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I had the kids to myself this morning and in an attempt to keep them off their devices (obviously I am never on mine), I took them to the park for a runaround. Or in my case am aslittlemovementaspossiblearound - that's how you invent a word, Charles Dickens. (Following my podcast with Joz Norris there has been some discussion on social media- mainly between Joz and me- as to whether Dickens really invented the word "eggbox", which he obviously didn't as it didn't need inventing. I have realised too late that eggbox is actually a terrific euphemism for the scrotum and as such I have created the term eggbox, with that definition, so that's 2-0 to me Dickens and Norris).
Phoebe had brought her Frisbee or more accurately one of those newer flying rings with the hole in the middle, as opposed to the plate like thing I used as a kid. it's very much a Polo-Frisbee (3-0) and a bit harder to make fly than the traditional one. But Phoebe loved throwing it and Ernie loved chasing it and it was only after about 20 minutes that Phoebe found out that if you through it upwards at a 45 degree angle then it would fly pretty well.
I am glad to have reached the point where my kids are old enough to play properly and parenthood is really coming into its own. Though I am getting too old and and fucked to join in properly. After three months of having a bug that has just about, but not quite, fucked off, I am about as unfit as I've been for years. I tried to do Park Run yesterday but only managed a kilometre and a bit.
Ernie wanted to paddle in the "river" - a rather dubious seemingly man-made stream at the back of the park, where he moved stones around to create a dam (like father like son) and then we headed to the supermarket. As Ernie tried to show me a bit of the stream that he considers enchanted and where he has seen fairies (he claims), a rat ran across the pathway. Or maybe it was an elf. Just a hairy one with a fucking big tail.
Never had reality encroached on fantasy so quickly and comprehensively.
I was going to take them out for lunch, but in the end we just came home and had egg and chips, which is my own happy meal from childhood (though my mum would always make the chips in a chip pan and today the chips were out the freezer). A decade or so ago my brother and I were both at my parents home at the same time and we insisted on mum making us fried egg and chips for lunch. Both of us having the same Proustian rush. I don't know if my kids will have quite the same association, but it's an effective and simple and lovely meal. My son drenched his chips in vinegar so there was a pool of the stuff left in his bowl. He is, again, his father's son. Poor little sod.
In the afternoon Catie was home and we sat on the patio drinking beer (mine non-alcoholic, still not slipped after four and a half years) and the kids larked about in the garden and the house and I wondered if we had enough savings to mean that I can spend the next ten years playing frisbee, eating egg and chips and doing nothing else. We definitely don't. But it was good to have another family day. Even with the rats our lives are good. For today at least. That's all you can hope for: a good day today.
Today Today, I love you today. Why did you have to turn into yesterday?
