The 1926 general strike revisited

My teachers have decided to have an extra-extra holiday for pension-related reasons I won't understand for years. It's not just me - Follower Fiona is due to fly out to Samos today but will the Air Traffic Controllers strike save her from the Greek rioters? Who knows. I greeted this news by bursting into tears at 0100 and waking the household up. Therefore I will spend the day with Erin whose Mum has kindly adopted me for the day, even though Bud broke her bike yesterday.
I hope the football coaches aren't on strike as well.
Had a splendid day with Erin. We went to the model village, the beach, the butterfly museum where I got a snake called fangs (like Cleopatras' asp - fangs for the mammary), canoe lake swingpark, the lot. Then we played helicopter-jumping off the furniture and tents in the garden. Then Bud came to pick me up and brought round the plastic train track to add to Erins' one, I shall return O yea indeed to construct it with her.
Football was good as usual, we played ghosts and all the normal complicated team games but then poor Ben stood on a ball and went over backwards. He banged his head lots and didn't look too happy about it - they reckoned junior concussion so he went to the clinic for a check-up.

As Ben has blown me out for the trip to the Sealife centre, I may take Erin instead to pay her back for being so nice to me.

In the evening we finished off the marble cake. It was too big to go in the box so Jof had cut off 4 slices which were consumed by Erin, Erinsmum and the football Puddlemummies. Now it's an incandescent, ebullient monolith of joy, coruscating with bold swathes of icing and scintillating hundreds and thousands. The cake stall operatives won't know what's hit them. Unless they, too, ate the wrong mushrooms.....

When you're strange

Time is like a river: trick is, get the job as the lock-keeper.

Absolutely lovely day today: I'm feeling much better after my chronological hiccup yesterday, a good nights' sleep was all I needed. So I leapt out of bed and went to find them, singing merrily. Jof harrumphed and said go back to bed for 2 hours you nutter: Bud put me back to bed but then went off for his shower anyway. If his getting-up time is 0530, why can't it be mine as well?

Anyway, at teatime today I turn 5 and a half. I popped (was dragged) out just in time for a) snow and b) the afternoon broadcast of the quality daily dramatic intrigue "Neighbours" but failed to watch it. So it's measuring day again.....I have grown 2.5cm to 110.5cm! OK, so it's less than everyone else but it's good for me.

Popsmum dropped her off so she could have some peace and we both took our bikes down to swingpark for Bike Park Wednesday. Because he was preferentially looking after Pops I suddenly learnt to start on my own. This is 17 months after learning to ride without training wheels. On the way we stopped off at the rather excellent graffiti wall for some pictures.

Bobert was at a friends' house but Erin and Johnny had their bikes, Ben arrived bikeless so over the period, borrowed all of them. We tried to have a race but nobody started at the same time: Pops didn't want to race and Erin didn't want to slow down.

Johnny didn't like the way we all kept going past him as he waited at his chosen start line, the helmetless Ben fell off Pops' bike (it suits him) and cut his leg and I was just happy to go round and round getting overtaken by Erin.

At one point Bud hopped onto Erinsmums' bike and went round shooting us until he broke the bike by getting his foot stuck in the mudguard. He had to run home and get his bike tools to remove it but Erinsmum said it was ok because they broke our clothes rack by putting too many shirts on it.

We knew nothing about this because we'd met some schoolfriends and were climbing a bush.

Then some quality time climbing, swinging and eating until hometime.

I helped Jof make a marble cake for the school fayre cake stall: I got to use the electric whisk so whisked vigorously. Jof ended up with splattered choc right across her chest.

Life. The perpetual emotion machine

Another hot night. I clutch the duvet and cocoon myself within it so on sultry nights such as this, I overheat. Called them in for medication and we all met on the landing at 0330, as you do.
Slept in heavily in the morning, feeling lifeless so opted for the afternoon session only at school, I'll go in after lunch.
Gardeners' corner
36 species of flower out in the back garden. The challenge sunflowers are at 7 foot nine inches, haven't flowered yet so a little bit more altitude to be gained there. We were promised exciting thunderstorms and lots of rain but the weatherman lied again, don't trust them. This afternoon we may have to hose...
At last. The weather broke around lunchtime and we got rain and thunder. May I be truly praised.

Jof has a friend going to America, and I happen to have some surplus US coins in my duplicates box. What more does an air traveller require than a large heavy bag of assorted low-denomination US coins? We found $3.70 so the hapless emigrant will, upon reaching the hallowed turf, be able to buy milk for his first coffee using a slew of dimes and pennies. This will endear him to the coffee vendor for effort made, and lots of change for the till.

Incidentally, we were collecting French coinage as well in order to bestow riches on the first waiter we met but this plan was delayed by the unexpected advent of the Euro. Now Greece is about to default, dragging the Eurozone back to reality and their own currencies, I have over 350 French Francs! I shall purchase the Eiffel Tower from the destitute garlic-crunchers forthwith, retract the ladder and live on passing pigeons. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the vast bag of assorted low-denomination Euro-cent coins I've been saving for that same lucky waiter.

Teacher, what jungle does the cheese-eating surrender monkey live in? Bud keeps going on about them.

In the afternoon I was moany, complainy and gripey (even on a little walk around the Football stadium where we met the graffiti artists at it again. I must get pics of their inventive artwork). I am practised at this and took no prisoners, inventing 7 serious illnesses ranging from fatal to immediately terminal. Unfortunately my Temporary-Guardians-Until-I-Inherit-The-Earth did not fall for it this time and sent me upstairs at ten past six. I could not believe it and protested in a vengeful manner. At six thirty, when Pops rang the doorbell (with help, she's only my size), I was in PJ's, doing my teeth. I proclaimed myself to be fully better but they didn't fall for that one either.

I may have to start using thunderbolts from above.

Daz. Worth its weight in Bold

A splendidly hot day again so went to school in shorts. I pity those with hair.
Todays' show'n'tell object was my metal detector so all the way home 2 of my girlfriends used it to detect lamp-posts, drain covers, cars, gates, each other, and one surprised dog.
I have finally looked through all of the pictures from the BBQ yesterday and I'll put them on todays' post: if I put them on yesterdays' one, it'll be so big the internet will crash.

ps while doing cutting and sticking yesterday, I made Bobert a thank you card, all my own work.

 To Rob
Fangs for the brilneant parte
The is is a card to sae fangc ye
Fat Bobot

 

Exploring the Queens' warships

As promised we arrived at the dockyard nice and early and met LittleMax and the JoniBobs.

It was nothing like as busy as Ark Royal day so we breezed through to the first ship: HMS Gloucester. It had guns and missiles and even a special room for spies but it was quite small.

The captain had his own bath and I got to sit in his command chair and phone up the engine room and press all the buttons. All the rooms and corridors were tiny and there were cables everywhere and little cupboards in unexpected places and trip hazards and head-bump hazards and armed guards and telephones all over the place.

Once we'd done the tour of the type 42 destroyer Gloucester we went over to HMS Daring which was much bigger and we took turns to squirt the giant firefighting hose over the side. It had space for helicopters and I played with the guns which were chained down.

We got to play with the buttons in the ops control room but most of the consoles were turned off so we didn't get to launch any missiles against the Isle of Wight ferry. A huge bank of sea fog rolled in and completely obscured Gosport, which was nice.
On our way out we met Elizabeth because her mum was working there, she got to play with origami ships and operate the candy floss machine. I took her away from all that and she came back to ours for cutting and sticking. After a while, we walked round to the JoniBobs' place for another excellent barbecue where I helped inflate the paddling pool and we all got wet. This was no problem as it was a very hot day and we could dry off by just standing there. Then we all got naked, having invented the "Naked Room" which made the parents despair, but they couldn't do anything anyway because of all the beer. So we got on the windowsill and waved our winkies through the window, which just made them despair even more.

The 1 picture of events in the "Noody room" just won't upload, and neither will the detailed picture drawn by Johnny. We shot each other with the water pistols and took turns to slide down the slide into the pool and get naked again. Elizabeth got naked so many times she lost her clothes and nearly had to walk home starkers.

One bad apple doth not a barrel make

On the standard morning walk we met 3 of my schoolfriends and Runny-nose Archie from the spy games a few days ago. He was eating some kind of white sweetie-powder so on the way back we bought some. It's called Fizz Whizz and it crackles on your tongue and is coke flavour so I called it go-faster powder because it makes me walk faster. Apparently there is another coke-flavoured one called Bolivian Marching Powder which also makes you go faster but this bag was only 15p from an old woman in the Post Office so probably not the same stuff.

SPY STORY

Various sleeper agents were reactivated this week by a series of mysterious dead letter drops organised by "J", secretive asset controller, Europe Western division. We convened outside ours at 3pm as instructed. Present were: myself (Red Leader), Erin (Pink Bleater), Pops (Honey von Trapp) and Ruby (the one that can read).

Having tried out a lot of the costumery provided we pretty well ignored it and got on with the task. We had a map, 3 of the 5 clues ("J" hurriedly printed off the missing ones) and notebooks, to be mostly left behind.

We used the poisoned Bulgarian umbrellas to poke the ping pong balls out of the suspended blanket, losing only 3 into the bushes. We noted my house number. We counted the number of stars on the EU flag on the back gate.

We counted the number of dinosaur stickers in my playhouse that had traffic cone stickers on their heads (guess who made up that clue). We delved into the Bucket'O'Sand with real snakes and counted the gold bribe-coins therein. This gave us a string of numbers, which, when decrypted using the provided substitution cipher, gave us the magic word - TABLE!

This could only mean one thing. We rushed inside and discovered the dining table had been transformed into a haven/den of iniquity with individually labelled official bank night safe boxes of goodies, tailored to our specific needs!

I got a tank with flashing tweeting gun, some of my colleagues got sparkly make-up etc. Then, to add to Jofs' workload we demanded art equipment and sat and did sticking for a while while Bud burnt the hedge. Then there was some digger-in-the-sandpit action, hula-hooping on the pavement, making get well cards for Millie, wandering aimlessly, helping with the bonfire, arguing over roller skates (apparently you can't share roller skates), and finally supper. Poor old Jof was run ragged looking after our every demanding need, serves her right for having such a great idea.

Then the agents went back to their cover lives one by one and by 7pm the house was quiet again (because I had the TV and Jof was having a lie-down).

Let's get this party started

Bobert turns 5 today, a full nine months after Erin, what's he been doing all this time? It's dressing up as a pirate time again, I've got great mileage out of the pirate costume, splendid value for money and life extended by me not growing. It's probably my longest-serving uniform after my birthday suit. So we were the first there (apart from Bobert, only fair, it's his party) and once Bud had fed the parking meter with numerous Jersey, Isle of Man and Gibraltar coins we got inside and I got stuck in straight away. One by one the rest of the Puddlers arrived but so did other kids (is Bobert allowed other non-Puddler friends?) and it turned into the usual sweatfest. The soft play area for under-5s is a perennial attraction and we gravitated there to throw big cushion things at each other (including the fabled lost pirate map of Celebes which eluded us last time) which was not fair on Pops as she doesn't like being hit in the face by cubic cushions being thrown by the larger boys, so she spent a lot of time retreating.

In a well-rehearsed party format we got chased by Mr Silly and then beat him up: even a relatively fit 41 year-old can't defend himself while carrying Erin and Ben on his back. Give it a couple of years and we'll all be bigger than him anyway. Then it was food: I ate almost all of it, bit more play and then caketime: bit more play and then home time. This didn't stop us as we drove to Waitrose to pick up Jof and met some complete strangers called Erin and Poppy in the car park (once we'd taken the lift to the top floor and climbed up the railings) so we gave them some balloons and the wine and lemons to save Jof taking them round for the PuddleGirlies party tomorrow. Apparently Cal (JoniBobsMum) has a birthday party tomorrow which is why all the ladies will be absent.

Second supper: pasta and avocado. Shouty bedtime ten-ish.

It was shortly after this video was taken that Ben landed on my hand and bent all the fingers the wrong way.

I march to a different drummer

Pretty normal Thursday. Jof was off and delivered my old play farm to the school for next years' reception kiddies to play with (they'll be so young!), let them get confused about how to fit the farmhouse together and stop the incredibly annoying hen coop collapsing instantly when hit by a nitrogen molecule.
Jof delegated football duty to Bud so she could get on with creating the Spy mission that I shall be playing on Saturday with Ruby, Erin and Pops. Bond films have a similar ratio of rugged yet handsome unorthodox spies to supermodels so I should do just fine.
Again, pretty average football with a few hurt feelings, a few hurt kneecaps and a few goals let in while we were looking the other way.  I got a sneak preview of Boberts' birthday presents, if I knew who Genghis Khan was I'd draw a parallel.

¿Do you feel lucky, Pŭnċ?

Will the weather hold for Wednesday park?

Yes, it did. We arrived at the same time as Ben, and Erin who is starting to realise the benefits of a regular session. As we sat down the JoniBobs arrived and I handed out all the fairy cakes, making sure Erin got the first one.

 From there on it was the usual stuff. We all swung on the swings, swung on the monkey bars and moved on to the "giant pile-up on the curly slide" game that I got squashed in last year. The other combatants were much bigger than us but Erin and Ben make up for that in gung-ho attitude and if I get squashed I'm so light I sort of pop up like a wet soap when you squeeze it. We all had chocs and Hula Hoops and the PuddleParents have arranged many more delights for future weeks.

Next week can everyone bring their bikes? We can do circuits and races.

Incidentally, yesterday I brought home another "artwork". In the past, these have been (in ascending age): scribbles on unevenly cut bits of card, larger scribbles on A4 paper, handprints, 2 bogrolls sellotaped together and labelled "Binoculars", spludgy painting in bright orange (subject unknown), 2 bogrolls sellotaped to an eggbox and labelled "Eiffel Tower", and most recently, portrait of Bob the Library Angel with caption "Don't rip the books".

But this latest effort is in another league, or possibly another dimension.

It is a brightly coloured tablet with bas-relief cartouche lovingly hand-mangled in clay, varnished and fired, with exposed segment of paperclip for easy hanging.

But why O why, I hear you cry, has its true meaning passed you by?

Erins' guess: a lighthouse

Jofs' guess: a robot

Buds' guess: an elephant.

I despair of you all, ye Damien Hirsts of the plumbing world. Can you not see it is a treehouse?

Dance naked at the solstice

Erin's coming round for play and tea today, I made sure we didn't eat all the fairy cakes because I want to give her one. Bud says are you sure that's what you want to say, I said fairy nuff, she can have two.

She was in my class for going home time but was too shy to do the Snake and Penguin dance with us. Having ditched her mum who had turned up by mistake we headed to the park (Tuesday Park??) and hung from the monkey bars until thirst and the promise of an ice cream drove us home.

We devoured the proffered Cornetto and cast around for a purpose in life. We wanted to do some drawing but Bud found the lump of raw chalk we found at the quarry so we went outside and used the vast canvas that is the pavement to draw mantraps for the passers-by, 2 of whom were current Puddlers so they were immune.



Give it 20 years, we'll have our own TV show

We wrote a begging message to Pops to visit and pointed the way with a grillion chalk kisses that stretched from her gate to my front door, close to 40 yards. So I've got one girlfriend that makes kissy entreaties to another to join in our games. Bud says everyone can learn from me.

Supper was ham, quiche, meatballs in onion gravy and 4 kinds of vegetable. Between us we left 2 items. I mean, if Bud had told us it was onion gravy we would have said "Uurgh" and demanded Sugar Puffs or some such tripe instead, but there you have it. Incidentally, Erin called him Daddy twice today, he says he would have remembered, he's got a list an' everything.

Finally, Pops was released by the aggressively covetous childminder and we could play spies as a team. Ruby joined in as did the unknown Alfie or Albert, don't know, but he has a very runny nose and liked my gun.

Jof arrived and was roped into making a treasure hunt which continued even after Bud walked Erin home, forgetting her top, kneepads (don't ask), lollipop, etc. Forgot the fairy cakes as well.

2026: the forgotten year

The much awaited second album was storming up the charts as I floated slowly down the Mississippi on my riverboat fleecing the president and other hustlers at Texas hold'em and vingt-et-un. My spacecraft was prepped and ready for my arrival in Houston, I was probably going to have to postpone the book signing and that Swedish princess was on the phone again. Do I really have to leave the solar system for her to understand I was just celebrating being awarded the Nobel prize for discovering how to predict earthquakes? Anyway, I'm married now to Pops and those foxy alien chicks, it was nice of them to teach me telepathy. Ever since I found I could sniff out buried treasure and breathe underwater, life has been 
Ringring *gnork* wizwiz?? What? Jof? What do you mean it's a school day?

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

After school we pruned the front garden, you could hardly walk down the passageway where you put the bins out unless you're under 4 feet tall so hooray for me. Predictably it started raining but I donned a raincoat and finished the job.
Caitlin at school (we're just friends) gave me a blue egg timer today: it times at 2 minutes 16 seconds. I now seek a small bird, perhaps a plover or moorhen, whose eggs take 2 minutes 16 to cook.

Booze it or lose it, baby

Fathers' day so made Bud a special card with all his favourite stuff on: boobies, beer and bonfire, I mean, what more could he want. Jof topped this off with a pot of Ludicro-chilli paste from the farmers' market, another spicy magma-bomb into the chilli-coated charnel house that is his tummy.

Made cakes! Not actually inspired by Ben, these are a trial run for cakes for the upcoming school fayre.

Now: bowling at Gunwharf.

Bud had beer (fathers' day privilege) and we arrived at our allocated bowling lane. The control panel where you enter players' names etc accepted about 3 keystrokes before detaching from the main housing and falling to the floor, dangerously exposing live wires. We moved to the end lane and played. The lane had obviously experienced recent subsidence, the balls kept wandering to the sides but luckily the barriers were set to "always on" so not so bad. Jof says the place is on its' last legs, silly old moo, it's a building, it doesn't have legs.

Scores:

Bravo Bravissima Mungles: 69 points. 

Holy Mother Jof: 102 points. 

Pater Familias Bud: 103 points.

From there we wandered via an anti-submarine howitzer, a cannon, 2 sea mines and a torpedo to "Strada" an Italian restaurant where I had a massive pizza al fresco and didn't like the breadsticks dipped in olive oil/balsamic acid vinegar. Due to the keen wind and setting sun we moved inside for the ice cream (Alert: kids meal with drink and ice cream = £5.75, most reasonable if you have kids although the adult meals and beers are much pricier).

I told you NOT to eat the apple

Up at 0935, another 12 hour snoozefest. Actually not raining so helped put my laundry out by hanging up 1 hanky. Did the usual bottlebank walk, Bud is so thoughtful to always have a stock of bottles to recycle. We met Harry of Thursday football in tunnel park, along with his baby brother who Bud says is better at football than me. I clamped him viciously with the grabber I had insisted on taking.

Then it was gymnastics: I excelled as usual but he pulled a muscle out on his run, ho ho.

When we got back he promised me an afternoon with Pops: guess who was sitting on our doormat waiting for me to come home. Jof got home and went back to bed, why not, she actually works hard.

Gardeners' corner: 32 different species of flower blooming in the back garden today.

After 3 pill-Popping hours of fun, Pops and I returned to the ranch to announce I was staying at hers for dinner. As our houses are 27 yards from each other, some kind of extension-passageway for easy access is not currently plausible, we'll have to continue to use the "Pavement" like plebs. But it's worth thinking about...  I finally returned at 8pm, tough life, isn't it: only 5 hours this time.

Bath fizzer music: "Ballads and blues" by Gary Moore. Bedtime ten something.

I'm the black wildebeeste of the family

Friday!! It's supposed to be bonfire weekend but fat chance of that with the sudden onset of the monsoon and hurricane season.
It rained and rained, we ran home and I settled down for some serious telly with lots of high calorie treats eg coconut macaroons.
Highlights of this afternoon: Wetness, dampness, deluge and precipitation. The cloud we were blessed with was inventive. First it rained. Then it rained some more, had a purple patch of alternating bucketing, **ssing down and raining cats and dogs, interspersed with exuberant periods of blustery showers. Then it settled down into constant rain. We went to pick up Jof (for that is only fair) and then I had pizza for supper.

 Grandad (and indeed Bud, following in his size 4 footsteps) is a great fan of "If you've grown it yourself, it's better" and he goes on about how 4 of the 5 things on the supper plate came from the garden - not including the pig or chicken portion, for they do not grow animals apart from snails, which we have not yet pan-fried in essence of our own garlic. Bud grows watercress* for his lunchtime sarnies, toms, spinach and herbs etc for the main meal. So tonight I had a pizza I made myself at school. So many times at PuddleNursery I came home with fairy cakes or some other tosh I'd made, and they always seemed to end up in the compost, lucky mice. But not this time.....
Yes. The pizza looks yummy, and Bud put extra cheese on it. But I decided I didn't like tomatoes on pizza so they had to be hoiked out. Sigh.....
* big bags of which went to 2 of Buds' work friends and BensMum - good for soup, salad and so forth. Given the amount of bonfire ash we put on the garden, absolutely packed with vitamins and minerals. It's the ribeye steak of the plant world

A pillar of salt in the desert of unforgiveness



My manservants (who were put on this earth solely to serve me) have been getting above themselves again. One even threatened to spank the holy buttocks if I didn't put my pyjamas on. Papal Bull to self: I shall have to have a word, maybe call in a small lightning strike.

Speaking of narcoleptic ocelots, I do hope football is on this afternoon, we'll assess raininess before leaving (or not). Either way, Ben can come round to my house and undo all that tidying we did yesterday.

The weather changed from black rainclouds to sunny blue sky in a matter of minutes at just the right time so we went footballing. The JoniBobs were on hols so it was just us: we ran around and skidded on the damp sand as only we can. Then Ben came back to mine for a musical parade and to get all the toys out. We shot our real bullets into the flowerbeds and retrieved them using a combination of grabbers and an adult. Then BensMum drove us round to the JoniBobs house to water their plants while they're on holiday.

Gardeners Corner

Ben and I have a sporting competition as to who can grow the largest sunflowers. Mine went in ages ago so I might peak early and lose but here is the opening salvo in the sun-stakes. My tallest plant currently (none have flowered yet) is six feet ten inches (208cm). We are a little obscured in this pic but we're standing on the little flowerbed wall so level with the plants.

Later, in the shower I put an empty 100ml giant syringe to my lips and made the following safety announcement, which sounded just like a real tannoy:

"Attention, attention. We are about to go to the farm. If you want to go to the farm, please press the red button on your remote control. Thank you."

The fundamental interconnectedness of things

Amo, amas, amat.

Also sprach Zarathustra.

Pour vivre heureux, vivons caché.

All these were uttered by citizens taller than I. But I say poo to you all, for my bons mots shall be remembered forever....well, until I next go to sleep, anyway.
Down on the farm (Guns'n'Roses)
So today my class visited Longdown Dairy Farm as part of my coursework; scheduled topics include match the young animal to its mother, observe characteristics and learn how to treat animals (I guess Pops is learning this at home with her rabbit: as long as the hutch gate is secured nightly, the fox won't get this one). The school were very kind about asking for a voluntary contribution of £12.50 each or the trip would be cancelled.
My class also has 7 chicken eggs in an incubator so there will soon be even more blonde chicks to admire me.
I had a very bumpy tractor ride, fed a giant pig and saw the biggest horse in the world, which eats carrots. I declined to feed it because of its hairy lips. I declared that I came first in the egg hunt (harvesting chickens eggs) with a stunning 11 eggs. And ditto in the egg race to take the recently laid eggs from the coop (shaped like a cow with little doors) to the egg repository (not an IVF procedure). Bud expressed disbelief that I can be the winner of so many things but he wasn't there so he won't know. Erin wasn't with me - she went to Marwell Zoo yesterday with Zak and the rest of her class, saw giraffes and an anteater with a mouth thi-i-is long (use generous hand movements here).

Speaking of which, because Wednesday park is rained off, Erin graciously drove me back to hers for play, food and the chance to wear massive goggles and watch 3D TV. The return visit will be next Tuesday and let's hope the weather is OK tomorrow for Thursday Football.
OK so the goggles are quite reasonable, the Blu-ray and widescreen HD 3D TV is all very flash and groovy but Bud said we don't have enough money to get one. We watched "Monster House" and it does indeed look like things are jumping out of the screen etc. The Erins will set up a mini-cinema room with popcorn and ice cream for us VIPs while they go off to the servants' quarters and have their sherbets at the housewarming.