Pride, Joy

A man who has 'learned' social confidence in adultood, and whose blood runs cold at the thought of audience participation has no right to expect his child to be a bold-as-brass 'pick me!' merchant. And indeed B is not that, and is quite often as shy and watchful as his Dad was and sometimes still is. So I practically burst with pride when he bounced up and down, paw aloft, volunteering to help in a bubble-making demonstration at the Science Museum. Took it all very seriously and remembers every detail of the experience including the name of the older girl he shared the stage with. S and I were both momentarily stricken by the whole thing. Our boy. Sigh...

And he followed it up at the lovely oval paddling pool in the courtyard of the V&A by stripping down to his Spiderman and Friends pants and marching around the perimiter, dipping his feet in and out to make prints on the stone surround, weaving carelessly in and out of other picnicers and paddlers, singing a little song to himself.

And much needed too. Horrible shit keeps happening to my friends. FF is off the chemo because there's no hope left anymore.

Playmobil Babylon

A four year old son enriches your life in many ways, but surely the pick of the bunch is providing a great excuse to play with quality toys. Anyone who tells you that toys are just plastic rubbish these days is nuts. Leave the arty wooden farm animals to the wankers and get stuck in to Lego and Playmobil, that's my tip.

Playmobil is well designed, durable, and ... well, actually a bit weird on occasion. Here's my (ahem) Playm-odd-bil top three:



1) BOY WITH SINK "Only 5 in stock - order soon!" says Amazon. Erm, maybe.



2) DOCTOR WITH BABY INCUBATOR - Surely that's Alex from A Clockwork Orange?



3) LAUNDRY SET - Strike a blow for the sisters.


And a close runner-up:



Deer.

Pea on a Fork

... is the joyous description our friend W gave to the sleeping pose of a baby - arms thrown up either side of head. Makes me smile every time I think of it.

Spinning

It's true. I take part in the least heterosexual form of exercise on the planet. You sit on a static bike in a classful of others. To your front is a staggeringly fit instructor wearing a Britney-mic, yelling commands and encouragement as you pretend to climb hills and sprint along flat bits, using resistance on the bike's wheel, to the accompaniment of loud music. Sound a bit silly? It certainly is.

But then it's the best exercise I've ever done. I begin to match the dark red studio wall behind me within 5 mins and at the end of the session I'm saturated with sweat. A few other observations:

1) By god the music helps. Cheesy euro house does the job fine, but I always find a bit extra for that drum n'bass remix of Outer Spaced by The Prodigy.

2) It can chafe.

3) The Friday instructor, despite being about 5'3" is so fiercely fit (and in fact simply fierce) that she actually gets the back of the heavier-than-me bike to hop up when she accelerates.

Chocolate

Right well it's been several months since last post. Pity I didn't have the energy to blog daily about the excitements and strife of a new baby... but I didn't. Not even close.

So instead it's straight back to random posting.

Over Easter I discovered that S is not alone in her inability to countenance a sweet snack without accompanying tea. My brother in law B spent his entire childhood fielding cup after cup made by his mum, and finds the action of putting on the kettle her most characteristic gesture to this day. He, like S, just can't deal with a piece of chocolate, cake or a biscuit, without tea.

It's the sheer perversity of this that amuses me. The fact that both of them would deny themselves the confectionary rather than have it tealess. Beautifully illustrated by V, recounting B's reaction to her thoughtfully arriving back from a petrol station stop on a long drive with a creme egg for him. "What am I supposed to do with that?!".

Tube nightmare

Very shocking event at Warren Street tube at lunchtime. I was heading down the escalator as an elderly indian-looking couple got onto the up escalator. The husband was immediately in trouble - like he'd never been on an escalator before. Thinking back I reckon he was trying to hang on to the metai, stationary bit rather than the moving handrail. He kept stumbling and eventually fell over, followed by his wife.

By this stage i was at the bottom, so I dashed up to help. I was shocked to see this octogenarian lady sprawled on the steps with her feet uphill, as it were, flailing about in great distress. I managed to support her as another man came down the escalator to help the husband. I shouted for someone to hit the button, which thankfully they did, then we managed to manhandle the lady onto her feet. At that point other people (relatives??) came to whisk them away. I was really shocked by the look of dispair on the lady's face. It was oddly as though she wanted the horror of the situation to be acnowledged more than she wanted to be helped. She even showed me her hand which was smeared with a bit of blood whilst I was heaving her up to sitting. Very unsettling.

... and then a bit silly as I slowly made my way back down the stationary up escalator, only to speed up markedly as I realised they could switch the power back on any second...

Overheard

A lady on the King's Road talking on her mobile: "yes, then you get off at the stop after, by the Town Hall ... Chelsea Town Hall. WHERE WE GOT MARRIED...