It's bad luck to be Superstitious

Todays' visit to the Grandma I knew and loved before she got ill is back at their old country farmhouse. I was 3 1/2 but the helium balloon is actually for Grandads' 80th birthday. You can't see from here but the walls were 3 feet thick.
Today we were allowed into the school shop. It is full of laudable education-related items and one KitKat bar, which Erin cornered because we were too slow.
Ben and I got plastic magnifying glasses (plastics) so as soon as we got out, we started detecting germs and aliens and clues and fingerprints and so forth in the playground and Erin kicked me up the bum, which was totally asking for it, sticking up in the air like that.
Ben had the chance to learn Karate (Empty Hand) but instead chose to play BenMax (Empty Head) and while we broke house rules by piling stuff on the bed again, there were raised voices about maths homework from downstairs. We didn't hear because of our raised voices upstairs: we have invented a darts game called "Wheel" in which you throw a Lego Tractor wheel into the Ikea drawers and you get points depending on which drawer you get it in. Of course it's a rubbery toy so doesn't always go where you expect it to.
In Beavers we still didn't get the last badge I need to up-level to Cubs and we drew favourite items from our lives, such as money, Lego, chocolate and my friends. I drew Ben 5 times, all with outsize heads and possibly some unusually proportioned body parts and all labelled Ben the Girl or LongHead Ben.
I am looking forward to cuddling up with him at the Beaver sleepover again. I hope to get more sleep this time.
Jof made herself Chernobyl Soup (with added Cherenkov effect) and didn't like it so had our leftovers, which were in fact re-heated leftovers.

Yo Ho Ho and a Bucket of Acorns

Mostly a day with Jof as he went to take Obscure Cousin Margaret to see Grandma, who is Not Going To Make It. Thus I watched 2 films and did some homework and lazed around until he got back at 5pm, only 2 hours late.
I am currently garage obsessed so dragged him straight out there to add draught and noise-excluding foam to the false wall and presently Jof joined us to start putting together the little metal patio heater fireplace thing. OK, so we got all the nuts and bolts the wrong way round but who's counting.
The dartboard is now up as are some Pompey posters from when we won the FA cup and a newspaper cutting about a beer festival with some familiar faces. Amazingly, the oche (where you throw the darts from) is the edge of the inspection pit: it's almost as if the garage builder had planned to convert it into a pub.
But I had to have some exercise so I took a bucket of acorns to the park (as you do), forgot my original plan and collected conkers, like every normal boy. Not sure what I'm going to do with them but the bits of plastic piping with right angles and Y-shaped bits that I roll them down will be very busy. On the way back, Jof found an electric patio heater in the passageway. Perhaps we can fit out our pub free of charge. If anyone has beer mats or other public house ephemera we'd be delighted to take them off your hands. Or we could just buy the Old Canal Inn (offers circa £285,000, exactly twice the size of our house).
I am 126.6 cm tall, a veritable snifter under the 4 foot 2 I'm supposed to be at this age.

'Arrers!

Wow. Another day of extreme complication that I declared was my best day ever. It wasn't really, but you've got to start somewhere.....
Up at half nine: I'm very hangover-friendly. Jof had already gone to the chiropodist to get new toes or something so I got to harass him instead. I messed around sulking while he bought tomorrows' breakfast at the butcher and then the fun started.
B+Q is a large local hardware store with a footprint that comfortably exceeds 2 acres.
Our challenge (as set by the PuddleParents) was to re-create the Phoenix Public house in our own backyard. The Phoenix is just south of Albert Road in good ol' Nelsonville (a moniker from when naval officers lived there) and has a perfectly reasonable bar, concrete-based garden with all manner of potted plants and an outhouse with pool table, dart board and reams of pubby-type pictures, historical framed photos, old beer and cigarette adverts et al.
So at B+Q we bought a patio-warmer fire thing and some giant flat woods and some pipes to roll acorns down and some cheap end-of-season cyclamens and a bamboo and an acer and chrysanthemums and compost. The giant flat woods were too big to go in the car so they had to go home on the trolley (very loud and rattly) which gave me the chance to ride back to the store on it, singing and dancing all the way. Strangely we also nipped into Buds' work where I operated all the doors with the magic getting-in card, retrieved the coin from under the coffee shop fridge and brought home loads of pink foam for insulation against draughts and traffic noise, to make the Garage pub better, and a broken pallet for the stove.
The PuddleDaddies have spent many happy pounds sterling at the Phoenix, and in addition, Kath the short-haired landlady is a customer of Jof's bank. Thus, she knew that the Puddleparents wanted us to make our own pub beergarden and was willing to help.
First, we tried the charity shop: clos




ed. The fireplace shop: closed. Pub: open.
Kath gave us a free go on the pool table and a dartboard and the rubber lifebelt that goes round it and a beer garden umbrella in original box and 3 darts ('Arrers) and many helpful ideas about plant pots and cigar adverts and where to place the toilets. It's my first time playing darts and to be fair I was a big old bag of pants starting, but gradually I improved. Ditto with pool: I gather Ben played it today and one of these days we shall have to plough the baize together. Amazingly the wood surrounding the dartboard (for those players too inebriated to hit the board) is exactly what we bought at B+Q at only £10 per sheet.
Eventually we made it home after only 3 1/2 pints of Irvings' Iron Duke and watched Strictly cum dancing.

The Norwegian Takeaway

Great start to the day. Neither of us wanted to get up and walk in to school. So magically, PopsMum (who totally loves me) stopped and gave me a lift in style, in the back seat with Pops.
The Grandma picture for today is at Farmer Giles' Play Farm near Salisbury, Wiltshire, where you can feed more animals than you can shake a bacon buttie at. I was only 2 and still an object of curiosity to the old people.
Today we did no work at all (like the heat death of the universe) and spent the day colouring in etc. I got Table Points so was awarded the Ladybird (a cuddly toy, makes sitting on the carpet more comfortable) and Naughty Oakley rugbied me totally when I was wearing it. But I saw him coming and fell forward into a front support gymnastics position, like the good little Badge 6 I am. The teacher saw this and gave him 2 ticks against his name on the board. If you get 3, you have to go into the corridor for 5 minutes. What kind of a punishment is this, cried Bud. I remember the days of the plimsoll and cane.....
In my homework this weekend, I have a numeracy sheet as well as the usual spelling/comprehension. Miss Jackson's numeracy challenge (Take a spin, see if you win, on the wordplay jackpot) is about partitioning which you only need to know about if you can't calculate 14 + 16 in your head in 12 picoseconds. But I think Miss Jackson needs to go back to Year 2 as she's written "Calcilations" AND "Caculations" in the same paragraph and called it "Partitoning", srsly, WTF, OMG....
At the House-warming party, the PuddleParents said we had to fit out our garage as a pub and the yard as a pub garden. We have many ideas on this front. But the most important thing ..... what do we call it? We have to get one of those little neon signs that goes fizzle in the Simpsons, you know the ones.
● The Puddlers Arms                                                   ● The Garage Door Club
● The Kings Shed                                                        ●  Pit and Sawdust
● The Royal Oik                                                          ● Upanover Bar
● The Barley Lawnmower                                           ● Winter Warmer
● The Landrovers Return                                             ● South Sea Bubble
● Radiator Bar and Grille                                             ● Norwegian Takeaway (you can't affjord it)
Feel free to add your own ideas, I'm sure you can do better!

Giving children roots and wings

Last night after supper I said that I was looking forward to going to Grandma's funeral. (I have been advised not to voice this desire to Grandma herself.) While this may seem a little premature, it is because I have not yet attended one.

Blind Uncle Len got his sendoff in his home village in Kent, but I could not be there for him as I was at school.

Ted, my other Grandfather, died and was commemorated some years before I was born so I had no choice in the matter. Here I am with her in the Rose Garden (part of Lumps Fort on the seafront) looking confused as I had only been on the planet a short time (3 months) and I wasn't used to having that few limbs.
Anyway, it was another school day and today we did School Rules. Possibly something we might have covered at the beginning of term, but there you go.
Of the 10 Rules, I vaguely remember 6 of them but added my own interpretations, not exactly carved on stone tablets. Naughty boy Oakley managed to break 5 of them before the end of class, shouting out, being silly, bullying, stealing etc. I have decided that I want to be in a girls-only class, not for the obvious reason but because all the girls are quiet and sensible and all the boys are loud and bad.
I demanded to go early to Thursday Park so I could pick acorns. This is why I spent 25 minutes eating the jam off 3 Jaffa cakes while staring at Pokémon TV.
But when we got there it was a riot of colour as Old Puddler Zak joined us for football. Ben has a skateboard and green Nazi helmet, I had a scooter: we swapped the 3 items around and had races and silliness abounding. None of us are any good on the skateboard. Ben found £1.01 but didn't tell his mum for historical reasons. Collected at least 50 acorns.

La Vie dans l'Oubliette

Got out of the shower last night to find that my room has been tidied - only Lego left on the floor. For someone with as busy a room as mine, that's practically a padded windowless cell.
Anyway, we took Harry home from school. This is 'Football' Harry, who now says he doesn't like football any more, which eats away at the core of his identity.
It was a Lego playdate, cooked up by the parents at Bradleys' pub garden party. So that's what we did: but only for 50 minutes until his mother came to collect him as they were already late for swimming. During the Lego session, the school office rang up to say had we got one of their pupils? The "Walking Bus" (sounds like something out of the Flintstones) was missing a child and schools get very edgy when one of their little charges is abducted. Yes, we said, we do indeed have an extra child, and his Dad should remember to tell the walking bus next time.
Grandma will be allowed home in a couple of days, once the pack animals have been loaded with all the potions, pills and palliatives.

And they call it Poppy Love

It seems that my life has become more complicated recently, and I yearn for a return to a simpler era in which I could play puppies with Poppy, light sabre attack with Johnny and Bobert, and unearth-the-artefact with Ben. Instead I have to remember my jumper, reading log, homework, to actually eat my lunch, all these unknown variables. Life can only get easier, right? So I'm told anyway.
All 3 of us were late out of school today. Erin was first out only 7 minutes after the doors were opened, I was last although Ben came out, saw he was before me, and went back in again. My excuse is that I was voluntarily holding the door open for everybody coming out of assembly in order to gain one house point. Or it could just be that I don't want to leave, and I'm hoping if I stay behind long enough I'll level-up to being a boarder.

Proud Conker Owner, 2007

Not Much Better, 2013

On the way home we stopped off to pick up acorns. This is my latest obsession, following on from the conkers (which I still call coconuts) of yesteryear. For years I collected conkers, like every other kid, and squirrelled them away in the loft in labelled and dated boxes. The year after we reassessed this habit, we had a very good year for compost.
Grandma has requested scented candles and joss sticks for her upcoming deterioration and exit and so we drove to Southsea and had a very long conversation about how long you can keep a dead person in the hospital fridges and so forth.
The first shop seemed to be called Polio but I'm sure that's just a badly painted shop sign. Once the assistant had woken up we got incense sticks of various foreign flavours to remind her of her time in west Africa and the Rub' al Khali.
The second shop sold us a lavender-scented candle for a mere £8, the only one that didn't smell horrible, with titles like Raspberry and Airport, and Penguin and Sweetcorn.
We only just got to Gym on time and had to collect the laundry afterwards where the serving wench of minimal waistline asked where my London Underground duvet cover set was from. (ASDA). My Gym class is now so big we have had to split badge-testing day over 2 sessions so I have to wait a week for the practical.

Like Buses, all at once

Another excellent day at school, the highlight was when Ben brought me back a Kinder Egg car I'd left at his place.
The leak in the ceiling from Bedroom 3 right through to the kitchen has been getting worse so just when I was selecting a snack (I don't like food any more), boilerman came to sort it out. So he wandered around the house banging on pipes and drilling floorboards and stuff, and I kept thinking it was Ben knocking at the front door.
But then Grandad rang to say that Grandma has terminal cancer and will shortly leave the building.
Then Ben arrived and we legged it upstairs while the others tried to have tea while boilerman scattered hosepipes and spanners around the house. We were all nice and quiet because we're good at doing that: it was all a fib really because we'd piled my bedroom on my bed and I mean all of it.
Because we'd been specifically ordered to destroy nothing, this earned me a whump (whap on the rump) and we were summarily turfed out to go to Beavers.
I grumped all the way through the park about unfairness until we spied an oak tree and threw acorns at each other. Ben even managed to cricket one with a twig! We filled our pockets with the pointy yet pointless seeds.
Bensmum dropped me home and Jof played cardboard creations with me until Bud got home from seeing Grandma in the rather grim yet disinfected hospital. She wants to use her money to send me to the private school: I really wanted to go last year but I'm 3 weeks into a new year with all my friends so I'm in a bifurcated mind about it. On the one hand, I could have fun in Ben's conga line in class: on the other, I could use words like bifurcated.
Jof didn't take kindly to the room of destruction. I can hear the workshop inspection pit being hoovered out in preparation.

Tried by the Centre Court

Got up nice and late and was clad only in a dressing gown when Bud came home at the crack of noon.
Before she went shopping, Jof set us unreasonable tasks ie take Erin's birthday present round to her (only 2 weeks late) and Elizabeth's Tupperware pot. I moaned about having to move off the sofa, why do I never get to do what I want? Erin was out so we left it for her. Beth was in and challenged us to family tennis so I selected the adult sized tennis bat because I kept missing with the kids size one. Plus I don't 'Serve' the ball, I Deal it.
Before we'd even started I announced that we were rubbish and we certainly lived up to our promise. Beth could only serve at right angles to the court: our speciality was to smash it out of the court, both run outside to retrieve it, and not notice that a passer-by had thrown it back in for us. We all got quite hot so hit the park instead. Just when we were playing piggy-in-the-middle, BethsMum said come back to ours so I did that, got a couple of hours of Beth before Jof picked me up for lunch, only 4 hours late.
Overall, a quiet day punctuated by arguments and complaints.

You're always 17 in your home town

Today is the 25 year reunion at Bud's old school, a dark matter for the alma mater.
This is the one I went to for the 450th anniversary and went on the roofs and down the tunnels, see here for one of my best days ever. But this is a beer (don't forget, 43 is the new 17) and self-congratulation session with overnight stay so I can't go. I was actually very angry about that as I want to explore the rest of the service ducts, have a go on the .22 rifles, lift the medicine balls in the "No Sternum Untoned" Gymnasium, mess about with the stage curtains in the Great Hall again, swap the pipes around in the school organ and stuff, all detailed in the previous post.
Had the run of the house until half past 10, beer must be hard work. I refused to go on the normal bottlebank walk as it's boring so I scooted to the park to make a den. I collected 3 sticks and put them at the base of the horse chestnut tree but it was immediately clear that no good would come of this, so we re-selected the bay tree thicket, wound one of the pliable branches right round it and sourced twigs and sticks from all over the park.
Having adorned the tree I declared the Den of Iniquity open for business, and we did some park play and went to the butchers and the charity shop and found £1 in the Co-op and home for lunch, which is the normal bottlebank walk anyway, just without the repeated clink of bottles.
After lunch, Ben drove by, in I got, and was whisked away to a better life at his place for, like, hours. This was our reward for playing so nicely yesterday.

The Haunted House

Jof believes that the house is cursed.

Not only has the boiler gone on the fritz now that we're using the central heating, but also the batteries on more than one clock have run out in the last 2 days! If that wasn't enough, keen ears can hear the odd 'Woo, woo' noise (from the shared wall between us and that couple with the 2 small children) and well don't get me started on nocturnal footsteps. The suspicious damp patch on the kitchen ceiling may or may not be a leaky radiator pipe rather than the over-exuberant bath splashing of which I have been accused - watch this space. The pad of ghostly feet often coincides with the sound of the toilet flushing, and there are muffled voices just before the newspaper delivery van drives off from the newsagent over the road. I really must get that Shaman in to chant over the Indian Burial Ground.
Every day before school we play Gay Circle. We all attempt to push one of our number into the 'Gay Circle', making him the Ringpiece, I suppose. It's difficult to work out quite how we invented the game, but Ginger Lenny is part of it, and he's a year or 2 above us, maybe he is a higher-level initiate to this arcane knowledge. Today we took Ben home because BensMum was at extra school. We went back inside and hunted for my jumper which of course means jumping up and down quacking, that is until Poppy Heartbreaker came back in and ratted us out.
I have a talent for Babbling. Even Ben says I'm talking windy panties. But when we both get an idea, we can babble for England and did so all the way home. "Mr stinkpants illegal bomb stinkbomb x-ray vision farts fwack-a-doodle BUD stands for Butthole Underpants Doctor boobies don't have willies girls have willies but the doctor cuts them off and they wee out of a big hole pssssss and it's electric and it goes in the lorry and 5 sharks take it away and when he poos it's a table-tennis table and its made of poo and wee and people play on it and go oo-er jigglebottom aarking-woww deadly fart gas attack placa-taka-fwaca shut up dooglehead" etc.
We also invented the double-buttock clap, seen here without the Boo-yah! jumping aspect. Without us the world would be a duller place.
After he finally left (extra time was allocated for good behaviour, in direct opposition to Prison policy) I swam and got my Blue Hat promotion. One of the teachers was throwing in some plastic tubes with double pink ends, for the students to retrieve: it looked like she was dynamiting fish. I also graunched my shoulder on the side of the pool (first time into the bump book at swimming) and we had to fill in a form about it.

Kissing into the wind

Ahoy there, me mateys! It is Talk like a Pirate Day once more, yer scurvy bilge rats.....
Anyway. Today I developed 5 wobbly teeth, less than 24 hours after
the dentist told me to expect more loose teeth. I left blood on my morning Zombie apple, but I ate it anyway.
I ate all my lunch but only had 5 minutes to make Pyramids-of-lunchboxes because some of my class are really slow at getting changed after PE and we have to wait for everybody.
It rained for ages so Thursday Park was off. We would have to wear either a massive Wellington
boot/wetsuit ensemble or swimming trunks and big smile combo, didn't have either with me so went home.
Luckily, Ben and the JBs came to help me play Lego. This went very well for the usual amount of time and we created a cargo transport system to rival that of the Victorians.
But then we required Jaffa cakes and TV and some of us were so loud the rest couldn't hear the TV so we got the weapons out and ran around the house shouting and attacking the imaginary invaders, using walkie-talkies. It is fairly pointless using radio beacons when you're indoors and are shouting louder than the radios.
Then assailant A wanted co-conspirator B's gun, thug B kicked assassin A in the bottie, Bandit A chopped Bushwhacker B with large sword, usual stuff. When apologies were not made due to parallel howls, it was home time for the belligerent bandits to head home. Ah, whatever. We got an hour's constructive construction.

The LGBT Timebomb

Got up this morning to find a most unusual Lego addition to my room.
I have often heard him saying that your kids are there to be trolled: I had not expected to be told that I am to be gender-reassigned. Instead of bellowing like an immature T. rex (a Tyrannosaurus princeps, surely?) I took it to show Jof, highly proud of the artwork and future potential for PuddleParties, much better than writing rude messages on balloons. I'm now using it to hang all my Lego Minifigures, like some kind of designer vertical dancefloor: a good project for the boys if it rains at Thursday Park tomorrow.
Today was Dentist Day (again?) so I was cheated out of Legotime. The Dentist said I was getting permanent molars and then he painted guck on them and said I couldn't eat for an hour. This was the incisor in the coffin of today's ongoing argument.
You see, I get a lunchbox with some cocktail sausages/sausage rolls/quiche portion/pork pie/scotch egg and random grapes/cucumber slice/cherry tomato and a crispy item and a chocolate item. Today I ate only half a sausage roll and the Wotsits. Then I said I was hungry.
Why? Because we sit in the classroom at lunchtime and play make-the-tallest-pyramid out of lunchboxes. Obviously I can't eat my food while playing and then I run out of time (30 minutes).
So I was on hunger punishment anyway, even before the Dentist said I couldn't eat. Whether this teaches me to eat the food provided remains to be seen. Perhaps if my food is supplied in zip-top bags I'll be disqualified from Pyramid-building.....

Happy Birthday Jof

OK, so it started badly. I have left my only other school jumper at school so had to go in Cold Turkey. Jof was not looking forward to working on her birthday even before I started to make life difficult with attitude and arguments.
Meanwhile Grandma went into hospital for tests and obviously failed because they kept her in. I am not sure whether they were maths tests.
I got told off at school because new tearaway "Oakley" also likes telling on people to get them into trouble, diverting the attention of the authorities from his own misdemeanours. I was only talking in the IT suite.
Anyway, when I finally got out of school, he sent me back in to get at least one jumper to bring home. Turn back, twice, nay thrice, Dick Bleedin' Whittington, by the time I'd sourced one that was clearly not mine but un-named, we were 20 minutes late and the only other person around was hoovering. They'd locked the gates and we had to use the office door. It was still raining.
The slow trudge home wasted even more of my Lego time. Jof had banned me from TV and PC for losing jumpers so I was in no hurry. He made us go into a florist and I had to write a card. We only had enough time to eat a pork pie and an apple, but as I wasn't allowed TV, I wasn't just sitting there staring with my mouth open, it actually had pie in it.
After gym, Jof had cheered up and we battled Monopoly for a bit until she wanted birthday pizza. I could hear her shouting at the computer for not magically beaming down easy-to-understand pizza like they do in Star Trek so Bud went and got fish'n'chips.

Cannot Guarantee Nut Free

I did not want to get up today. Then Jof chivvied me and went on and on about my homework so arrived at school in the first bad mood of the week.
Never mind. In my first PE lesson of the entire academic year I impressed so much I have already been chosen for the display team by doing a hedgehog. My impression of a snail was ace and in a bid to get him onto the team I taught Ben to imitate a Peacock although he added unscripted colic, intestinal worms and mushrooms to the mix.
There isn't much competition, everyone else is a bit pants.
The parents got treated to some sleet when waiting for us, lucky it stopped just as I came out.

Came home the long way around so we could go shopping, I retaliated by walking      v    e    r    y  slowly indeed, lucky I know my way home because he'd gone. I have done my homework and even included the word marilibone (Marylebone).
Ben came for his weekly Lego Hero attack and we scooted to Beavers having made up a new insult for the old people. Basically you start with Poo-brain or similar and add Wacka-sacka-placa on the front, the more stacas the worse the insult.
Blue Bird (she must be cold) said I can move up to Cub Scouts after Xmas, means I can do the 2 day camp. I have opted to do the Beaver sleepover in the church hall, even though last year I didn't get any sleep at all and I had to attend a 2 hour church service in the morning.

Blanket Day

Up at 0945 again, seems like a good time so I'm sticking to it.
This weekend I have my first homework. I have not managed to bring it home so I have already failed.
Ben came round to help make Lego Heroes and report on his football match (only lost 0-4 this time) and all the balloons were killed. Erin had a good time yesterday writing messages on them, mostly attacking us chaps. This one says "Horrible boys play with Lego and rubbish".
Then the whole house got hoovered. This means I had to tidy away all my Lego, ErinsDad thought I didn't have a carpet in my room because all you can see is Lego but I assure you, there is one, but you can only see it on hoovering day.
Because of the hectic day yesterday, We have elected to spend the rest of it in contact with blankets: 2 Stargates, 3 films, 2 sofas. This is the life. Anyway, it was raining.

The House-Warming Party

I was woken up by the post arriving at 0945. This is not bad, us little people need our sleep. Anyway, I checked out the 3 letters and there was a Mr MT, a Mrs JM and an oddly unspecific so I decided that one was mine. I examined it carefully and it was full of colourful adverts for books and films in which girlies looked very happy but didn't wear any clothes. Each one had a little story about what special games they were playing and how they liked big strong men and strangely shaped toys. It also urged me to get a much larger penis. What, so I can wee more? I don't know, adults.
Once I'd grudgingly got dressed, I spent ages formulating Rules for my room and sellotaping off the banned areas and off-limits toys, I'm quite convinced that all my friends will carefully read these rules, abide by them and be considerate and gentle with my stuff, just like I'm not when I visit their bedrooms.
Do not brake the rools
Rules
. No hurting!
. No messing up!
. No bracking unless I say!
. No food ore dringk!
(If brocken not aloud in room)
All of this is because we are finally holding our house-warming party. We had a house-cooling party at the old place just before we sold it and we kinda missed the boat with the new place because by the time we'd built it and made it safe for visitors, the summer holidays were in full swing and the whole PuddleGroup were never all in England at the same time. Thus, 4 1/2 months after moving in, we will warm it up.
I arranged food and blew up balloons in advance.
The party itself followed party lines: the blokes watched football results coming in, the ladies sat and talked primly and we trashed the rooms.
There were arguments.
The chaps discovered the garage/workshop and the associated male-oriented work benches and power tools. They asked politely for a dartboard, subbuteo/fussball, pool table and calendar posters of Mandy (18) draped over a car, and of Katie (19) holding oily spanner, might be able to get both from the company that sent the letter this morning. Ben (7) is down the inspection pit by choice, lucky he was allowed out.
The kids found that they could have the run of the house (quite large) if they didn't fight, but we still had to be rescued from each other a few times. By 5pm, several of us wanted to go home, or possibly wanted certain others to be taken home. There was a lot of Lego, many dens and even some food.
The ladies discovered the joys of the newly levelled Yard and steel furniture although they all had to wear blankets. Some of us and some adults also shouted abuse at passers-by over the garden wall.
This is a learning curve: all will be improved upon in time. I showered and hit the sack on Sunday. Aha.

Only in town for someone's birthday

OK well, this is a late post, sorry, been burning down the bridges tonight.
1. Day of madness at school. We did maths and I helped my poorer classmates who are sadly deficient in the numerical arts.
2. BensMum asked me about my PE kit, hope nobody told her about my recent error.
3. Hurried back for no apparent reason: he purchased some garden furniture even though we don't have a garden.
For devotees of our glorious city, a quick look (by a paid actor) at how we lived 25 years before I was born. Telly Savalas says "Who's looking at your baby" in halting speech with dreadful music and dated shots of parts of the town both new and old with long-forgotten fashions and long-scrapped cars. I've climbed that castle! I've paddled for coins in that fountain! I've been up that clocktower! And many other favourites.....(7 minute video) Thank you to Follower Martin for this chance to relive the past you thought you'd forgotten.
Anyway, after swimming I drove to the Rose In June Public house (right by the old Lifer's prison that has recently shut for lack of money) which has proved useful to the assembled PuddleParents following past May Day Festivals at St Mary's Church (see my main picture from the bellringer's tower).
It's by the railway and I was invited there by 'Bradley the Beaver' and classmate companion whose Auntie owns the pub, rather handy there. Because of swimming I was there late but that didn't stop me joining in with all my co-conspirators on the bouncy castle, the DJ-in-the-marquee and the actually quite good trestle tables of food ranging from jelly to satay chicken onna stick lumpios.
We had to wait Freakin' ages for the lengthy candy floss queue: Bud stood in for me for some of it and then I decided I didn't like it. I had the pink version but the blue one was no better.
The DJ played everything with a beat from Wrong Direction to Psy Gangnam Style and we all had a right old boogie when we weren't on the bouncy castle in the pouring rain which made it all extra slippery and muddy.
I got jumped on leading to a howl-round but soon recovered. All of us were totally soaked but that's just part of it.
After 'Happy Birthday' Jof picked us up and I had a much-deserved shower and bed, 10pm.