemingly cute ball of fur going to cost me?"

We pick up our new family addition - a week later. There is much crying in the kitchen when we go to bed (Sarah is quite attached to her!) and after much discussion. Princess Leia is narrowly outvoted and the dog is now "DAISY" in honour of the Daisy that has gone before her.

Daisy is a mentler. If she were a human, she would be kept away from sharp knives and given a nice safe padded room to live in.

So far, Daisy has eaten the following:

1. Caitlin's glass (yes that's right - glass!) snow globe.
2. The shoe rack.
3. The newspaper stand.
4. The carpet.
5. The shoes that were in the shoe rack.
6. All of Caitlin's slippers
7. All of Caitlin's gloves
8. The cleaners new shoes
9. Every newspaper I wanted to read
10. Alot of Cadbury's creme eggs.
11. My Olive trees and every plant I ever planted in the garden - literally - EVER!

Which brings me on to my next gripe. It's 10 at night. I've had a glass of red. I am content at last, but I've had to work at this contentment. Puppy training is tough. I have so far this day, walked barefoot into a puddle of dog piss at 7 in the morning and then cleaned it up with a newspaper (note to self - newspapers don't absorb dog piss - they just spread it). I have gotten up at 4 in the morning cursing the name "Daisy" in so many wrong and unrepeatable variations that only a sinful soul headed for hell would know such curses. I have stood outside in the sleet in minus 1 degrees in my boxer shorts and t-shirt asking a small puppy dog to "wee wee Daisy, wee wee!" in a really encouraging manner, so that I can go back inside and reheat my balls from where they have relocated themselves directly inside my stomach cavity. New note to self: NEVER GET A DOG IN WINTER!

We got the kids some Cadbury's eggs for after dinner. It's nearly Easter, after all. We come back into the living room and if dog's could smile. This dog would be grinning from cheek to cheek. It's had the bloody egg!

Now apparently - chocolate and grapes are like Dog Kryptonite. They can be pretty deadly. She ate the bloody foil as well. Shiny dog poo here we come! (which reminds me of the time Caitlin ate the glitter stick!). A day later we had the prettiest pampers nappy I ever changed in my life! Glitter poo...takes the edge off even the most hideous tasks!

So I say to Sarah "it's ok - our old dog Maisie was always eating chocolate. One time - she climbed onto the piano to eat my sisters Easter egg. The dog seemed ok."

But no. These days - apparently it's certain death for a dog to even look at a Mars bar. And god forbid they eat a pack of Rollo's and then lick your Argentinian Malbec directly from the wine glass (did I mention she also did that?).

I go online, there's actually a fairly widely used "how much chocolate actually kills me dog" calculator within a second of typing it into google. We have Daisy's weight, I go online and find out the weight of Cadbury's creme eggs and away we go. She is in the safe zone.

But no...Sarah is still worried. This is her new baby.

"Let's call the out of hours vet..." she tentatively asks.

"No way...!" this will only end with a very large bill and dog vomit everywhere. I never paid to get my stomach pumped - let alone a bloody dog's!

All I can say is that I listened to the vet intently, opened another bottle of red, patted Daisy on the head and wished her well for the morning.

In between having our life turned upside down in a not really funny but we'll laugh about it when she's old and near death / Marley and Me stylee type of way. We had our annual reunion in Somerset with the Nottingham gang.

We dressed as pirates, with the exception of San who dressed as a rather fetching six foot parrot. We drank much scrumpy and caught my first ever glimpse of a Muntjack deer as we wandered around the woods at dusk - fuelled with scrumpy, wine and some pretty ropey cocktail mix from Home Bargains.

To mark the occasion - here is a picture of a giant six foot parrot. We had to hunt him, catch him and then eat him - but he tasted bloody good on the Barbie!

Later...as May arrived we spotted a small glowing orb in the sky. I went outside to document it...never before seen in North Wales.

Goodbye 2016 - aloha 2017 - year of the Honey Badger!!!!!

Welcome welcome 2017 - year of the Honey Badger and officially not as bad as 2016 already.

You may have noticed the lack of blogging for the last 7 months. Only now can I reveal the true reasons for this. To avoid the full depressing political horror of last year I basically did a "Buck Rodgers" for the last 6 months and launched myself into space on a secret NASA funded mission to the outer edges of the solar system. During this period frozen in time - I only had Wilma and Twiki for company. When I returned to earth it was a bit of a head-wobbler.

A). I was expecting a baby with Twiki (a medical first) - the first cyborg hybrid AI ever created.
B). Colonel Wilma wasn't speaking to me.
C). The whole planet went officially stark raving stupid.

To make sense of the madness - I have decided to write a festive year-end poem which I submitted to Bob Dylan to read out at his Nobel Literature Prize ceremony in December. This was proof-read by Dr Theopolis, my good friend Buck and Princess Ardala (look her up - she's a close aquaintance of mine). It is entitled

F* you 2016!!!! GRRRRRR

Brexit - Trump - Leonard Cohen Gone - whose gonna sing me a depressing song?
R2 Leia Corbett no more
Who gonna get "fork handles" for the cutlery drawer?
Bowie no Bowie can it be true?
2016 - oh 2016 - go F*ck you!

But on a personal level - things were pretty ace. And so...in summary. Here's the bits of 2016 that we got a kick from:

The Queen had a Birthday which meant we got to sing Bohemian Rhapsody in the middle of Chester Town Centre. And whilst I may not be a big Queen fan - I am a big QUEEN FAN! Memories of softly singing this to Declan as a baby come to mind..."Mama I just killed a man..." one of his first words. So I was pleased for him to sing this in his school choir! On a shock note - my invite to the Palace went mysteriously missing in the post (The Royal Mail at that - so you'd think she could have put in a word there and traced the invite!)

Met my personal hero - someone who gave me minutes of precious sleep at 6am in the morning once CBEEBIES kicked in. Thank you for your substitute parenting skills over the years Upsy Daisy. And if you were a man in the costume - apologies for the kiss on the cheek dude! I was a bit overcome and Emosh.

We Met Buddha in Port Merrion. He was pretty chilled.

The kids carried out a pitch invasion of the 18th hole at Selsden Park Golf Course and then hid in a tree. Cunning eh? The Golfers never knew what hit them with that surprise attack!

The Clangers are proper Head Bangers! Eight feet brick Sh*thouses now hired out as Bouncers at outdoor festivals... I tried but failed to get back in the Rave tent

Never paddle a plastic canoe down a French rapids backwards. This is the easiest way to capsize, smack your head on a rock, lose your paddles, shoes, wallet, keys, canoe and your kids. Apparently that kind of accident could psychologically scar your 7 year old. Unless you get his catatonic ass back on the boat pronto (once someone goes and finds your boat, shoes and paddles for you and canoes upstream with them). Cheers Chris!!!!!

Festival Hat - Check. Car Fest - check!

The Ostrich Burgers added an extra zing to the kids at Car Fest

Mystery Beach Bum declares undivided love for me and Sarah...this is slightly unsettling but eventually we outran the guy onto the quicksand and left him for Dead...Phew. Close Shave!

Sam Quek invites me to a personal private, invite only special super secret meeting to get some Hockey Coaching tips off me and some of the lads.

The new Guinness Ad didn't go quite as Viral as expected. And Santa got p*ssed again...every year it's the same! Santa blames the moonshine Papa Elf makes - made from real juniper berries and reindeer dung

Good night - farewell and into the soft dark night 2016...see you on the other side...

Cidertini's with Mexican Dave and the Morris Men Massive

We are in deepest Worcestershire and it all feels decidedly like the script for Leaving Las Vegas - if they upped and moved the whole gig to a strange village on the river Severn.

Johnny Depp has been replaced by my buddy Simon and a gang of us wearing Sombrero's, thick Mexican moustaches and drinking "Cidertini's" from straws. We invented the "Cidertini" after a few hours drinking local homebrew cider in the village. It's your standard vodka, scrumpy cocktail for the more refined yokel drinker with access to Martini glasses and plenty of free time. The straw is a necessity, otherwise our rather dashing gaucho moustaches get too soggy and eventually fall into your drink.

The kids - all nine or ten of them (headcounts are over-rated) are in their element. They also have fake moustaches to go with their cowboy hats and neckerchiefs and we are busy bashing the bejaney out of a pinata that we have hung from a variety of trees in the garden of the house we are renting. At some point, for reasons unknown, Simon is about 50 foot up the tree. A lone Mexican in sombrero and multi-coloured poncho. But this does not give him any additional Pinata hitting abilities.

We eventually kill the pinata and play a few games of hide and seek and 52 bunker (Blocky 123, twenty twenty - take your pick depending on your playground geography). The garden is about 4 acres apparently, which means there are plenty of places to hide. I team up with Caitlin, mainly because the adults have decided that playing hide and seek next to a massive thirty foot wide fast flowing river is a recipe for disaster otherwise, and we enjoy a number of Blocky 123 victories. I forgot just how much I liked playing stupid games in a field.

Within the grounds, there are chickens and a duck with a weird round helmet "growth / ball" on his head. As the scrumpy kicks in, we surmise that he must be some sort of maverick stunt duck, or a member of a strange duck cult. We find some plastic eggs in their hen house which really confuses us. The kids want to cook them (the eggs not the chickens) but we put them back. Being city folk, we wonder if the chickens lay more if they see plastic eggs but cannot be bothered to google it. Let nature have it's little plastic egg mysteries...

We walk along by the river, taking note that the "high flood" mark against the garage in town is about six foot above our heads. The garage itself comes straight out of Deliverance - dilapidated ancient pick-up trucks rusting out front. All it needs is a man with a banjo and a small child whose mumma is his pappy's sister and we are there.


We pass a small tudor house - all wattle and daub and rustic timbers. There is a blue plaque up against it (I love a blue plaque). Apparently, Oliver Cromwell stopped here for a quick beer / coffee / chat with the locals after the Battle of Upton. I love this place. This place is a timewarped gem. This is the village from midsummer murders, this is the village from Hot Fuzz. This is England at it's most uniquely insane.

We hope it doesn't rain to a Biblical level as we wander into the world's largest ever Morris fest. We had no idea that we were at the centrepoint ground zero of "Morrissing" when we booked the place in Upton upon Severn. But we are. And it is absolutely delightfully bonkers.

The village has about five ancient 16th century pubs along the riverside and high street. Ye Olde Anchor...the Swan... the Little Upton Muggery. Outside each pub are what looks like the equivalent of "patched" biker gangs armed with wooden baseball bats (cunningly disguised as Morris sticks) and metal tankards for ale clasped to the side of their outfits by caribiners. Imagine what would happen if you crossed all the Sisters of Mercy, Hawkwind and Fairport Convention fans in England, exposed them to the hallucinatory effects of ergot poisoning (this happened alot in medieval farming communities back in the day) gave them access to several barrels of real ale and cider and let them make their own costumes, songs and dances up.

The effect is staggeringly mental and a heap of fun. There is a Morris parade through the village which is interrupted by a hefty woman in a Nissan Micra who takes a wrong turn and nearly takes out the "Dartmoor Border Morris" team mid dance. A tense three point turn ensues which threatens to ruin the vibe of the Morris group led by a tree (yes a tree).

By the river, the kids are mesemerised by the Morris dance-offs (I kid you not! They were awesome) and within a few hours all our children were shaking their plastic Mexican maraccas and banging drums in a giant hypnotic Trad session in the Swan pub. Literally, the music seemed to whirl and carry on for ever, like the pied piper leading everyone towards ultimate oblivion.

We eventually dragged the kids free from the Piped Pipers clutches and headed back to our pad for more fun and games. Needless to say, this ended with Simon, Sanjib and I sitting in the hot-tub with our recently purchased metal drinking tankards (full to the brim with Cider), watching "Kung Fury" - a high quality movie about a Miami cop travelling through time to prevent Adolf Hitler from getting to power. Except his cop partner is a dinosaur called "Triceracop" and his main help comes from Thor and some vikings.

We leave the crazy of the village behind and return to the reality of school runs and homework on Tuesday. The bank holiday truly felt like a wildly wacky and wonderful diversion from reality.

Today we go to the zoo. The sun is splitting the stones and the lion's for once can sit out and sunbathe. We have our picnic in the "secret" picnic spot by the Chinese garden (no - we did't eat it in the red panda enclosure).

And when we get home we fill up the new paddling pool and the kids go crazy. First thing they do is stick the plastic slide INTO the pool. Then they line it up with the climbing frame slide to make some sort of assault course and then they roll in the "grass that has now become mud" until they look like swamp people. Literally, they look like the kind of street urchins you see on Oliver Twist.

They shower, I BBQ some chicken, I warn them not to roll in the mud in the garden because they just had a shower. They jump off the wendy house into the mud in the garden. I give up. And Sarah pours me a Gin and tonic. The sun is shining, I just burnt my thumb on the hot coals in the BBQ (again) and we are listening to the 8th rendition of the Jurassic Park theme tune on the speakers in the garden. I never new it had been covered by so many many many instrumentalists... despite no subliminal messages from DJs Fintan and Declan at all... for some reason we elect to watch Jurassic Park the movie before bed time.

I'll let you know how it goes...