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My hangover lasted into the morning and I got pretty angry with the kids when they wouldn't do a fucking thing I told them to do at 6.30am. But we all got over it and somehow the fug lifted and I was filled with energy for the rest of the day. Just one day away from drinking booze and eating junk and the world is clear again.
Or maybe I have just lost my mind and euphoria is one of the side effects.
I took the kids to the park this afternoon. I was walking the dog at the same time and the kids wanted to go on their scooters. My wife questioned whether I really wanted to have the responsibility of looking out for the dog and two whizzing kids. I said it would be fine. And thought about how my wife would gloat if one of the kids got badly hurt or killed. She'd be reminding me of that for the rest of my life.
We live on the main road, but it's narrow and lined with parked cars. This doesn't stop cars whizzing through, but can make it tricky to cross, so I've drummed into the kids how they have to be careful. We arrived at the point where we needed to cross to get up to the rec, but a car came out of the premises opposite quite fast. I pointed out that this is why we needed to be vigilant as cars can come from places you're not expecting. Another car was coming out behind it and I could see traffic waiting up the road so I thought it would be easier to wait for everything to go past. But the driver of the car exiting the car park saw us waiting and waved for us to go. I knew we couldn't go as there might be cars coming, but Phoebe, seeing an instruction from an adult thought it was OK to scoot.
Luckily I anticipated her move and shouted at her to stop before she'd got very far. Even more luckily this was the kid who stops when you tell them to. A car whizzed by from the right.
The driver of the car looked pretty apologetic and horrified that her kind gesture had nearly squashed my child.
I spent the rest of the day replaying this incident in my head, thinking of how split seconds could have led to something more devastating. And the "I told you so" l I would have got from my wife.
On such tiny margins are our lives changed. Someone should write a film about the diverging parallel universes that come from these 50/50 incidents. Maybe don't make it about a 5 year old being squashed by a car though.
In this universe the afternoon progressed OK, but I thought about poor old other Universe Richard Herring, having to try and explain why he'd broken one of his kids. Or maybe there's another universe where both kids scooted into the road. Poor that Richard Herring. His wife must be really enjoying her "I told you sos". And what if the dog had run after them? Then there would be a real, "So you thought that taking the kids, the scooter and the dog would be fine, did you?"
Guess this isn't the completely dark time line after all.
I am glad we all survived because as we were going up the hill the kids started telling me about the scary donkey that was around these parts. I thought they had gone mad, as it was all houses here. They heard a weird sound and thought it might be the donkey (I think it was someone moving their bins) and my daughter said that the donkey just stared at you.
What the Hell was going on? Had they survived the road only to be eaten by an evil donkey?
It turned out that the donkey was a large pantomime camel that someone had put in their porch. It was quite scary (and it was wearing wellies which made it look like it might kick into life at any point) but I found it funny that they thought it was a donkey. Who is teaching these kids?
Oh looks like it's us.
Winner of the big end of year badger draw is Oli Matthews from Norwich. There are 9 runners up who get a copy of Pooman card game (and whatever else will fit in the envelope).
They are
Neil Redmond
Philip Lacey
Andrew Aylott
Nicolai B. Enevoldsen
David Wright
Gregory McLeod
Riley Perszyk
James Theobald
Kirwan Lyster
Stewart Killala
(I will be in touch to check all your addresses)
There's draw every month with top prizes.
Join us here (loads of other benefits)
