A very Puddle New Year's Eve

Up for 11am, because he told me to. It seemed like no time at all until we were shopping in the rain, I spent the last of my Xmas/birthday money and got 3 more Lego Ninjago things, he tried to push me towards the dock with crane and ship or the office block with safecracker and helicopter because at least you can reuse the bits to make something else. I went on at him at length about how the Green Sensei Snake has the best Rave and spinner and the special spikes all over the vehicles make them fly and he just didn't understand the significance of it all. Not so much spinner as spanner.

I still haven't fully grasped the 1st and 2nd Law of Lego 1) No adult cares and 2) Not even a little bit. Is there a collective term for a Lego collection of this magnitude (given that this lot was bought in the last week)? He suggests 'An Obscenity Of Lego'.

It's just one of those things you look forward to all year, then in a flash of frilly knickers, it's gone and you have to wait a whole year again. This one is a fancy dress on a Cops'n'Robbers theme so I've gone predictably mad with some pyjamas and possibly my 4th eyemask (should have looked in the dressing-up box first).

Jof has destroyed an old dress and spent hours watching Blackadder. Bud has visited a charity shop and for only 6 shillings and some food stamps has obtained a very nice demob suit, only several sizes too big. With our well-honed catchphrases (me - Hand over the loot/It's a fair cop, Guv'nor), her (I hate squirrels) and him (Err, what's up doc/Who loves your baby) I feel we're onto a winner for best dressed PuddleFamily.

We arrived separately and got stuck in. Kodak wore his suit all night and my pyjamas were just right. Quite a few times we had to go and tell the adults to keep the noise down and Bobert called them Lame-os. The squirrel-murderer sang off-key a lot and we shot each other and had a good time although there were a few final warnings and a few howls. Erin had me in an arm-lock when Ben jumped on us so that was painful but I soon forgot about it and found the Lego Heroes and we all spent time under the spare bed with the lights off and there were films and guns and blowup guitars and we danced with the convicts and shot at the arab and had a firework display at midnight.

Our taxi arrived right in the middle of the party so next time we'll stay later.

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll sit in a corner

Up late, why not. Then they ditched us at Horizones in Havant (place where I broke my arm and venue of at least 2 Puddle birthday parties) while they went to Hobbycraft in search of even more wool and crepe paper and pipe cleaners. Srsly, how much wool do you need?

Anyway, Attack Chase was going swimmingly until he made up for his more cumbersome nature and cheated by going up a slide where it said no entry, go down only. I huffed and puffed and sulked and stamped all the way home and burst into tears at Jof again for the ignominy and unfairness of it all.

Do any of my PuddleFriends feel the same way about life? Is it just turning 7 and the associated turbulent hormonal imbalances, or are the parents changing?

Some hours of Uno later we put Nanna back on the train (at the last minute deciding not to send her to Cardiff) and I got back to Lego until Pops arrived. She brought a birthday present and a touch of the supermodel, then took a plastic sword for her sister's fancy dress costume and me back to her room, for I am an away player and am well in with the mum.

StruwwelPeter continues. In today's title episode, we learn how slovenly and unkempt children, low on the metrosexual register, will be shunned by all who meet them. So all those with hippy-girly locks (Italian footballers included) and unwashed stockings would do well to listen, however brightly coloured your tunic or lipstick.

Level 7 to the Max

At last, my 7th birthday. I rushed to open my cards, most of which contained tenners from my subjects and slaves. I got straight down to work on the Red Lego Aeroplane (the really big one that Johnny's got). After the first argument of the day about eating, I drove to the station to pick up Nanna, leading her like a simpleton but it still made her happy.

Lunch was supposed to be at Shenanigan's Restaurant but they were closed so we went upmarket to the John Lewis cafeteria, where we had the second food-related dispute. I like the idea of food, just not having to actually eat it. Excuses include: It isn't what I expected. It's got something on it. I'm full. I don't like chicken any more.

 I chose 3 boxes of Lego Ninjago, then went back and got 3 Lego Heroes, then I went back again and got a packet of Doctor Who Cybermen from the reduced shelf, total £74.90. Nanna bought wool, Jof got pillowcases and Lego wrapping paper, and he got the shortest jeans available, but Nanna is still going to have to do turnups on them. These sales are excellent.

Lego keeps me quiet, but if you look at Hours Of Quietness per £ spent, it's about as much as hiring a criminal defence lawyer. And what did they do with their hours of silence? They sat and knitted. Woolly-headed, if you ask me.

At my exact birth minute (just in time for second Neighbours) I was measured - 120.9 cm, an increase of 2.1 cm on September. Then we visited Mozzarella Joe's on Southsea seafront. We'd planned a return visit to see all the corniche lights and the ferries and Ryde Pier and all the other illuminations. There we were one of only 3 occupied tables and had a pleasant meal (at a price) and the hat-trick eating-related argument. I did have quite a lot, just not enough of the special plate the chef had whipped up for me.

Afterwards we finished the second Lego Ninjago vehicle but here is the Airport with massive red plane (and a few Doctor Who Cybermen doing a terrorist attack).

Here as promised is episode 1 of the serial "StruwwelPeter", written in 1845 by a German who thought he could do better than the picture-books on offer at the time.

7 gunmen in my back yard

Woken up by Grandad at 0745 which was far too early, we only had to be out for 0815 so that Grandma could have her shower (ensuite in our room). Once she'd finally appeared (one leg not functioning today) we drove to the tip to shoe-bank the unrequired footwear and ditch some old fossilized paint pots. For my trouble, Grandad has added £20 to my Lego fund.

For no apparent reason today was Dorset Use-Your-Vehicle Day and the narrow country lanes were full of Land Rovers and milk lorries and sludge-gulpers (septic tank emptiers) and little old ladies driving very slowly on the crown of the road.

We took the scenic route back through Thornford and Beer Hackett (PuddleDaddies must want to live there) which did not reduce the numbers of unnecessary oncoming vehicles in middle of road.

Upon regaining home, we couldn't help but notice the large group of armed men taking up position in one of the fields visible out of the bedroom window. They fanned out (so this pic only has some of them), stood to attention, and blasted birds and bunnies as the beaters banged the bushes up by Ye Olde Pheasant Rearing Copse. I watched them for a while and exploded along with them as they popped away for ages.

Grandma gave me a preparatory recorder lesson but my hands are too small to reach all the holes, the best I can manage is a series of mournful tweets, lucky I'm not paying mobile rates on them.

Before we left, we had to go through a quick farce, for no visit is complete without one. We knew we needed to fill up the car's windscreen water-squirty reservoir. But could we find the bonnet opening lever? No. All 3 of us tried, moving seats, using torches. I tried the boot, for you never know. In the end, we had a race.

Bud tried booting up the computer to ask Mr Google, Grandad asked Grandma to look up the phone number of the local car dealer in the free newspaper, which now comes with colour plates on selected pages. While Windows Updates were being grindingly installed, Grandad talked to the nice man who said you have to turn around 3 times, tap the Logo on the bonnet, slide it up and to one side, find the hidden keyhole, insert key and twizzle it in a certain sequence, enter MI5 code and release. FFS.

Having refused to eat much lunch, I yummed up a far more expensive soss'n'chips in the service station on the way home. MadMartin from Bud's work is ill so we can't get rid of them to the pub. Instead we opened the presents from Dorset to the usual confusion. We did indeed get some quality gifts, but some extras.

Jof got a napkin. I got an article on magic from the December 2007 edition of the Observer Newspaper and a packet of balloons (Millenium party mix). Bud got some medal ribbons and his school magazine. Jof got a school photo of Bud aged 13, which is a sight not to behold. I also got this book from his childhood in Libya which is a collector's Gem. Struwwelpeter, by Dr Heinrich Hoffmann, is a series of very laudable cautionary tales about how you shouldn't go around being cruel, rude or slovenly in your pinafore and corset because dogs will bite you, unknown assailants will cut off your thumbs and you will die in a variety of interesting ways, all of which are your fault, rooted in the Victorian era (with a strong flavour of 15th Century Holland), and quite probably linked to the wrong kind of mushrooms again.

This book (1972) is such a treasure I am going to serialize it for my learned and wonderful readers.

I start with a random page that rather leapt out at me. I expect some of my dark-faced colleagues at school will have questions about the Woolly-headed Black-a-moor ("Oh Blacky, you're as black as ink!")

Gone AWOL

I'm not even here. I've travelled through the lands of flood to see Grandma and Grandad, and there were many more slow people on the roads than you'd expect.

We stopped off at the Exercise Park in Dorchester and Grandad accompanied us up the Girl's school hill in deep mud, lucky I'd just bought some wellies.

To scratch an itch

Another lazy day full of Lego and TV. Finally cleared up the mess left by the PuddleParents and took 61 bottles to the bottlebank, a healthy account there, the manager totally loves us. Then Jof got her scratchcards out and divvied them up so I could have a go. It is now a tradition that Bud gets her scratchcards for Xmas because it is easy and doesn't take too much brainpower or wrapping skills. And you never know what you'll get although it's mostly nothing, of course.

Today she got a tenner and then I won £20 and by the time we'd finished the total was £35! More than our money back this time. And I built a Lego Tyrannosaurus Rex, so we were all happy. Later we finished the game of Monopoly but I died on my bottie, him coming back from exactly £0 to win. Just proves that the sky is no ceiling when you know nothing.

Overall, my favourite presents were the £50 note and the Lego Gold Mine, equal top. His favourite was the 'Kraken' spiced rum (Architeuthis dux) because he'd never heard of it and it's got a picture of a terrible sea monster eating a ship and it's as black as giant squid ink and it's got grab-handles on the bottle and it's 40%. Each to his own.
I still have the appetite of an aphid.

Let the orgy commence

Happy Xmas to all!

I think I'd rather spend Xmas in Bahrain than in all this Bah-humbug rain Hoho. My original plan was to get up early, open all my presents and go back to bed.

In the end, they forced me to get up at about 1015 (how many other children need to be turfed out of bed on christmas morning?) and I located my stocking. It contained 8 Lego Figures (2 deep sea divers, ski-ing girl, King Alien etc) some socks and a £50 note, as you do.

 Downstairs I shredded the rest of the presents like an evil Grand Vizier, helping everyone else do theirs as well. I got chocolate, but mostly Lego (Lego Gold Mine, Aeroplane and T. Rex) so I just got started on it.

At 1-ish we hit swingpark and met Puddle Emma amongst the giant puddles and lakes and kicked a football and got wet and muddy. Lunch was complicated and got in the way of a perfectly good Lego session but I had a sausage and some turkey and potato to keep the peace.

Wasn't too long before I was prostrate again, assembling bits of Lego Gold Mine. When my singing disturbed their reading, I got a little helper who passes me the right bits and puts the stickers on the right way up. Together we finished the Gold Mine and Tristar Aeroplane in meedle of no time, some quality Father-Son time while Jof recovered from the 7th Dan cooking session on the sofa with her Strictly Come Dancing christmas special and luxury mince pies. The only difficult bit for me is working out how to spend the (in excess of £130 so far) Lego fund. You have to wonder what it was like in times past when the holiday highlights were the Morecambe and Wise singalong and a black market orange. My best wishes to Puddlers all, my dear followers and, indeed, the whole world.

My Xmas address? #1 Happy Lane, Legotown. Aha.

Making a list, checking it twice

Still ill. But I have enough energy to giggle a lot, even if I refuse to eat anything. Took a bus into town to invest £5000 in my house fund. The nice woman behind the desk wasn't nice when she said I needed a passport to open my 3rd account at the same branch, so we got annoyed as I'd actually paid for my first ever bus ticket to be with her today. Bought a bath fizzer as compensation.
Following a whole mini-sausage roll for lunch back at home, we ventured out again and met BethsDad and JBsMum. The same chap that opened my last account was happy to do it again without seeing my passport. Went to lots of shops looking for chocolate oranges but they've all sold out. Slipped over on the tiled floor in the public conveniences outside Giant Tesco, don't know why the floor in the men's toilets was so wet.
Had 3/4" of cucumber for second lunch.
Considering I'm the only kid here now that the Popses have called off tonight's get-together for Lurgy reasons, Santa doesn't really have to check his list twice. As long as I'm deemed good, I'm a winner. We're going to need a bigger Lego box.
Then Jof insisted that we do some kind of family activity so we played Monopoly.
A Happy Xmas to all, and tune in tomorrow for my victorious Xmas broadcast.

The Fukushima Radioactive Donkeys

Deep in the night I awoke from those terrible fractured dreams you get when you've got the Flu. Everything was flashy and bright even when the lights were off and I was hot'n'bothered and my head hurt. For some reason the phrase 'Fukushima radioactive donkeys' leapt into my mind and I knew I had to send them money and all the donkeys were laughing at me because I couldn't do the Rubik's Cube... So I went in and disturbed Jof who wasn't sleeping anyway and got dosed up and managed to get enough sleep in the end by simply not getting up until 11am.

I spent a lot of the day hibernating on the sofa until Jof wanted to go shopping again and they forced me to go out and get some fresh air on the seafront. Just as I was getting my shoes on, a Pops appeared on the doorstep so we simply scooped her up and took her with us. I may be ill but so is she, so we can't infect each other any more. I have finally found out where she is ticklish.

We got nearly an hour of climbing battlements and throwing rocks into the sea and we got our feet wet and saw the end of the Portsmouth Coastal Waterside marathon with its bedraggled contestants and we tried to climb the Pyramids but I slid down and got scraped but then Jof magically turned up at the right time and whisked us away. I invaded her bedroom so our house was a Mungle-free zone: this favour bestowed on my mum meant she could hoover the house. A lot of it has been tidied, but us little people were very efficient in our total destruction of my bedroom. What do you expect if you leave us to our own devices for, like, six hours. We did all have a rather good time, though.
Because I'm ill I had an early relaxing bath. Might watch the Chelsea match later, I'm sure it'll be boring.

The Puddlers Xmas party

Jof got up early and went to work, even though she didn't want to. I started as I meant to continue, with TV.
For his birthday he got a running shirt from Nanna and a small blue rubber band from Grandma, which was nice.
In the late morning it actually stopped raining so we did a brief bottlebank tour and saw a lot of our stuff in the charity shop, where we'd dumped it all a couple of weeks ago. Swingpark was wet. It was VERY wet. Dogs chased each other through the giant puddles as fast as they could swim. We found a way in past the lakes and climbed the pyramid of ropes, which was one of the few items standing proud of the water level. It is Puddle Day, after all. So I had a nap in the afternoon, woke up all hot and confused.

After what seemed like an age of waiting, all my friends (except Pops whose whole family is ill) arrived and we set about trashing the front room and my bedroom. The old people called us in every now and then to eat and we called them in every now and then to mediate in territorial disputes (he's being mean/she says I can't do this) and to get us bamboo sticks from the garden to use as flagpoles.

At one point it was present time and all us chaps got outsize Rubik's cubes and we invented the sport of Cube Balancing (in the same way as Slug Balancing by Mr T. Baldrick) and somebody got chopsticks drumsticks in the secret Santa so we formed a band again.

The old people tried very hard to drink all their vitamin beer but I think they'll have to have another go at Ben's place for New Year's eve. They certainly sang a lot, which made us feel better about our own musical efforts.

Eventually someone noticed the time was 11.15 and they all went home but we didn't want to stop.

I left this message for a certain someone:

Dear Father Christmas

I am yaur one best in the wold sio if yarue up there plese can I have a, Lego Иingago for hedid devel dragon, the Lego Иingago bote and a Lego gold mine celection

From Max M

Hooray for the Hols

Last day of term and a brief respite from the rain. We were supposed to go down to the park, even for 10 minutes of climbing and swinging, but we forgot, as usual, he's old (43 tomorrow). I ate sweeties, he cooked beef wotsisface for the PuddleParty.
Today was his work lunch at a Chinese restaurant (Beijing Palace in Nutbourne City Limits) that used to be a Little Chef. He brought me home a pair of chopsticks (just right for junior-level drumsticks) and a fortune cookie "Fortune cookies will keep you in good shape" what - slim and handsome? So I could eat 800, but for the fact that I don't like them. Shame, otherwise I'd be in even better shape.

However, children, we know a song about that, don't we? During lunch, something terrible happened with my packed lunch, prepared diligently by my manservant. I put up my hand, and said "Waiter, waiter, there's something in my soup", which was a surprise as I was eating scotch egg. It turned out to be my second lost tooth (♫ ♪ ♪ ♪, another one gums the dust) for which I got an instant sticker and an envelope to bring it home in. Are my looks going at last? Is this the beginning of the slippery slope towards obscurity, first the spark plug adverts, then opening Kebab shops in Gateshead, then selling autographs on street corners to support my Haribo habit?
Anyway, swimming was great as there were only 3 of us so we played water polo and messed about on rafts. Even swimming has stopped for Xmas (although YMCA swimming day is the 4th January, so I'll get an extra).

Alien intimacy: personal space invader

So last night at showertime I was dancing around in front of the bath not getting in, as you do. Eventually he tired of this display and lifted me up and in. In the manner of all good hunt saboteurs/political protesters etc, I tried to make this more difficult for the arresting officer by hooking my legs over the side of the bath. Physicists will understand the rotation of a body about a fixed point: I therefore pivoted gracelessly and ended up on my back in the bottom of the bath, with the shower-water going right up my nose. Although not damaging in any way, this was a little unexpected, and I registered my protest in the usual howly way while he just stood there and laughed. These are the traumas of our youth that lead to the neuroses of later life.
Then again, I'd already retaliated in advance by making dinosaur noises and farting until Jof sent me out of the room. I have therefore been renamed Methanosaurus.

 Still raining. The nice water management people have said that because of all the flooding, we won't have to have a hosepipe ban next summer. I look forward to government-sponsored nationwide wet T-shirt contests.

Erin came home with me after school and we drew and made a den and chased each other and threw teatowels and the sound of her shrieks and giggles filled the air. The sound of my dinosaur explosions and farts also filled the air, to be fair, to be sure. She was dressed as Queen Victoria but there was a hint of priestess or spanking nun about her, she could have broken out into the Sound of Music at any time. Then we wrestled extensively, culminating in the loss of my trousers just as ErinsDad came to pick her up. I told her that she fights well for a girl. In fact, as I'm six inches shorter, I probably got off lightly.

We drove to Southsea to shop for a Secret Santa present. The first place was no good but I did discover an Aladdin's cave of bath fizzers. In my own mind I have spent thousands, and have vowed to return.

The second shop was much more fun. It had all sorts of strange 'Toys' that looked like pink plastic willies and were batteries not included, and attachments to help people enjoy showering together and teacups with tits on the front and there were a lot of words I don't know on the packets and he said I'd have to wait ten years before he'd explain everything. Secrets make me angry.

Then we met Jof in Waitrose and bought even more beer and party food.

Super-size my raincoat

The weatherguessers have dissected the holy sparrow and determined that it shall rain and storm. Might go to the seafront to shout at the sea.
The Picosecond I was picked up from school, the abuse started. Was there anything particular about us all he could see? Anything about what we were wearing? Yes, everyone except me was in party clothes. In fact another 10 pupils throughout the 200-odd strong school had equally lazy and incompetent parents and came in in uniform. I suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous bleedin' six-year-olds all day 'cos of this cock-up on the clothing front, some pretty barbed taunts, I can tell you.
With the seafront plan in mind, we started searching for fancy dress components for the Puddle New Year's Eve party. We leapt from charity shop to charity shop, eventually finding exactly the right kind of outdated headwear in the last one. Dropped in on Jof to get a hug, and drove into town where we braved the wrath of the potential roving traffic wardenettes to run into U-Need-Us to get something for my costume. He says I should wear a Policewoman's uniform and go as a bent copper, oho, but his words are as of the desert wind to me, dry and old with a hint of mosquito.
By the time we'd made it back down to the seafront, it was predictably dark and the expected promenade road closure had not taken effect, so we couldn't even get a picture of that.
To add insulting-salt into the previously sustained wound, the Lego Bionicle I sneakily bought in the Oxfam shop turned out to contain only 2 helmets, half a leg and 6 instruction manuals. I was not going to get far with that. Maybe I'll go to Ikea and get myself an abandoned monkey.

Asleep@the wheel

Last night I spent ages making myself a bed on the floor. I commandeered towels, pillows and Jof to create my perfect nest and insisted against outside opinions that I would be there all night. It wasn't very comfortable and about 10pm I gave up and snuck back into my real bed, don't think they noticed.

We are preparing to host the Xmas PuddleParty on Bud's birthday. 

So after school Jof and I (another flu-related day off for Jof) made Xmas decorations while he went shopping for beer and party food.

One of the food components is giant beef hotpot done in one of the cauldrons.

It's best to put the meat in early and cook it on a low heat for a long time to soften it up.

Finals Week

This is nothing to do with university exams or Mayan prophecies, more that it's the last full week of school before break-up.

Here is another pile of Blind Uncle Len's wartime paperwork that will be housed at the Imperial War Museum, RAF section. Notice his Service book, radio engineer's pocket book and identity cards. But there's also some old food stamps, clothing stamps and a ticket (1 shilling!) for Bunk #15 in Camden Town underground bomb shelter.

Today we discover that last Saturday, the one potential house-purchaser did indeed turn up: 20 minutes after the Estate Agent had given up and gone home, because they read the address wrong and had left their phones turned off. It's just one of those tragi-comic situations we're so used to. They returned today (which is only possible as Jof is off work with the gut-wrenching Norovirus) but will have to make do with an un-hoovered house, Lego all over the floor, laundry all over the house, bonfire ash all over the garden, etc etc. Honestly, you try, you fail. It's the same old story. They spent all of 2 minutes in the house so it probably wasn't worth it. Erin was off school with the Lurgy and some of the classes have been decimated, Moles class had only 10/27 pupils attending, the best class has only 4 missing. If I survive until the end of this academic year, I will have a 100% attendance record throughout my school career. Whether this is more to do with good health or parental unwillingness to take time off, I don't know.

Just as we got home from picking up the laundry, I fell through the gap between the 2 front seats of the car and face-planted the back seat cushion. Inelegant, but not fatal. But as soon as I found out that Jof had taken a day off and was home, I switched on the waterworks and got Unlimited Chocolate and Cartoons for the rest of the day, my current main ambition in life.

Orders (which must be obeyed at all times)

We all emerged slowly and gingerly (some of us mousey-brownly) after last night's booze and bonfire extravaganza. Jof got home relatively early due to tired feet in those heroic shoes, but it was still after I went to bed.
Eventually we were all ready to go out and we hit Giant Tesco in Northarbour. Then orders were issued.
My orders: Find the largest single Lego item that you can carry that does not have a motor or other battery-powered component and put it in the trolley. You don't need to tell me twice when it comes to Lego so I got a Frontier Hicksville Lego Police station with many added extras, cost £60. It went into the trolley without even the slightest raised eyebrow or sharp intake of breath.
Her orders: Get us a new TV, flatscreen LED. She looked at the vast array, chose one, and went off to find a staff member to arrange purchase. The luckless youth said we don't actually have any in stock here, madam, you are welcome to pay now and it will be delivered to this store in 4 days or so, at which point you can come and collect it. Verily, quoth she, thou art welcome to stick it in your bottom, we're going to Comet.

So we went to Comet, which had big signs all over it saying 60% off, closing down sale, which was promising. Inside, however, they'd roped off most of the empty store and the few remaining staff members were zealously guarding 2 small tables of assorted cabling and things in packets, which was all they had left. So we went to Currys round the corner and got us a 42" HD TV (unlike me, for I am 47" ADHD, hoho). At home I got stuck into building the Lego Police station, he ran and Jof went back to bed. The Police Station is excellent with robbers, a mailbox, radar dish, and a man up a tree being chased by a bear with one of those special mushrooms.

Inspection my arse

Right from the word go they were cleaning and Jof was fretting. We tidied and tidied and generally pretended that nobody lived here. Then the Estate Agent phoned and said that out of all of the people that were coming to inspect our house with a chance of one of them wanting to buy it, all but one had decided to go Xmas shopping instead. So we have repainted and hoovered for weeks and I've not been able to get my Lego out for days and all for one person. What a bag of poo.

We took the walkie talkies to the park and deliberately avoided each other for half an hour while the single inspectors were at our house but then it rained on us so we went home. Poppy was out on a sleepover so I couldn't even play. It's all rather sad.

I like cowboys and alien hunters and zombie killers and secret agents and guns and swords and cannons and bombs and planes or helicopters with machine guns and spitfires and armies and shooting at tins of cat food and putting fireworks in the bonfire and pretending they're sea mines. But I'm glad I don't live in America where any mildly affronted youth can buy a bunch of assault rifles and blow a million bullet holes through a kiddie school.

Today we are scheduled to bonfire a load of Blind Uncle Len's old paperwork. When Jof has confidential waste at her work, she puts it in a sack and sends it off to a special comapny that shreds it. But we use our industrial inferno. Puddlers will know that the rules of firing state that at least 1 strange item must be burnt. Today we are burning Newport Passport Office, Wales. Len and his wife won't be needing passports any more.

In the afternoon I spent £3 in the arcardes at Clarence Pier and we were going to have a walk on the beach, throw some rocks etc but it started raining heavily so we thought stuff it, actually, and came home. Delivered some stuff to Ben and the JBs were there, didn't invite me, humph. We have been tasked with picking up some of Jof's work friends from the Hoverport for their night out on the town. They are twin girlies which made Bud strangely excited. He made me one of those placards that chauffeurs hold up at airports in the name of Rumpy and Pumpy, I think it's nice that they have names like that. The placard worked a treat and the 2 happy girlies approached me smiling, which is exactly how I like it.

I made them feel at home and was very attentive, the good old fashioned lover boy. Then Thin Stacey and Kat arrived and I provided drinks, polite conversation and dancing. We started the bonfire and the girlies said goodbye and as they left for the pub, the twins gave me a £2 tip! Straight into the Lego fund there. Bud said they're now friends with benefits, sounds splendid.

Gradually all the confidential waste and the wood from work and the bits of wood and fence from the dustbin passageway were oxidised and left our jurisdiction as carbon dioxide gas. I had a decent bath fizzer night with a dragon's egg which turned the bath glittery and I was in bed for ten something after some Youtube videos (Gangnam style, a Lego Ninjago battle and the moon buggy driving around on the moon. The last one was very boring as there was no soundtrack and all he did was drive around.)

That lovely double-bubble time

To the tune of "Bear Necessities"    (go on, sing along)
And I've got Satdy overtime – that lovely Satdy overtime

Just think about the money not the Wife  ♪♫

So I've got Sunday overtime – that Sunday double bubble time

I think she’s gonna kill me with a knife   ♪   ♪♫  ♪

Cos I took Monday overtime that Monday Tuesday overtime

Forget about your troubles and your strife    ♫  ♪  ♫

And take that Wednesday overtime, that Thursday Friday overtime

      All you need is money    not a life     ♫  ♪

Of course, as a mere stripling student, I do not do overtime. It's simply not an option at primary school.
But, from the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin I do not yet have, to the aglets on the shoelaces I do not yet use, I am excited. For today is double swimming, a chance to blow bubbles in the gene pool of life for a full hour, no less [this is not an askance reference to cross-species deviancy with a celebrity chimp].

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Well, it's turned from ice to heavy rain. Can't we combine the two and have snow?
When I got home the EPC Survey-man had just about finished measuring us up for windows and loft insulation. I got a minimal amount of biscuit-eating time before we were off to double swimming, while he did the rest of the lengthy housework randomizer list.

I did get to play with the giant pink plastic bag from his work before he used it to store our bonfire wood against rain. We are aware of issues involving children and plastic bags so we put it over some dining chairs (like the US atomic warfare defence system) and I flapped it for only a few minutes. But it is one that covers an entire pallet. Then I swam for an hour, had pasta supper, spilled my drink and loads of peas on the recently hoovered floor, got sent out, and drew until showertime and bed. Meanwhile, hoovering went on around me (how many times do you need to hoover, actually?)

Oh No it ****ing isn't

These cheeky bar stewards remind me of the last beer festival I almost attended. Later in the program, fishing's greatest mystery, who killed JR Hartley.  Anyway, at school today LittleMax tried to light a fire in the playground using a stone and the stone wall (the secret is to bang the rocks together, guys). There was smouldering but I put it out by fanning it with some dried leaves. A lucky escape for us all there.
At home there was more painting and hoovering and tidying and WindowMan was back, putting some glue on the outside bits. Then we decided to put the net curtains back up, but the little wires that hold them up were now too short as the glass bit is wider than the old windows.
Any experienced master builder like me will know that any home maintenance task (however simple) will require 7 trips downstairs to collect tools that for some reason you don't keep in the bedroom, at least one trip into the loft and finally one unexpected journey to Big B+Q to purchase some archaic item like the 5/8" Grotter's Shim or like today, a Purblind Marling Wrench (Metric, not Catholic).
Finally the new wires are up but the nets themselves are in the washing machine because they were quite grey. I suppose in a way we should have seen that one coming and washed them all.
After food we hastened through the traffic jams and hordes of walking kids to the King's Theatre, Albert Road. 

Even the one you've heard of isn't there



Tonight is kiddie night and Snow White is onstage with who knows how many ugly sisters, dwarves, cross-dressing falsettos and Z-list people who once cut hair for a celebrity's gardener. We arrived at the same time as 2 coachloads of out-of-town extra kiddies and then it started to sleet gently. The inside (Upper Circle, as befits) was most warm and welcoming.....It was great. I bought an ice cream @ £2.50 and I got a hottie bottie sitting in the seats for hours and at the end they sang Gangnam Style and if you wanted you could get up on stage and dance so I did. (I feel a career coming on....). We gave one of my Beaver friends a lift home to Middle-of-nowhere, 3 clicks past Blue Reef fish'n'chips, and I got home at 10pm. Had a cheese sandwich.