Calamité, Nudité, Senilité

Life is just a whirlwind of confusion and social calendar appointments.

The afternoon threatened further rain so no football today: instead Ben came round to save me from the giant dinosaur (here he is trying to prise open its mighty jaws and save my fingers for posterity) and I went round to his house for play and home-made food. This free time means Bud can repot my pumpkins.
We watched the chipmunk film again, but kept our disrobing to socks only.
I can now play most of a game of spider solitaire on my own.

*BUNE* "We have reached our cruising altitude of 33,000 feet......"

3 and 2 days ago the weatherman (rainguesser) said that Wednesday park would be totally rained off so I've made arrangements. Now he says it'll be fine. So what should we expect tomorrow? Tsunami? Rain of frogs? 37-hour day from a binary star system?
Shared my umbrella home with Erin in a touching display of teamwork. Outside our house we met the Pops: she's going to the Isle of Wight on a school trip! That must be a cool school if they go to another country for the day. Baby Edward is now a year old but probably weighs the same as me. Went round to LittleMax's for tea. Anybody else I'd like to meet today? The Royal Marines Marching Band? Elvis? The man who banged the gong at the beginning of J.Arthur Rank's films?

At LittleMax's place I ate (amongst other things) 3 roast potatoes. I have never eaten my mother's roast potatoes because I don't like them, which makes her sad. I wonder if any other parents have this difficulty. We played treasure hunt and a variation on the theme called Singo Dingo in which the finder has to find both the object and the hider: this makes the "hotter, colder..." thing a bit more difficult.

Made Mother's day cards for both Grandmas: this will save Bud and Jof buying them. I just hope they like glitter, small aeroplane stickers.....

MINE IS THE LAST VOICE YOU WILL EVER HEAR. DON'T BE ALARMED

Rain. Lucky I planted out the sweet peas at the weekend to welcome it.

Looking forward to a visit from Erin today, apparently Bud told her to do exactly what I tell her so it should be OK.

Passed 4000 pageviews on my blog last night. Nice.

AND it's measuring day, let's see if I've grown.

Erin came round and we played golf and cricket in the back garden while the parents discussed the undoubted medicinal benefits of lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) when added to Bacardi and coke on a summer's evening. But we can't stick the stumps into flagstones so went down the park instead.

We all had a go at batting and bowling and running away from the very friendly and numerous dogs that thought the ball and bats were for them. After a while it became funnier to throw the bats and try to drag Bud off to prison (Erin has a certain fixation) and then for no apparent reason she started to chase me wanting a kiss. I hid in the bushes but then a pending poo forced us home.

We played shops: all coins must be drilled and banged before sale.

It was measuring day: I have grown 1 centimetre in the last 3 months: I may need to start drinking the blue fertiliser water Bud puts on the plants - they seem to grow faster than I do.

After supper we did some more stickers and it was hometime for Erin. Not bad at all - we're learning to avoid arguments, maybe there's hope for us yet.

Get your ass to Mars

.....although it's probably unfair sending a domesticated ruminant to an airless planet.

Show'n'tell again. They just don't give up, now we're not allowed to take toys of any sort, I'm going to have to start thinking.....

On the way home from school made playdates with 2 friends, it'd be 20 if I had my way. Played cricket in the garden with Bud - I'm not very good yet. Jof has banned me from TV for a day so inveigled my way onto the computer while Bud was washing up. Before the hot water was run I'd inadvertently clicked on an advert which had covered my game in a new window. Sat and shouted for help which was another mistake, lost my place at the PC. Too many rules!
Here are my beans, pumpkins and sunflowers. I am a fertility God.

The Man from the Ministry

Today the Man from the Ministry stole an hour of my life without asking.

I was due to go on a bike ride but at the last minute I changed my mind and went shopping instead. It's quite normal to have a quiet day following a Puddle extravaganza so TV was the order of the day until it was massively outranked by the appearance of the Pops. She arrived by roller skates and asked if I could clean cars with her. How could I not.....
The new bonfireplace is finished! I mean, it's totally ugly and won't win any prizes from Prince Charles but it looks strong enough. Once it's had a chance to bed in I'll be trying it out. Is it firework night yet?

Divide and Conker

The day of the great conker sowing. No short person can resist collecting conkers from the park and if your parents allow you to (and dry them out in cat litter trays, box them up and stick them in the loft) then soon you too can have a collection like mine. Here I was 20 months old and extremely proud of the first steps towards my 548 conkers, collected over 4 years. However, when I became a man, I put away childish things and it's time to perform the Heathen Spring Fertility Ritual and plant them all. Speaking of which, you will recall last August the Puddlers went forth into the bundu and collected blackberries and elderberries. Bud is even now putting those frozen fruits into his morning muesli. Yesterday that led to a bonus 2 frozen caterpillars in his cereal bowl. A natural source of protein, but no, he didn't eat them. I wonder if everyone else who made trifles etc with their blackberries are now worried that they ate some.

Bud did some more concreting this morning and here I am having my first sulk of the day. He said we'd be having a race to plant the conkers, I said we'd be doing a conker'n'spoon race because it was my idea and no we can't do both. Incidentally, Bud says the footprint of the new bonfire is slightly bigger so we can get bigger furniture in it. What is he on about, who ever heard of a bonfire walking around leaving footprints. Poo head.

So then Ben came round to ours and played with my new swords (a Samurai and a Viking) and then we walked to his place stabbing all the hedges as we went. Already in situ were the JoniBobs and Erin, then Elizabeth arrived by bike which went in the garage with the 9 other bikes. We sallied forth into the wilderness in front of their house and the adults tried to organise us into teams for a conker-planting race. We countered this by immediately organising ourselves into six teams of one and wandered off to do our own thing. Erin and I held the rest to ransom by going off with the seed bags while Bud and ErinsDad gamely tried to provide holes and Johnny pulled up grass. This all deteriorated somewhat when there weren't enough spades, or they won't share the seeds with me, or she won't give my trowel back and a million other niggles. JoniBobsDad had the idea of providing free bike rides with his extra saddle which was really good, if a little tiring for him.

We all queued up to get our one circuit of the bumpy paths but then he took my place in the queue and I haven't had a go yet and it was my turn next and so on. So the adults gave up on that one, and we trooped over to the flat bit to do the conker'n'spoon race.

Here's the problem. If you have 5 Generals and only 1 soldier (Elizabeth, who was good all day) then it all tends to fall apart. We all had our ideas of how it should go down and the PuddleParents weren't having any of it. ArchBishop Bobert was the first to go off in a huff, we all followed him to see how far he'd get before being caught by his Dad. Then 1st Sea Lord Johnny went off on one, Chairman Ben declined to take part, Prime Minister Erin lodged a formal complaint, Beth wandered off and Field Marshal Me decided that nobody was standing in the middle of the field where I wanted them so they weren't doing what they were told. In the end, only Erin was left with a conker so she raced a couple of the PuddleMummies: she was disqualified for putting the spoon down her shirt so the Trophy went to the only finisher, a most determined JoniBobsMum.

The rest of us were 30 to 150 yards away in several different directions because nobody was following orders and I'm not going to join in and you're all doing it wrong etc. Divided: conkered.

It was at this point that something broke inside the PuddleParents, they'd given up, you could see it in their eyes. And you know that once they've done that, no amount of cajoling will bring the happy faces back and once somebody'd mentioned Vitamin Beer it all went to pot. Well, beer'n'wine, but close enough.

We repaired to Bens place and got out all his toys and drove round and round the yard, Ben seemed to spend more time on the ground under a bike more than on the bike and many fingers were driven over. Top quality food arrived which was probably the best thing that'd happened to us all day and we did some more driving: but even then he won't let me go on the car and he's not sharing the guitar and it's my turn on the scooter...... I think Ben gets the prize for the most howls but we all pitched in (apart from Elizabeth)

 The parents gathered round the old camp fire well alright the wine rack and stood there talking while we watched a film about chipmunks. After that was some sort of dance music channel so we gradually stripped and jumped around half naked, which is what we do. We all have an exhibitionist streak, it seems, so due to willies many of these pictures will only be kept by the relevant parents to embarrass us in years to come. I suppose at our age dancing around with our Wands of Youth out is relatively harmless, Elizabeth didn't mind, but it does seem to perturb BensMum which is always worth doing.

At about 9 they called it so we borrowed an extremely large dinosaur and walked home. My little legs were tired so they took it in turns to carry me.

I say tomato and you say tomato

Roll on the weekend! This evening is the school quiz, postponed from when it snowed and everything closed. I'm not sure if I'll know any answers but if I do, the rest of the room will as well because I'm incapable of whispering so will likely shout "Jof!! Jof!! It's rabbits!!" (or whatever) at the top of my voice.

Apparently last year there was tutting when parents opened bottles of wine at the table so this year I'll make a big show of pouring Bud's beer for him. The gin and tonic for Jof could be more difficult - note to self - pre-slice the lime.

We were team 9 (Professor Mungleton) but were up on the board as Prof. Mingleton. The questions were all "Write down as many as you can think of in 3 minutes of this category....." with soft drinks, beers/wines, kids' TV shows, soap characters, US states, Euro countries etc as the categories. After a while Bud opened the beers and I got bored and went to play on the crash mats with all the other short people. In the end we came 6th or so, could have used some extra team players that actually knew something. At one point we tried subversive techniques - we sent in a bogus answer sheet for the winners at the time with hopelessly wrong answers. The scoremistresses laughed a lot but our cheaty ploy for greater personal glory didn't work.
Then it was fish'n'chips from the Chinese and home.

Rhinestone Cowboy Vs the Abalone Ranger

Jof snuck off work early today so picked me up. When I got home I had my favourite snack which is sticks of mature cheddar rolled up in slices of ham. I love it when Bud does it because he glues it all together with pate for an extra calorific hit but today I had it plain. I found him outside rebuilding the bonfire. There were bags of cement and bricks and watering cans and gloves and all sorts of other fun stuff so within seconds I was all cementy, against direct orders. My punishment was to go and play football on a lovely afternoon with my mates Ben and Bobert (Johnny was unable to play due to a prior appointment with the Sulk Doctor). Three courses of bricks have been completed and I can see 3 large air vents. The one at the front is where we stick fireworks when we've had a couple too many cheese'n'ham rollies - the chortle portal, 'cos it always makes us laugh.

This is my school project from our class trip to the library. Asked to design a sign that suits the location I came up with this sage comment and even included a character to convey this simple message. I'm not sure where Bob the Banana Angel came from but he's now on the fridge.

Absinthe makes the tart grow blonder

]Wednesday park was brilliant. It seemed that almost everyone we knew was down there.

 I could see several school jerseys from my class as well as the JoniBobs, Erin, OtherMax and sister, Zak, Zena and Rosie and plenty more. I guess they all had the same idea, get outside in the sunshine and warmth. It may still be March but most of us were in short sleeves and a few in short trousers. The Ice Cream Van Man had the same idea too so we all trooped off to see him, I got a cone with flake, same as Johnny. Then we climbed and played as usual, I brought 2 bouncy balls so that gave us plenty to argue over.

Whacks-ing lyrical: a hitman's tale

2 pumpkins growing so far. It's going to be a busy year.
After school I slyly inveigled myself into Erin's house again by asking nicely. Despite the fact that I had spent 4 hours round there 2 days ago (with food) and Bud had a trip to B+Q lined up, I turned down the chance to buy 3 types of compost and some mortar for the bonfireplace in favour of a girl. O, what joy it is being 16. Took some flowers round to ErinsMum to say well done for spending 4 hours on the phone berating the mortgage company, played the perfect gentleman and got fed supper again. I could get used to this, but surely it's my turn to get her round here.

Woke up this morning and found myself dead (Hendrix)

Perhaps I should have gone to bed before 9pm.
Today is dentist day, my first time under the lights. Bud tells me that all they do is count your teeth but then he did make some humorous drilling noises and actions so we'll have to see.

It was easy!! He counted my teeth as promised - I have 20 (not sure if that's good or bad) and they're in good shape. I had a quick play on the going up and down chair and that was it. Even better - they said I didn't have to pay as I'm only 5 so Bud says that's at least 3 chimneys I don't have to clean this evening.
They said I can go back in half a year and they'll see if I've grown any more teeth since today. They had my middle name down as Munro and my birthday wrong, but what's a case of mistaken identity between friends? They had the Doctor's address wrong as well but I didn't have the heart to tell them.....

Of course, having passed my dental exam I had a de facto green light to porg out on as much chocolate as poss.

Last week I got most het up when Bud allowed Erin to share my prize choc bunny from LIDL. We went back at the weekend to get a replacement that was unsullied by female fingers (and actually to get Bud's beer). But instead I chose a choc chicken with a nestful of eggs installed below. This was the choc frenzy I embarked upon today.

Homunculus domestica

Strolled up for 9-ish, I suppose, morningbreath and all. Had my slab of blood pudding and special chicken egg on toast and then avoided doing any work by playing jigsaws with Jof and watching telly.

I left Bud to do the supermarket on his own, don't know how he did the packing without me. If I'd gone with him to big B+Q I'd have met ex-Puddlers Erin and Lois W who live near Yellow Plum Park. It turned out that the large bricks he's buying to re-create the bonfire are apparently last year's stock so going through the tills at 1p each. He went back and got a second load.

In the afternoon I visited Erin for ages and did train track again, when they're in the new house we'll combine tracks because she's got all the straight bits and junctions but I've got bridges and flyovers. Length is all very well but sometimes you need a bit of up and down, right?

Found in translation

The UN cryptographic Institute supplies the following possible translation of yesterday's conversation...


MAX   Bugger it. I have to go and crap again. Don't touch my stuff when I'm gone or I'll kill you to death.
POPPY   I wipe my own bottom. I don't want other people to see me naked. I'd rather play kittens.
BEN   You're having a laugh, right? Just sit there and look lost and they'll wipe your arse for you.
ERIN    You're just a big baby. When I become prime minister I'll have you eaten by lions. Bring me some crisps right now.
JOHNNY   What crisps? Stuff crisps, get me custard! They use custard on Class 4 Minesweepers, you know.
BOBERT   Custard Pirates! I will attack your parrot with my giant custard gun! Roar! I want a sausage.
BEN    Your pathetic custard gun is no match for my throbbing light sabre, you big gay badger.
MAX    Christ, that's better. Now let's make a trap for Bud and kill him. Give me my rifle back.
ERIN    Bud! He won't let me play with his weapon, and I'm hungry. It's not fair. Make everything better.
BETH   This blackcurrant squash tastes of grapes and it's made my legs wobbly. You're my best mate.
BEN    I can't be arsed with this. Everybody get an instrument, line up behind me and let's parade with pride.
POPPY     I've only got one banger for my xylophone! This is not in my contract! All you boys are just sweaty ninjas.
BEN    Can I wear your leggings? They're totally my colour.

====================================

Went for our usual bottlebank walk in the sunshine. In tunnel park a small girl asked us to publicly endorse the excellent Artist's Cafe in the sports centre in Bransbury Park (Tunnel Park) which we are happy to do, having already bought a tray of tea and biscuits during Thursday football. Then we bought tomorrows' breakfast (giant eggs and slices of black pudding as big as my head) at the butchers, and some bonus bath fizzers at the charity shop. Must try not to mix them up.

Zak's party at the Gymnastic centre

Same room and same party structure as Johnny's party, but this time Jof came out to play so I had an ally. I didn't know quite as many of the combatants as they were in other classes but I did see Zak and Zena, Lewis and Rosie, and Zak's Mad Aunt Sharda who worked behind the same bar as Bud and Jof 23 years ago. 

As we got home, the lady across the road asked if I'd like to see her chickens. This was such an unexpected question we just had to, so went into her back garden where we found them in a special triangular coop. They only arrived a couple of days ago so were a bit new: 2 came out so Bud held them while the lady put coloured rings on their legs (selected by yours truly) to identify them. Then I fed them some barley and I got an egg to take home! Wow, I know I'm amazing but cool things just happen to me.

Then a walk to the shop to buy a box of beer PopsDad told us about and an awful lot of chocolate for some kind of Easter PuddleParty, apparently.
Music for bath fizzer night: Elgar.

Lost in translation

You know when you and your mates have had a good night on the fizzy pop and something comes back to bite you in the bottom, even if it's "What goes on tour, stays on tour"? Well, during the JoniBobs' Xmas party the parents said that when the seven of us get together and start talking rubbish to each other, it might as well all be in a foreign language. So there we were, under the dining table, having an animated discussion, little did we know that we were being bugged.....

MAX    Donder dit. Ek het om te gaan en crap weer. En raak nie aan my goed wanneer ek weg is of ek sal jou doodmaak dood te maak.
POPPY Ik veeg mijn eigen bodem. Ik wil niet dat andere mensen zien mij naakt. Ik speel liever kittens.
BEN   Sie sind mit einem Lachen, nicht wahr? Einfach dasitzen und schauen verloren und sie werden deinen Arsch für Sie zu wischen.
ERIN   Iustus es baby magna. Cum primus minister factus ero comedisti leonibus. Afferte crisps aliquam elit.
JOHNNY  Mi chips? Stuff chips, vigyen puding! Ezek felhasználása a puding 4. osztály Minesweepers, tudod.
BOBERT Custard piratai! Aš užpuls jūsų papūga su savo milžinišką tiršta pistoletas! Roar! Noriu dešros.
BEN  Din patetisk vaniljesaus gun er ingen match for min bankende lette sabel, du store homofil grevling.
MAX  Cristo, que es mejor. Ahora vamos a hacer una trampa para Bud y matarlo. Dame mi rifle de vuelta.

(STRUGGLE ENSUES)

ERIN   Bud! Han kommer inte låta mig leka med sitt vapen, och jag är hungrig. Det är inte rättvist. Göra allt bättre.
BUD        *Burp* Shut up, sneezebucket, I've never sheen this woman before in my life, offisher
JOF           Oh, you poor little dooblebooble. Everyone stop being nasty. I will sing to you.
BETH     Este groselha gustos squash de uvas e faise miñas pernas Bambi. Vostede é o meu mellor amigo.
BEN     Non posso essere mandato a quel paese con questo. Ognuno ottenere uno strumento, in fila dietro di me e andiamo parata con orgoglio.
POPPY   Ek het net een hollander vir my xilofoon! Dit is nie in my kontrak! Al wat jy seuns is net sweet Ninjas.
BEN           Puc usar els seus polaines? Són totalment meu color.

===========================================

A crack team of polyglots from the UN translation bureau are working on this ciphertext (from the covert radio intercept) and hope to bring you the cleartext version by 0400 tomorrow.

Red Nose Day so wore red trousers, top and coat. I also sprayed my hair red and Jof's hair red this morning before leaving for school: I tried it out on Bud last night (bit of an oxymoron, using hair spray on Bud, well he said something about moron anyway). In the afternoon I went round Pop's place because it's great and she's got a train track. We arranged all the trains and signalboxes in a long line down the stairs as a defensive measure but all the signalbox soldiers we sent into the dining room were trodden on. They shall not be forgotten. Staying for dinner (feet under table indeed) - salmon!

Can I have some more, please.....

 A mere 4 1/2 hours later PopsDad delivered me home. On my way out Pops kissed me really hard - harder even than when Nanna does it. I feel Top of the Pops!

Bud and Jof were having supper - Kedgeree. I used the prawn crackers to clean both of their plates, strange how parents won't object to you eating their food. Eggs, fish, rice and peas with just the smallest tickling of curry powder - how come I haven't been fed this ambrosia before?? Recommendations to all PuddleParents.....

Back in the Retox Clinic

Football day again and Ben and the JoniBobs joined me for a pre-match warmup using the ball I got from the Spinnaker Tower. Once the training proper had got under way we actually concentrated and worked hard on our tasks instead of messing about.
There were only a couple of brief howlings and it wasn't until 10 minutes before the end that Ben and Johnny's attention wandered and they stopped footballing and started shooting each other with light sabres. Fortunately they were on opposing sides so their treachery sort of cancelled out. There were the usual drinks/food breaks, I had a banana and jaffa cakes. During one of these sessions Bud noticed Ben pocketing something he'd found at the side of the football pitch, for some reason BensMum really wanted to take them away from him. They were 2 small zip-top plastic bags with a little bit of crunchy smelly leaves and a light dusting of sparkly crystal things. I don't know why she was so interested in taking them away, anything with that many smiley faces on the front must be something that makes you happy. I dunno, adults.

Another day, another 1.7 trillion Zimbabwean Dollars

I hear ErinsMum has tried to buy another house. Let's hope this one goes better than the last one.
Oh dear. It's show and tell today, and I haven't got anything ready (Postgrad thesis late). Perhaps I should take in 548 conkers.
Park day today!

The park was busy but OtherMax had managed to bag the last red bench. The JoniBobs arrived and Ben followed with one of his schoolfriends. We all worked hard as usual, played the coat game and so forth. Picnic #1 was on the grass until the climbing frames beckoned. 

But soon enough, Bottomless Bob was hungry again so we all went for a power-meeting in the Radio Station Executive Cafe like last week and finished off all the food. Erin and Rabbit Jack made it with only 15 minutes to go which meant they missed out on the Buffet but they got on with climbing anyway. Ben had a wee in a bush, which, due to it being winter, was little more than a couple of twigs, ho ho.

We learn that Erin's new intended house is just around the corner from the JoniBobs, hope that doesn't mean competition for the affections of my favourite Femme Fatale. We chased, attacked and bombarded ErinsDad with wood chips, makes a change from Bud, we've done him over so often it's just getting old, you know?

After an hour and a half of quality park action, exeunt severally. To be fair, I also visited a bush.

My school curriculum involves "The children will learn about plants and how they grow". I've had my own flowerbed for 3 years now so potted up and labelled some beans, tomatoes and sunflowers for this season. I'm doing pumpkins again and extra climbing beans.

Jof forgot her doctor's appointment. Looks like she's missed out on that Psych referral, then.....