6827/19747
We left our rickety but lovely Air BnB in Axbridge this morning and headed home. The kids had a couple of big helium balloons from their grandad's birthday that they wanted to take home. I wasn't quite sure how we'd fit them in the car, but it turned out I didn't have to worry about one of them. I had them in a black bin liner, but had picked it up from the wrong end and as we walked to the car the champagne bottle eased its way out of the top (which was at the bottom) of the bag and floated upwards before I noticed. The kids shouted and I made a late leap to catch it, but too late. It floated away over the church.
The children were inconsolable. I had no idea they had been so attached to this plastic representation of an alcohol bottle, but at that age you have all the feels. It didn't matter that the balloon was already deflating and would have been in the bin within two days. It didn't comfort them to know that my mirror sight lines would be clearer for the journey. They just needed to mourn. And wait 30 minutes, to the time when they would forget about the balloon and get obsessed with some other nonsense.
They blamed me though. Maybe in 30 years time my son will remind me of the time I broke his heart by taking insufficient care of a party balloon that he loved more than me.
Their mum comforted them with the plan to go out and buy them some new balloons when we were home and so after the long drive we unpacked the car and then got back into the car to go into town.
We chose some balloons but had to wait 20 minutes for them to be inflated, so went into the shopping centre and killed some time in a toy shop and as the kids had been largely well behaved on holiday (if you ignore the dirty protests) we let them choose one cheap toy.
When my son brought up the wine bottle again and I told him that it was indeed sad, but if it hadn’t happened he wouldn’t have got his new Spider-man balloon or the toy he had, so in a way I had done him a huge favour. It is time he learned the knock on effect of tiny events and how they can impact on everything else. If I hadn’t let that balloon go, the ladies in the balloon shop would have made £19 and the toy shop owner would have made a smaller profit too. This will impact on what they can buy for their own families. Ernie wouldn’t listen though - he was just sad that he’d lost his friend.
We watched the last episode of season one of Succession tonight. It’s a genuinely affecting and funny and awful drama (only awful in the sense that the people in it are terrible and yet somehow you still root for them a little bit) and I was left reeling by the denouement, almost as if it was something that had really happened. Which I suppose it has. If you’re as behind the curve as me and haven’t seen this yet then do give it a watch. Fabulous writing and acting and I find that you can’t watch more than one episode at a time, so you don’t splurge it and can enjoy it (if that’s the right word) over time. Like “The Crown” it makes you realise that having money and power can be more of a curse than a blessing, something that traps you, rather than frees you, something that drives you crazy, if you weren’t already. But it’s also about family and dysfunctional love, though pretty much always the sad side of that.
The great news is we still have ten episodes to watch and another series on the way. Hooray. Cousin Greg is going to be in charge of everything eventually, I am sure.
Another guest confirmed for RHLSTP. Badgers can see who it is in their secret area. The rest of you will find out tomorrow.
