Caitlin enters her "Pink" Piccasso phase...

Friday night. Long week at work. January is taking it's toll on us all. I speak collectively on behalf of my family and every other family who just about survived Christmas and are in the throes of readjusting to waking up again and having to function without cheese, crackers, wine, Guinness, Port, Cheese, Crackers, Quality street, Cheese, Turkey sandwiches, spicy Mexican cheese and Elf being on repeat for an entire month. No cheese. No wine. No Elf. No fun. January proper sucks. (Except for Flash Gordon - which takes the edge off of Saturday morning!)

I walk into the living room - summoned by Caitlin's strange whine / caterwaul that indicates that the current television programme on the Cartoon Network is not to her tastes.

I stare at our nice newish grey material sofa. It is now coloured in pink.

"Caitlin why did you do this?" I ask her. Trying to stay calm. Trying to reason. Apply logic.

"Grrrrrr....." she kind of growls at me and hides her head behind her hands.

"Caitlin. Our couch is pink! You coloured in the couch!" I am getting angrier the more I say it out loud.

She beings to cry. Huge chunky sobs, calculated to pull at the heartstrings and deflect her ambitious attempt to create a new look for our living room.

"Seriously Caitlin. I cannot believe you did this! Why Caitlin? Why?" I feel like the guy in platoon. Sinking to his knees, gun raised in bewilderment as his Nam buddies fly off in their chopper.

I realise that my Five Why's approach to the pink sofa incident is doing no good for my root cause analysis. Sod this Lean Six Sigma approach on the three year old. I am going to Defcon 1.

"Caitlin. No Tv. That's it!" The foot goes down. I am the dad in Inside Out. This dawns on me and I feel like a sad predictable pixar character of a dad.

She has now escalated her sobs to "hyperventilating until I pass out" levels. This is a cunning bluff. But I am falling for it. She peeps up from behind her hands and the buried head in the pink sofa. I relent and give her an Ipod. This allows me to technically remain faithful to my removal of all tv rights.

She looks at the Ipod like it's a lame dog that should be put down and points at the Ipad with the dead battery.

"I want the Ipad!" she sobs. And here come her demands. "Team Umizoommeeee!"

"The Ipad has run out of battery Caitlin. It's broken!" I say.

"Your phone?" she tells me.

"I don't have Team Umizoomee on it.." I plead. I am trying to negotiate with someone with many many years more expertise in this field than me.

"Download it! she orders me!

"I can't, I need to upgrade to IO9" I tell her. She stares back blankly. This is crazy jibber jabber. She has no need for the intricate details. She has needs only for the now. For Iphone.

She begins to cry uncontrollably. I pick her up and cuddle her. I sing her my faithful "I can sing a rainbow song" badly and eventually place her back down on the couch again.

Sarah comes in to inspect the damage. She is on her way out to pick up one of Declan's friends for a sleepover.

"At least she didn't draw on the carpet," she says. Trying to take some single element of positivity from the whole disaster.

"Oh Crap," I stare down at my feet and don't know why I didn't just cover the floor with my body, or a small child or a large bowl of cheesy Doritto's and dips.

The light coloured carpet is now pink. Streaks of pink. Everywhere.

Sarah marches over to Caitlin and like some horrific never-ending Groundhog day meets Twilight episode we begin the interrogation again.

"Why did you colour the carpet in pink Caitlin? Why?"

This morning I finally got my revenge. And it's definitely best served cold....

A faint dusting of snow overnight was just enough for my needs.

I got Caitlin covered up like the Michelin Man before releasing a barrage of sustained snowball attack on her and her brothers. Oh revenge is sweet. However, I think I lost out overall. Somehow Fintan and Declan managed to plant at least 3 litres of compact iceballs into my jeans pockets, where they slowly melted...and Caitlin took her first snowball inside and said to us:

"I love this daddy! I will keep this in bed with me forever," as she held it in her dainty cold hands.

It was a tough job breaking the news about what happens to ice when it gets hot. I thought she would have copped on from watching Olaf melt in Frozen for the millionth time but apparently not. And lo..the shock and hurt began once more...

If you're bored. Here's a visual summary of 2015. It was mega!

Christmas at Chester Zoo is jazzed up by a few plants Sigourney "the-ten-foot-blue-avatar" Weaver brought back from Planet Pandora

The family goes black and white

We take New Yawk for our ten year wedding anniversary

I am the lone Englishman in Edinburgh...a sad pathetic figure of a man...as Ireland win the 6 nations and Scotland and 50,000 Irish on tour go bananas in celebration!

Jez gets married in Cornwall! And we run aground...literally...

And I hit 40! Boooom!!!!!

Frankie the teleporting Fish, rope swing head-butting and the McGrane horror-fest

So we arrived in Dublin for the weekend by the skin of our teeth. Car packed to the gunnels with scooters, a few million lego bricks (never leave home without them) and a number of kids.

The A55 roadwork planning department (this is more of an imaginary entity living in another dimension) made the whole thing slightly more interesting. Their main game (for it must be a game) is to lay out as many traffic cones as possible on a 3 mile stretch of the carriageway. Any part of the carriageway between Anglesey and Chester will do. Doesn't really matter. They then displace or entice (by means of some nefarious road worker displacement device variously called "a cup of tea / brew / bevvie") all available workmen within a 300 mile radius of Wales. Sometimes, as in this case, they will leave a few mini-diggers besides the side of the road for joy riders to nick. However, the main point of the game is to increase the time taken to get from any point in North Wales to any other point in North Wales. They nearly succeeded but will need to try harder next time.

So we arrive home in Dublin and prepare for an early Halloween horror fest at the McGranes. The whole garden was done up like an interactive horror-fest (and that was before my sister-in-laws had even put on their ghoul make-up!).

Uncle Glenn spent about an hour locked in the outhouse shed dressed as a Mummy just so he could jump out on Caitlin, Declan and Fintan. Karina seemed to have a lost calling as one of those improv mime artists you see on street corners at tourist spots. I have never seen anyone wave a white ghost sheet so creatively above their head for so long. She must have biceps like Arnold Schwarzenegger after that work-out! For some reason, Deborah had adopted a strange hybridised German / Russian accent for her Dr Death creation. Grandpa was the only one who got to fulfil a long-term wish by shooting a son-in-law - though he was dressed as a Mummy at the time and the gun wasn't real (I think - possibly need to check on Glenn's where-abouts). I on the other hand mainly sat in the warm, drinking red wine. The evening ended on a high note with Dr Death upstairs in the bathroom for half an hour trying to rub the slightly more permanent than imagined, fake blood from Fintan's face.

Over the weekend, we go for a walk up in the Dublin mountains. Massey's Wood. This is an old school classic woods. No messing around. Proper trees. Mud. A stream. Blue rope tied to huge branches on Oak trees thirty feet in the air with improvised stick wedged through the rope to act as a swing handle. How do people get the rope up there? Does Bear Grylls loiter in these woods, prepping them for ad hoc ninja abseils? Either way - it ends in disaster.

"Mum, Dad - can you hold the rope?" says Fintan. I kind of do - but let go as he flies off. Fintan lands ok. But I notice the big solid stick on the end of the rope hit Sarah in the head full force, before she walks away in silence. Ouch. That's gotta hurt! Whilst we were busy launching ourselves on the rope swing, we became aware that we had by this stage lost a niece, a friend of the niece and a pet dog (Molly). The adults (and Caitlin) are mainly standing in the middle of a gloomy dusky woods like extras in the Blair Witch Project. Randomly shouting "Molly" a lot instead of "Josh". Our order of priority was dog, niece's friend, niece. Eventually - we all herded back to a central point and climbed the best tree I've climbed in years (basically it was like a climbing tree with stabilisers). No-one fell off. This amazed me.

Next day - we became Godparents. So we dressed up proper smart. The kids even wore hats and mainly reminded me of my Grandad. He wore the same style of hat back in the fifties. After the church we headed for a swift Guinness to celebrate, before heading back across Dublin for food and the rugby.

I don't know if it's the "Rambo" effect or possibly "The Deer Hunter" or possibly the red wine and Guinness. But by the end of the night, I was wearing my tie Rambo style (again - this is a common occurrence) and had already accidentally smashed my God child's brick tower down - leading to much serious upset and tears (sorry about that Lisa / Jon - hopefully he will build another tower just as good one day and I will promise not to knock it down). I did pay for it the next day. Enduring a marathon 7 episodes of "Go Diego Go" with Caitlin. God I hate Diego and his bloody Jaguar!

We get home, having encountered a flat tire and a force 8 gale on the sea crossing.

"I feel sick Daddy!" being the most commonly uttered phrase for the entire journey.

Home at last! I turn on the lights in the fish tank. Finn and Ginger the fish are there. But where the hell is Frankie?

"Hello Frankie! Where's Frankie?" Caitlin asks. For she has named the fish in honour of her Grandpa. (She had named her toy pet sheep after Grandpa until quite recently when it underwent a sex change and re-emerged as "Sally" the sheep).

"There's nothing to see here...move along kids..."I utter like a Jedi to a stormtrooper as Sarah and I frantically search the filters and pump intake for a fish corpse. Nothing. Diddly. I take the porcelain unicorn out (spot Caitlin's choice of tank furniture!). Nothing. The glow in the dark plastic pink sea anemone (my choice). Nothing. Sarah begins to worry.

"Oh no - maybe I scooped him out when I was cleaning the tank last week. Try the bin! No - I would have noticed wouldn't I?" she asks. Doubt cast in her face.

I notice Sarah is glaring at the other fish. Do they look somewhat plumper? Fuller round the gills? "Those bastards ate Frankie!" Sarah says. She is convinced. We lift up the final ornament and stuck to the side of the ornament is a fish - hiding in fear.

"Sorry Finn, Sorry Ginger...I never doubted you for a minute..."

It's October 21st 2015 for Flux (Capacitor's) Sake!

It's been a while...however after a long time lost in the wilderness of the future...I am BACK. And it's hip to be square!

There's no room for baby seats...but I could get used to the new ride...

Door blippin, Cave Flippin', Dino Trippin', Dinghy Whippin' Summer 2012

Today I stood at my front door for 2 minutes blipping it with my car keys and wondering why nothing was happening. This is a first for me and a worrying sign. However - let me know when they invent a door blipper device and count me in.

So it's 6 months since the last blog. And 6 months since Caitlin was born pretty much. Anyone would think there's some sort of direct correlation between sleep deprivation and the ability to blog. I do believe it has had a detrimental impact on my higher cognitive functioning. I mean - surely I know how to open a door? Apparently not.

I can't really blame Caitlin though. She's a dream baby. Sleeps for twelve hours at night - smiles when she wakes up and generally chills for the day. She is living my ideal life.

I think it's just a logistical thing. Takes time to get used to. I'd forgotten totally about sterlising bottles, winding babies, cleaning baby puke off your shirt. But it comes back pretty fast. The main rules are:-

a). Never wind a baby wearing a suit (unless it's made of paper. And wearing a paper suit is just a bit weird).
b). Never utilise the "nappy close range sniff test" to avoid a nappy change. This is Nappy roulette.
c). Always hold the baby when the football is on.

I'm not sure where to begin with the highlights of the summer. The Olympics, Euro 2012, the incessant rain? Well - there was the epic ten mile march into Phoenix Park, Dublin to witness the Stone Roses rock the city. Never before have so many middle-aged people attempted to recapture their Madchester Youth with such wild abandon. I never thought that day would happen. The Stone Roses reformed. So it was a bit special to see them. To be honest - they could have strapped a microphone to a chimpanzee and I would have sung along. According to some reports - this is exactly what happened. But not in my books. They were awesome.

Later in the summer we headed off to the South of France to somewhere in the mountains. Despite having 2 sat navs in the car (that consistently pointed us in opposing directions) we did manage to get about and see a bit of the countryside. The lowest point (in our adult eyes) was the world's officially sh*ttest dinosaur theme park / attraction ever. Sarah walks in and jams her leg on a rusty nail at the entrance.

"Are you ok Sarah - are you ok?!" I ask. "Didn't you see that big post there?" I can be really dumb sometimes.

"What do you think?" she manages through gritted teeth.

"Smile by the T-Rex with the kids"...I think Sarah is making strange victory signs at me with her fingers. How bizarre.

"You had a tetnus jab lately?" I ask with concern. Sarah tells me where to stick any possible jab.

We push the buggy over rocky terrain more suitable for a four wheel drive. every hundred or so yards in this forest there's a crappy half-arsed looking dinosaur made of cardboard and bits shadrag found in the tip. There aren't words to describe how bad it is.

However - the kids think it is the most awesome dionosaur theme park ever (it's also the only one they've ever been to either).

The prehistoric swamp has inadvertantly drained away to reveal dinosaur heads on metal poles. Fintan falls over and cuts himself and Declan is scared by the dinosaur roars emanating from a muffled speaker.

We leave and head over to the main part of the attraction - the caves. Apparently - these are some of the most awe inspiring caves in France.

"Is it safe to bring kids down?" I ask the French woman at the till.

She looks at me blankly. So I dig up my best GCSE French from the dusty shelf at the back of my head.

"Le Cave - C'est Dangerous pour les enfants?" I admire my ability to communicate as if I am an actual local. Perhaps she actually thinks I am French? That's how good I am.

She looks at me. Looks at Fintan and Declan who have just knocked a full pint of orange juice over themselves, looks at Caitlin asleep in her buggy and says.

"Non"

"Okay then kids, Sarah - let's go..."

The cave guide takes about thirty of us down into the cold gloom. We are in the middle of the group and immediately I start to pap myself. (To pap oneself is a technical caving term you understand).

I am holding Caitlin in my arms. Holding her tight. Like her and my life depended on it - which come to think of it. They do.

Fintan looks pretty scared but I try to remain dad-like and breezy.

"Wow Fintan look at all these steps going down..." I say cheerily.

725 steps later and I feel like I've been to hell and back. I can no longer feel my arms (they are shaking too much with adrenelin). It turns out that cave safety in France might not quite live up to the standards I'd been expecting.

The rusting, wet metal handrails and stairs led down, down and down into hell. Okay - so the views were spectacular. With sheer 100 metre drops either side. But not great when you first discover your child may have a fear of big dark cave-like spaces and a severe case of vertigo.

As a family we opt to stay at the first cavern as the rest of the group move on. I shout at the guide.

"We Remainee ici!" and he nods.

Are we going to be found dead in a few days time. Does the group come back this way? I don't know. We only have one baby bottle and 2 chocolate biscuits to sustain us. And just when it couldn't get any worse. The lights go out. They're on a bloody auto timer. Luckily the emergency exit signs flicker in the dark (even caves have emergency exits - astonishing!).

I put my phone light to my face and do my Blair Witch impression to raise our spirits.

"Josh! Josh!" I scream in comedy fashion. This doesn't help. So in the end we feed Caitlin her bottle at the bottom of the cave and wait for their return.

Twenty long minutes later they come back and we head up and out. Never has daylight been so welcome.

Later in the summer we head to Alton Towers. Declan takes me on the scariest ghost train ride ever and loves it. He then walks past Sid the sloth from Ice Age 4 and has a freak attack. Honestly - I can't work him out. That boy could sit through the Exorcist totally unfazed - but show him a man in a disney character suit and he's petrified.

Later that night the kids breakdance in the hotel lobby to a Robbie Williams impersonator standing in a giant pirate ship. Which is a hard thing to do - but impressive to behold.

Later still - we head to Center Parcs for a mini reunion with friends from Uni. I'm not sure how it happened but Simon's Yogic balancing on the pool table and the ensuing forehead carpet burn injury was a highlight. Only topped by reliving my youth on the gun games in the arcades, Simon winning the Disco dancing competition with his best Irish jig and plunging headfirst down the "lazy river" in the pool and wondering where exactly all your children had gone. Lazy river = danger!

And last weekend we manage to cram in crabbing in Anglesey, epic fire making and dingy rides in the Menai Straits (If you want to see Funny - imagine Chris in a dinghy with 2 kids when the engine cuts out - repeatedly. Never has one man persevered with a dud motor for so long and for so few...)

What more could you want for a summer?

Until the next time...just do it...

Pimp my ride - Rolls Royce Gangsta Bling stylee, Millwall lose again and a baby is Born - give it up for Caitlin the tiny yellow baby!

It's Saturday - Fintan's just drawn me a great picture of a castle in a jungle on top of a hill surrounded by giant roses; Declan is still asleep and baby Caitlin is chilling in her Moses basket nearby. This is definitely a lull before the nappy storm begins... Anyway - since having a new baby has temporarily blown my ability to blog right out of the water. I've decided to carry out a pictoral blog update of the last few months. Here are the highlights:- Storm Troopers now being used to police Chester....I told him "these aren't the kids you're looking for" and Fintan and Declan moved along...

Millwall go on an unprecedented losing run that lasts pretty much at home from Christmas to April 2012. Any visit to the match by my good self is a surefire certainty to jinx our chances...

A Dalek! It's always good to meet a Dalek at least once a month for a pint.

If you're gonna turn a Rolls Royce into an armoured tank - this is how you do it...Duke of Westminster styleeee... - things got slightly funky when the kids tried to drive it.

Hooray - a bottle of champagne is born (must have been painful!)...no...Baby Caitlin is born! Needless to say - we just left Sarah at hospital on the Sunday afternoon and were just getting the kids settling in for bed when Sarah called. "My waters broke!" she told me as they began wheeling her down to surgery for an emergency C section. Being a calm and organised sort of chap I replied in a reassuring and appropriate manner. "Oh Sh*t! I've got to go Sally - we're having the baby!" I said and promptly ran out the door of the house only to find I'd locked myself out the house and had no keys. Still - luckily the Spurs match was on, so the roads were empty and I made it to the hospital with a few minutes to spare (I'm sure they would have waited for me?). And the rest as they say is history...

Darth Maul Ikea bed death match, neanderthal axe wielding safety moments and lion king drumfests

This week I mainly filled an entire skip with rubbish every evening. If I'd known just how addictive and cathartic this process was - I'd have hired a skip years ago.

Old mattresses, rubble, a sink, bits of wood that Chris was going to burn on our barbeque this summer (but Sarah banned us), half broken chairs, a chipped piggy bank. As I've said to my friends many times over - my DIY speciality really lies in the demolition end of the DIY market. And even then - I'm not that great.

This explains why I ended up taking a hammer, then a power drill and finally a rusty half-blunt saw to the wooden Ikea double bed that had been the cause of at least 8 known incidents of "bed corner toe" - which is where you walk into the bed in the middle of the night and stub your little toe against a bed frame that is a typically Swedish, quirky eight inches longer than a standard double bed should be. I'm sure no one usually complains that they're sleeping with something that's Swedish and 8 inches too big - let alone my wife. But in this instance - it's been the source of a multitude of obscenties and "F*ckin' bed!" moments in our household. So good riddance to the evil feckin thing!

As I saw the frame in half and jump up and down on the boards with my considerable strength and bulk (ahem) - the wood splinters up and gashes my arm nastily. There is blood and I end up doing the manly thing and cleaning it out using the alcohol rubbing gel by the sink (kills 99.9% of all bacteria!). I am now bleeding and enjoying some masochistic DIY pain. I launch the bed into the skip and head to work.

That night I return from work and show Declan and Fintan my DIY war wound. I can't help myself - and tell a small white lie.

"Daddy had a fight with Darth Maul in work today..." I say casually.

The kids look at me wondrously (I think).

"Really daddy? Really really? You're not pretending?" asks Fintan. Fintan's no push over - this smells a little too rum even for a five year old.

"Yeah really - look - look at all that blood and the scabbing and the bruising," I say. "Do you want to touch it? That's where the light sabre hit me." (I get away with this - although if they'd been more astute - they'd be wondering if a lightsabre would inflict this sort of injury - there's no obvious signs of burning or cauterisation around the wound whatsoever).

"Did you kill Darth Maul daddy?" Declan asks me with a serious look of consternation on his face.

"Do you want daddy to have killed Darth Maul?" I ask - hedging my bets.

"Yes" - I say - "Well - maybe..." I'm not sure if telling my two year old that I brutally slayed a Sith Lord during my day at the office is really that good for his mental wellbeing.

"Well - maybe I just injured him...I think he ran away." I add.

"No daddy! You killed him! You killed him!" Declan is now adamant on this fact.

Fintan comes over and whispers.

"Did you really kill Darth Maul?"

I am torn between briefly being a Jedi Knight with some Kudos - or back to being just an ordinary bloke who went to the office, ate a spicy Mexican tuna sandwich at his desk for lunch and didn't really do anything more dangerous than watering his cactus (the spikes can really prickle if you water too close).

"No - No I didn't Fintan..."

"Oh. Ok."

Later in the week when I walk in the door - Declan is upstairs on the landing with a lightsabre. "Daddy - did you kill Darth Maul with a blue or a green lightsabre?"

"Blue lightsabre I say..."

And so the lie continues....

Luckily yesterday we were more down to earth. At the World Museum in Liverpool. I end up colouring in a dinosaur mask during the "dino workshop" and chronically underestimating exactly how realistic the new dinosaur exhibition would be for a two year old. I guess a giant thirty foot animatronic T-Rex roaring at you would leave you somewhat in fear for your safety. So - we didn't dally there too long. A quick session looking at Nemo in the aquarium and things were back on track.

I should have known - but it was the Samauri swords that had the kids interest most piqued. As these were the closest thing in the museum to lightsabres.

At one point I stupidly picked up the replica stone age hunting axe that neanderthal man used and gave it to Fintan to play with. Then Declan made a grab for it.

"Let's put that back shall we? Look - over there - there's a giant meteorite - let's try and lift it!" Meteorites are stupendously heavy. I can vouch for that now.

I have no idea how the baby girl is going to fit into this whole macho arrangement - of axes, swords and general boisterous mayhem. I have a distinct impression that within weeks - every pink toy in the house will have been surrupticiously commandeered from the nursery and into the boys rooms to be used in one of their games of toy soldiers.

I can only imagine...

We finish the weekend with the Lion King theme tune on full blast - you know - the one that opens with "AHHHHHHH ZABADAWINGAAAAAAA.....!!!!" and then Simba gets lifted up by the monkey. And hammering on the African drums I bought the kids a few weeks back. We are finding a good rhythm and I run into the playroom to grab some maracas and a tambourine (I am the Linda Macartney of the ensemble) and we belt out a few more. I lose the kids at "Under the sea" from the Little Mermaid and decide to wrap things up (well - Sarah reminds me that it's the kids bedtime and banging on a drum and shouting isn't good for getting them nice and relaxed for bed).

I am still holding out a faintly ambitious hope of buying a Hammond Organ for the house (just imagine the sound on one of those things!). But - this may well be something that requires delicate negotiation (and possibly some hint of extreme musical recording talent within the family!)

I'll keep you posted...

The airport queue of unending horror and the day I sprayed my body half orange and got a pedicure

2012 here were are! But how did we survive Christmas and New year? Well something like this...

The Friday before Christmas and there's a snowstorm in Manchester just large enough (ie three large fluffy flakes) to shut the airport for a miniscule window of two hours and leave us stranded in Switerland. Possibly if not definitely - the worlds most expensive country to buy anything other than a flugelhorn or a mountain goat.

We queue resolutely and patiently for a transfer and miracle of miracles - we're transferred onto a heathrow flight leaving in 30 minutes. So - Becks and I peg it through security and passport control and celebrate with a well earned large red wine at the boarding gate (I actually remortgage my house to pay for the drinks - but we're so chuffed to be making it home after all). And then they go and cancel all flights out of Zurich due to a "supposed" storm that was on its way but hadn't actually arrived as yet.

Four and half hours later and we're nearing the front of officially the longest queue I've ever been in in my entire thirty six years of existence. By hour three the airport is issuing emergency rations of water and a nice man with a beard is shouting at us to "give it to the people who really need it." Then comes the food crates. Police with hands twitchy by their gun holsters look warily at the baying crowds. It's like something out of a UN food drop in the third world.

To our left an elderly man passes out before our eyes and Becky runs over to get the attention of a medic - anyone in charge. Behind the man who has possibly just died in this queue - an irate man is shouting and wagging his finger. He appears to want the possibly dead man to be dragged to the side to allow the rest of the queue to step over him and book their flights.

"So this is how the apocolypse feels..." I wonder to myself. Lord of the Flies in an airport. That's what we lived through.

We get to the front. Having looked after a bunch of teenage American kids for a short while whilst their teacher tried to get them home safe to Boston. They were having a worse time than us. This was their third day of trying to get home - originally from Florence (and that didn't even include them getting caught up in the gun rampage that killed two guys in Florence whilst they were half way up Brunelschi's great dome - and no - that's not an innuendo).

We find our bags back in the arrival hall - in what can only be described as "Bag Armageddon". It's a Bag graveyard. Thousands of bags piled sky high. We ask one guy how long he's been looking for his luggage..

"Three hours," he says forlornly.

Luckily Becky has a pink bag and somehow we find both our bags in literally five minutes.

Next day - we get home. Exhausted and ragged. And then we're off to the Panto in Crewe. Snow White!

The "Buttons" of the show was incredibly funny - but the strange thing were the dwarves. a). They were kids wearing masks. and B) they changed the song and C) - they had different names. No longer do they sing "hiho hiho it's off to work we go". Clearly some sort of embargo on that tune. Nevertheless - the kids screamed their heads off - and we laughed pretty hard too.

And before you could say "Santa's got himself stuck half way down the chimney" - it was Christmas Eve. So - we duly dressed Declan as a giant Star above Bethlehem - and wrapped a tea towel around Fintan's head and headed off to the Christmas Eve mass. Within thirty seconds - Fintan and Declan had run up to the front of the altar and were busy stripping all the straw from Jesus' manger and feeding it to the plastic donkey besides it.

"Stop that Fintan. Declan - put the straw back. Now!"

"Ohhhhh...." they cry in unison.

Back at home - we sprinkle magic reindeer dust outside so Rudolph and Santa can find us easily and it's off to bed.

The next day Santa brings us Star Wars At-Ats and toy fire stations and ambulances and as dutiful parents we spend at least 3 hours assembling lego racing cars before they are taken apart in a matter of three seconds.

Fintan holds up the random lego pieces and says...

"Can we build it again..."

We wonder whether Job would still have such patience if lego had been invented back in the day.

One of my presents is a night at the Hilton hotel and Spa near us whilst Grandpa and Nana babysit.

So a few days later - I find myself at the Hilton. Sarah and Chris are there - a surprise present for Chris as well.

"Hello," we say.

"Hello," says the receptionist, "So will you be taking your pedicure before you check in. You are down for 11am."

Chris and I look at each other. Chris nearly collapses.

"Woah! Woah there! Pedicure? Pedicure? We're men. Hang on a minute. Pedicure. What about a manly massage or something."

"No Chris. No Tom. You're having a pedicure - it'll be nice. You'll like it." Say the Sarahs.

We look at each other dubiously.

"Ladies. Your massages are due right now - here are you robes and towels."

Chris and I look at each other and mouth the words all men use in times of great duress and panic. "Bar..."

We get the Hilton to open the bar early for us as hotel guests continue to traipse up for Breakfast.

By 11am we've downed three pints and the Dutch courage is within us.

"Let's do it!" Doobie do it!" and we head in for our "Manly foot massage / pedicure".

We head into the Spa and these friendly ladies start scraping our feet and then massaging them.

"So - do you get many blokes doing this?" we ask.

"Some...."

There are ladies having pedicures who are laughing at us in the corner. They are drinking champagne.

"Can we have a drink?" we ask.

Duly - two beers arrive and we feel slightly better.

We have a good laugh with the ladies massaging our feet. In fact - we have such a laugh that the girl having her pedicure with her mum actually falls off her chair.

"Would you like the only for men laquer applied?" the pedicurist asks us.

"You what?" we say.

"Nail varnish? Is it bloody nail varnish?" Chris asks. "Behave - I'm not having that."

"Look I bet David Beckam has this done every day - come on - you gotta try everything once.." I tell him. And with beer on our side we get our nails painted purely to "strengthen them for footballing reasons only..."

I've never laughed more in my life.

After the massage we spot the fish in the corner.

"Can we have a go with them?" we ask enthusiastically.

"Yes. No problem."

And so - we immerse our feet in a tank full of Garruda fish for ten minutes. They pack quite a pinch at first. In fact - the girls before us left screaming and refused to put their feet back in. But we're made of sterner stuff.

Like little tiny electric shocks. It's weird. Not exactly relaxing. Just odd. We wonder if we will emerge with stumps for feet.

We track our wives down in the "relaxation room" and duly gatecrash and ruin the entire relaxing ambience by crashing down on the giant bean bags to drink our beer.

"Get out! Get out! You're ruining the ambience!"

We end up having to haul the girls to their feet cos they're just way too pregnant to get themselves upright from a bean bag these days.

Downstairs - there is an offer on a spray tan - only £17.50 for a can of spray tan.

Chris weilds the demo can at me menacingly.

"Yeah - go on..." I say - full of beer bravado.

Seconds later my right arm is a strange mahagony brown colour and it's not coming off. Chris is in an absolute fit of giggles - as is the receoptionist.

The receptionist composes herself and explains to me that "you better wash that off your hands - it won't come off."

Which has Chris in even bigger stitches. I look like an oompa lumpa who has only been half dipped in luminous orange.

Later I go swimming - half man - half oompa. But strangely - I begin to quite like the tanned zebra effect. I've had an absolute ball - I may be a bizzare shade of orange and have the shiniest toe nails in the land - I may have spent half the day in a fancy dandy brown robe - but - I feel good.

Life is good...