The Advent of ..... Advent

Today he was at work again so I stayed in bed until 0830, woohoo. However we elected to do absolutely nothing until I had eaten a fish-finger sandwich for lunch, some kind of payback for having voted against fish fingers on Park Thursday, un-veto-ing my voting veto, er.
So lunch was when he got back and there was already a Plan. Cosham is an unremarkable conurbation of little or no value, apart from all the stuff that happens there. For example, the giant council fireworks show, LittleMax's new house, some parks that I went to last week, Irving Brewery, lots of dog poo, several charity shops and the little newsagent that does Match Attax! cards for 50p a go. I have always enjoyed the Victorian iron footbridge over the main south coast railway where you can hear the descending traffic barriers go "Reee-nar Reee-nar" when a train is about to cross the level crossing. OK, so I don't derive the equivalent measure of pleasure as I did when I was 3 (in this incarnation) but it's still fun, a double-trainer is a no-brainer.
So we parked up by the bowls club and walked on through. I bought something in every shop, a book about deserts, a book about world war 2 and 2 packets of bath fizzers. He got a picture frame (Monet, but the frame fits "Britannia Rules" by Christopher Dee which depicts the victorious troop ship 'Canberra' returning from the Falkland war, shame it was the port of Southampton, this one is an unopened inheritance from my great-grandfather the Colonel, whose dress uniform I wear at fancy dress events) and then I bought my football cards.
There is a small park central, just south of the railway so he cajoled me into nipping in for 3 minutes' arm exercise and I ended up playing with some random 5 year-old for 20 minutes. He left me to it and I gurned, capered, spoke in tongues, pretended to throw the tennis ball in the wrong direction, and generally made the unknown kid wet himself laughing at my display of hilarity.
Either I have this talent hard-wired into my soul, or I have had a good teacher, don't know which.
Jof had taken the chance of a well-deserved sofa session with TV: Girl, uninterrupted. I don't let her do that very often.
Then she said you know what it is tomorrow, don't you, let's get the Xmas decorations down out of the loft and see what we've got. This is quite a good point as we have not yet passed an Xmas in this house. So I faced my fears and climbed the ladder into the loft (don't ask) and we set about decorating the house. The stock of tinsel etc does not seem to go as far as once it did. Perhaps we ditched a lot, perhaps the house is bigger. How about both. Anyway, it looks mildly OK, could do better. I have a tree in my room and I did the really big one in the dining room, we had to move the cacti and Eden Project coffee tree into other rooms. I have reserved a crawlspace behind the Xmas tree for Santa.
Saturday Night is Bath Fizzer Night: a slight accent of tediousness was added when Grandad phoned at 930 pm to say that Grandma had died. Umph.

Fayre to Middling

Well another great day, particularly since it was a Friday. We had to sit down and sing our Jesus Play songs for ages and every time someone stood up and said Miss can I go to the toilet/get a drink/go and play football now, we had to start right from the beginning of the 8 songs. I got hurting leg syndrome from all the lotus positioning.
At the end of the day I was second out of the classroom so we quickly got to the Fayre when you could still see the floor.
I played the turn-the-bottletop-over game and the throw-the-beanbag game and looked at the raffle prizes and the toy stall and the bookstall and then it got busy.
Bensmum ran a throw-the-ring-over-the-prize game and I was average at it until a voice from behind me said "Drop it down onto the prize like a googly" and I did - aptly winning a bouncy ball. I bought some cakes but I must agree with ErinsDad that the Fayre was nothing like as good as those in Wimborne Infant school - even though there are way more kids in this one.
I bought cakes and pigged them on the way home. All the ones that Jof made had been sold, even though she is not a professional like JBsMum.
On the way to swimming we nearly hit a cyclist but he was indignantly still alive when we left him. In the boys changing rooms there were actually more girls than boys, including Alyssa from Gymnastics who said she wanted to marry me, and I hadn't even taken off my trunks by then.

What are YOU thankful for?

In America they have "Thanksgiving Day" where they thank the natives for feeding them through the first bad winter where they forgot to bring farm implements and then they spread poxes and land-grab-itis through the native population in return. Well, us English have done no better with our huntin', shootin' and fishin' of the various natives we've met over the years. But now they have a huge meal and go round the table asking what they're thankful for. I am thankful for the Match Attax! cards (well, as soon as they buy me some more) and the Lego I'll get for Xmas (until I've built it) and the gymnastics lessons (as long as they aren't too difficult). I am NOT thankful for the £60 a month standing orders on "activities", huge amount of work organising playdates, and a bedroom you could play tennis in, because background efforts on my behalf are ..... in the background.
Today in school I learnt to count to 10 in French and my trousers are still too small, showing off my Lego Builder's Crevice.
Thursday Park is a regular fixture so I scooted there and met Ben and we played rugby with the other boys. One steals the ball and the others perform wolfpack hunting strategies to try and bring him down and then we all lie on top of it.
After an hour in the dark, (only 3 things were visible - the ball, Ben's blonde hair and my white bottie where it's not covered by my trousers) the JBs phoned to say sorry we were at the dentist, wouldst thou like to come and eat fish fingers with us? We leapt at the chance and practically ran there. Thankfully, Bensmum trod in the dogpoo which saved me from it.
We all like Match Attax! cards and they gave me 27 duplicates although they called them swapsies so perhaps we're not singing from the same Team Sheet.
I shall bolster my own collection with them and swap even more at school. We played Naval Attack Manoeuvres in the kitchen, where else. We also voted to have barbecue pasta, instead of the promised Fishy Fingers of Uncertainty. We never wanted to leave as it was such a great 3 1/2 hours of friendful fun. Now there's something to be thankful for.

Release the Hounds!

I was dozy as a pillock this morning, Jof said it was because I got to bed at 10pm last night, I see no causal connection.
Anyway, did some more Match Attax card swapping at school, and as for important events, I might as well stop there.
But on the way home we stopped off at Little Tesco for milk. There was a lot more blood on the floor than you would normally expect, given that Pompey wasn't having a pre-season friendly against a Scottish football club. 2 dogs chained to the bicycle parking frame outside the shop had bitten the hand of Old Mrs Crohn who is very old and has one of those 3-wheeled Zimmer frames and actually lives in our street. She bled copiously while the staff busied themselves with a chair and floor-wipes.
At home, we determined that we had a couple of free hours and I was going to waste it staring at the TV, my cards, or my Lego. Knowing this, we took a football to the park for 15 minutes' running and jumping to break the day up a bit.
Straight away, Brandon and Leyton and Owen and others from my new school, old school and Scouts stole the ball and we chased each other round, rugbying it off each other. They are all bigger than me and buff ruggers with it but I eventually got it back. Then there was a familiar shoulder-length hairdo on the swings. I haven't seen LittleMax in ages since he moved to Highbury so there was a lot of quacking and attacking and then we made a team effort to bury the football under a pile of woodchips. We have made playdates for the Xmas hols.
Later I avoided bedtime by demanding we play, do art or otherwise procrastinate. We made reindeer cakes.

Tricksters, Hucksters and Scamps

So at last I took my Match Attax! cards in and started swapping. This is a chance to develop the duckin' and divin' muscles, to see a man about a dog, hear a whisper in the Elephant and otherwise perform unequal exchange chicanery. Of all the scamps, I may have been the most ..... scampi.
I maintain that I came out with more cards than at the beginning of the day, and happily arranged them all over the floor and got a Stoke player so the manager had someone to boss around, babble babble. It's something I shall never understand, how these adults can feign such utter disinterest on such an important subject. Must be something to do with marriage.
In gymnastics I had to stand on a girl. My partner is considerably larger than me so I had to stand on her legs and we held hands crossed over and I had to lean back and balance.
This was followed by several variations of contortions while getting on top of girls, I'm told this is supposed to be interesting but it was kind of weird.
On Sunday we scored Match Attax cards at knockdown prices in a little shop he runs past on Tuesdays. Today was Tuesday so while I was extricating chocolate from the gym bag on the way home, guess what I accidentally found?

Playing the Biscuit game

Poppy turned 8 today, they're all leaving me behind. Ben gave me a Match Attax! card and we arranged to bring our swapsies in to school tomorrow, if I can hide them from Jof.
I have far too long between school and Beavers so made a giant Lego guitar laser gun ship tower rocket, but eventually Ben broke the deadlock and we arranged our Match Attax cards all over the floor, lucky we write our names on the back so we know which is mine - oh dear.
We had to walk to Scouts because Ben forgot his scooter at Erin's house. We played dodge the laser beam, to the amusement of the ubiquitous and iniquitous teenagers.
At Scouts a blind person and her blind dogs gave us a riveting talk on how it is to be blind and rely on these clever trained dogs for all sorts of things. She was very good and didn't read from a script at all.
Then we made Biscuits. OK, the biscuits were already there, we put on icing and half a giant chocolate button. Ben at least broke his up a bit and made a smiley face, the rest of us just stuck it on, like some Confectioner's Yin and Yang. Then we ate the biscuits, seemed fair. The park was completely locked on our way home. By the time I get to big Scouts, it'll be locked on the way in!

Doggie DooDoo

Sunday is often a day of pass-the-child: today was no different. With the blatant bribe of £1 for Match Attax cards, I accompanied him to the supermarket. A further sweetener was 2 parks of my choice and they were 2 in the Cosham region, by the railway.
Hawthorn Crescent (right by Highbury Community Centre) is an 8-item parklet with 2 swinging baskets and some strangely-shaped climbables. LittleMax lives in the Highbury area now but we didn't see him.
Gurnard Road park also has 8 items, the same 2 climbing rocks as ours, but an extra one! And a long zipline that I didn't go on and a spinning table that I did - until I got dizzy. It's right across the railway from where they do the giant firework displays, but nice and quiet because there were no trains today, obviously digging up the track somewhere. There was far too much dog poo and I said I wanted to shoot all the dogs, because they're pointless.
On the walk back through Cosham High Street, I trod in a really big dog poo. There was no grass to wipe it on so I scuffed in some dead leaves and some gravel and then I moaned for ages because when you know your shoe is all poo-ey and you've wiped it up your trouserleg, it's all you can think about.
Fortunately, the little newsagents near MacDougalls was having a sale on Match Attax, so I got 2 packets for my £1! That made me feel better, and they were all new ones! I have 6 duplicates to take to school tomorrow to swap with Ben.
At home, Jof had been hoovering and scrubbing the kitchen floor and laundry-ing and ironing so I made sure she sat with me and drew for a bit, while my poo-shoes were in the washing machine. Did you ever see Dallas from a DC-9 at night? Well that's what Jof has drawn, but neither of us can draw planes so we just did seagulls again. You know where you are with seagulls.

Match Attax!

By the time we got up he was at work so we went shopping for ages. There were no ages but we did get a Horrid Henry and started my Match Attax collection. I said I wanted to have a hobby so Jof and I chose this, based on Ben and the JB's existing interest in the subject.
Yesterday, I spent the whole journey home telling him in great detail how you can't swap Match Attax cards. The newsagent takes your name and you get a special ID card and all the Attax packets you buy go on the ID card and registered to your name. Thus if you attempt to exchange any with Ben, for example, the publishing company know about it and send round the Card Police to take all your cards off you and you're not allowed to buy any more cards.
However, the fact that it is called "Trading Card Game" determined that was a lie. Of course, the publishing company wishes you to buy lots and lots of them so they sell them in child-friendly newsagents in brightly coloured packets that are opaque so you can't see what you're getting. We trailed around endless shops but I got a magazine and a book to keep the cards in and some packets of cards. Even Bud bought me one packet once he'd got back from seeing the terminally skeletal Grandma. I now have 42 cards and 6 duplicates that I can use for swapping!
My head is buzzing with golden limited editions and star players and managers and the referee and star buys and I've got the Man U manager but no Man U players for him to manage and lots of players where you can't pronounce his name and some of the teams are Welsh and babble babble babble until Jof sent me out of the room for babbling. Not bad for the first day.
Incidentally, one of the places Jof and I went to today was the bank. She was very kind and filled up the cash machine on her day off. I helped, going downstairs into the giant safe with its giant doors and getting actual bricks of £20 notes and stuffing them into the trays so that people could get beer money out all weekend, for I am thoughtful like that. I was quite loud ("Waarg, look at all that money!") but due to security concerns there are no photos of the event. How many humans of my height handled enough cash to buy a house today? Not many.
Then we played risk with associated tantrums, storming out of the room, stand-up tell-offs and so forth. Feminine Pink (Jof) may win through being sensible, angry red (me) may win by having 57 countries, balanced yellow (Bud) will lose due to existing only to annoy. I boogied impressively to "Now that's what I call Disco" 3 CD set, showing dance skills beyond my years.

Where's my Supper?

Today Grandad cooked himself bacon and eggs on toast, all hail the conquering hero. For this is a man who could design, build and operate a radio station, satellite link or regional telephone network, but who struggled to make toast, unless he could walk into a cafe and ask for toast. So to have graduated to a 3-component meal is practically Cordon Vert, for him. Not only, but also, the distinctive aroma of frying bacon made Grandma open her eyes and say "Where's my supper?" which is more words than she has said so far this month. Bacon has gained notoriety as the downfall of vegetarians, (notably Jof) and it has been scientifically proven that the smell of frying bacon even causes a massive spike in the autonomic nervous systems of Vegans*, who worry about things like cruelty to yogurt.
After school I went to the library again because BeastQuest was absolute pants. I conned the librarian into accepting my assurance that I'd already handed it back and got something else. All in all, a good day with no bullying, floating fun at swimming and tomorrow Jof has told me I can buy some Match Attack cards! Bud says it will be like Moshi Monsters - a short-lived expensive playground fad resulting in a lot of half-completed sticker booklets being thrown in the bin when we've all grown out of it. Blue Meany. ps. I detect a mouse in da house. Perhaps we need a cat.
* Protein-challenged eco-activists, not my brethren from Vega

Beware of Lurking Trolls

Today it was cold. We have a strange system in which a teacher determines the amount of warm clothing in a randomly chosen classroom: if it is insufficient to allow us to survive the prevailing weather conditions, the whole school is not allowed out. It qualified as a "Cold Day".
We got a free book today, from the City Council. It purports to be about self-disguising monsters with dubious dentistry and we soon discover that they attack you through your net portal. "Pretendor" is a Troll who wants to buy presents for the little girl. "Tormentor" calls the little boy lots of nasty names. "Melware" steals and eats your pictures and bank accounts. "Spirus" sneaks into your computer and breaks it. But the parents kill them with magic discs and everything is alright in the end!
Doesn't say anything about older sisters downloading so many add-on toolbars that your usable screen diminishes to one square inch .....
I need a snack in the afternoon. Today I chose Rice Krispies, even though they are 98.5% air, some mother do 'ave 'em. The park was cold and quiet so we played football with varying amounts of coats. Some of us dress up properly, some go out in shirtsleeves because of Inuit DNA.
We played for ages and had our PuddleHuddle (picnic break on the slide) and got into the baby swings and were just playing Curly-slide Roll'em and "Baby Army" with pistols called Wee-Shooters when we were the last there again and went home to the warmth. Jof had had another long hard day at work so I made her draw Father Christmases to stop her doing laundry or sitting down or anything.

Assuming the Ostrich Position

Rather nippy this morning, about 2 degrees.
After school I walked home with Pops. Her mum wasn't sure so came anyway, but we eloped into our warm house. She liked my furry Beaver but not as much as Kate-Lynn, because it wasn't a dog. Instead we read a science book that I got from a charity shop.
Straight away we found a Brazilian which was better than a furry Beaver. He was wearing a thong that was quite ..... Brazilian, and shooting darts dipped in Amazon frog poison. We laughed at his butt, clearly visible in the jungle.
Then we found the picture of the ostrich family and it looked like one had its head right up the bum of another. We giggled so much we had to take preventative toilet measures and made a den instead.
Once we'd given her back, it was time for the parent's evening, second in a series due to illness last week. We had presents for the Art Teacher - 2 coffins (see "Cardboard, Joy of Box" link on right hand side of the page) containing oodles of arty marvels such as the rings and tubes and cardboard rectangles etc. I journeyed to the school in the boot of the car with the coffins, not as permanently psychologically damaging as it sounds.
There I found Ben and we played "Who's Teacher" and "Pen-eating Rabbits" and endless variations on Ping-Pong with coins, lumps of Blu-Tack and a polystyrene ball from the art box. The Teacher had quite a positive assessment for me.
As part of clearing up my Lego, I threw away all my plastic toy soldiers and their jeeps and lots of other rubbish like Moshi Monsters and McDongle Happy-Meal giveaway toys.

2 on 1: hiding the Beaver

Today is "Have a Bad Day Day", specifically invented for all those poor customer service workers who have to constantly wish everyone a Good Day, which may not truly reflect their actual thoughts. Jof took a day off so she didn't have to pretend. There was an alarm clock malfunction and we didn't wake up until 0830. I was so late I had to get a Tardiness Ticket from the school office.
Today I got my script for the school Jesus play: it has
* 34 Narrators
* 10 Songs
* 6 Angels
* 3 Shepherds, 3 Wise Men, divers Innkeepers, Ariel, Raphael and Gabriel the Ninja Turtles, a Gravid Lass called Mary and the Culprit Joseph. I am Wise Man #1 and have 1 line (16 words). The baby is not credited.
I raced home for my first hot date and got changed into my gym kit for all girlies like a jock. Kate-Lynn and her older sister Emily arrived and within picoseconds it was pandemonium. I tried to play the High Panjandrum but they were having none of it.
We started with the tour of the garage and we all had a go at darts. Kate-Lynn was rubbish and all her darts bounced off and went on the floor but they both loved playing with my conkers.
Soon enough we went inside and I showed off my Beaver, Brian. They loved him and we spent an hour playing hide-the-Beaver throughout the house. We finished all on the same sofa watching Horrid Henry and even when I got changed in front of them and left the house to go to gymnastics, they stayed there and their mum (French) had to tell them off to get them off the sofa.

A Whiter Shade of Fail

The day started well, I actually ate breakfast without being hypnotised by the Polychrome Metronome and got to school on time.
It all went wrong when I saw my classmates. They all pick on me and when I tell the teacher she tells me to stop telling and be quiet. So I had a bad day, even that posh Year 4 totty Helena Handcart was nasty.
And I got told off again at picking-up time, just because I was still inside 12 minutes after everyone else had gone .....
So at home I started writing a big complaint poster starting "I really hate it when people say..."
For our afternoon activity we visited a MOT car repair centre where the man was nice enough to fit a replacement headlight bulb for us, saves all that embarrassing working-under-the-hood with torches while it gets dark and cold and you don't know what you're doing. I lay on their massive windowsill and ululated at passing cars.
At Bud's work, a new badge-lock door has been installed. This is because a random bicyclist got in at the weekend, past the sleeping security guard, found the staffroom and joyously took all the cleaner's purses before walking out past the same security guard (doing paperwork). And today, at Jof's bank, a random intruder tried to snatch a customer's handbag and scarpered after she rugbied him to the ground, and the place had to close to accommodate all the Policepersons and she got home early! It seems like the "in" accessory for the modern thief-about-town is a ladies' purse. Many decades before I was born, an armed
 bank robber came in to where Jof was working at the time and she got so angry he ran away and held up the bank next door, I guess most robbers are incompetent.
At Beavers Ben told on me about going to the toilet which is exactly what I was complaining about earlier. But we had a great time and they loved the cress seedlings and I have been given (again) the dubious honour of 'Looking after Brian Beaver'. This cuddly toy no doubt harbours bacteria and saliva from generations of Beavers and comes with a book in which you record the activities of this furry fiend. On my previous turn, I claimed that he helped us move house for Grandma, whereas in reality I'm sure he stayed in his bag for the whole week and we hurriedly made up some old tat just before the next meeting.
I have written a thank-you note (with added battleship drawing) to Bluebird for my great time at Beavers, including the following sentiments:
Dear Bluebird I've had a great time at BEAVERS and wish I could stay longer but there's nothing to earn and I want to go from some of the lunatic people in beaVERS.
this is what I've enjoyed: camp, sleepovers, Ball games, Traffic lights, running, Firstaid. I liked getting badges! I made new friends! and had a great time!

The Disenchanted Squirrel

Up at 10 am, for I am a good boy.
We all went shopping because whichever parent does it, we always get too much of one thing and none of the other. We combined our efforts and still ended up buying duplicates of toothpaste etc.
Our trip for the day was to Milton Cemetery (livin' it up) to feed the squirrels. I have fed many squirrels in many places and am generally good at it: I am small, assume a non-threatening pose and hold out nutty comestibles and the little chaps come running to feed on my proffered fare, tickling my hand with their little tiny fingers.

We've tried them out on many items, they'll take most things Jof finds in her handbag but I can tell you they don't like Kit Kats. Today we bought some cheapo mixed nuts and took along some out-of-date breadsticks, you never know.
But today they were hiding. We could see them in the distance, but they would hop off and not just climb trees, but also leave the vicinity by disappearing over walls, fences etc. We left a trail of nuts and breadstick crumbs but only the magpies, gulls and crows took notice. We left nuts on taps, gravestones, in crevices in trees, benches and more, but nary a squiggle took the bait. I believe that since the eastern half of St Mary's Hospital grounds was turned into a school, the squiggles have been terrorized by teenagers and now have post-traumatic stress disorder, and fear the humans that once fed them.
Then I played Jof at Totopoly, and only 5 out of 24 horses finished the race, all the others died.

What does the chicken say?

I did as I was told and did not approach his bedroom until 0930. That was because Grandad was on the phone asking for a visit so that was reasonable. Jof had left us a long list of jobs so we put up a hatrack for my numerous headgear and strimmed the front garden and watered my cress and got the winter duvet out of the loft and tested the fireplace.
We used one of the little smokebombs and went outside to see smoke issuing cleanly from the chimney, a qualified success. The church where Ben and I do Beavers was having a bizarre Bazaar. Full of elderly ladies with elderly stalls of elderly goods, I played all the Scouts games and told Santa about my evil desires for Lego and got a balloon and sweeties and a spinning top all for less than £1. We even got in free as I was wearing Scout uniform. Stopping only to buy giant sausage rolls, we made it home in time to sweep the yard.
Saturday night is bath fizzer night. But it's just no good if you haven't got a fizzer, so we caught a bus into town. Until recently, we have been scamming the bus company by pretending I was 4. Due to my limited height, this has proved profitable but no longer viable, so we had to pay £5! Jof was pleased to see us but too busy to hear about all the jobs we'd done. I wowed the girlies in the fizzer shop (Lush, Cascades Centre) with my winning smile and at the charity shops I got Conan the Barbarian DVD (much chopping with swords), some books, a giant wine glass for Jof, a back scratcher and some Lego.
Andrew and Louise (I was an 8 week foetus on their wedding day) came round to get Kiera's passport vindicated (Jof works in a bank) so I got to try out the fireplace and we used some of the old floorboards and roof battens and wooden offcuts that we'd saved from when our house was being rebuilt and also some sticks that I'd brought back from the park. Ben and I stripped the bark from some fallen branches so we saved them for the New Year's Eve PuddleParty.
I also have a broken pallet and lots of other bits for later use. It made the house warm and pleasant. We also had a religious flyer put through the door (Susan buttoning up her cardigan incorrectly: this represented our innate wrongness "deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" so we gratefully added it to the kindling pile).
FIZZ.
I was fizzing away (ie producing lots of bubbles) in the bath when I became musical. What does the fox say? I enquired casually, for with my ancestry, I am obviously Norwegian. Ring a dinga dingdong neebly beep, was the reply so we both ringadinged happily for a while. But you must understand that we are one man who is 6 pints adrift without a lifebelt, and one 7 3/4 year-old who is as sane as a barrel full of monkeys where the monkeys have had to drink the rum in order to fit in the barrel.
Him: What does the wolf say? Whumph! Whumph! (this delivered onto my tummy through shaving foam). What does the bear say? Rorgl! Rorgl! (Vino collapso on the bathmat in self-satisfied mirth).
I detected a theme. What does the cow say? Moogle! Moogle! (lols various).
Him. What does the turkey say? Gobble! Gerble!
Me. What does the chicken say? Faark! Faark! Fquing! Fquing! Fquing faark!
Basically the evening finished with me scuttling crabwise up and down the corridor singing "I'm a fquing chicken, faark, faark!" causing much anxiety in the Audubon society and helpless giggles, you know the way it is. The Fizzer I chose was called "Lord of Misrule" which is oddly suitable and it looked green but turned out purple. We also wrote my name on my leg with shaving foam out of the veterinary 100 ml syringe and Jof said I smelled purple which is lots better than it could have been, bedtime half past 11. Goodness me, yet another great day.

Girls in Need

Children in Need day. As per tradition, all pupils in all years came in with fancy dress, as did the teachers. Miss M came in wearing soft furnishings again, I bet she owns lots of cats.
Anyway, I was wearing my genuine antique Artillery Officer's uniform and I came second in my class, fourth in the year and (I allege) tenth in the school. The class winner was a pirate - how weakly passé is that? Unless he's been feeding Miss M's pussies on the side, that is. Anyway, there were Spidermen, faeries (including a Death Fairy - Finnish Death Metal with pink wings), a Lolly girl with lollies all over her smock (she was a Lolly girl, in a Lolly world), Horrid Henries, Policemen, Supermen, a wasp, a treasure map, a ghost, several skelingtons, a bank robber, loads of people in pyjamas, SpongeBob, a present (with ribbons in a bow), a branch, bags of princesses, a lightning bolt, Death, an incredible hulk and Ben was a cross-generational punk guitarist, a highly quiffed Politically Correct cross between Sid Viscous and Wrong Direction. Plus do not forget the lesser spotted but depressingly common Harry Potter, I mean, like, 20 of them, FFS.
That's when the girls started. Pops accepted my offer of a date next week. Feeling victorious, I bought a lottery ticket (not age-checked for that one either) and as we got home, Kate-Lynn appeared and accepted my offer of a date next week (not double-booked, but I'll need my vitamins). She was loudly excited but said she wouldn't marry me. I really must get a little black book. That was when I found that Dear Follower Fiona had given me a 4-finger Kit Kat with an extra X on the label. It's a good day for girls.
Later, I performed magical mathematical tricks (homework) and terminally annoyed an already tired Jof using only 3 special talents and my trampolining skills.

A Nip in the Air (under 4 layers of clothing)

One of those complicated days at school where you do IT then PE then French. If only it was Religious Mania instead, we could have had IT/PE/RE.
I have salvaged some components for a laser gun from the floor of the toilets, and secreted them proudly in my rucksack. Also known as 'the inside bit from bogrolls', they shall prove useful for WMD manufacture and ultimately, they are recyclable.
The regular fixture "Thursday Park" was cut a little short by falling temperatures. We didn't care, of course, and played football until Ben and Johnny had a bottom-spanking fight over who had slide-tackled the other one too much, and I retired to the sanctum sanctorum under the slide to have a good cry about how it's always my fault.
It wasn't long until we played "Shoot the ball at the guy on the swing while singing Horrible Henry's Happy Nappy song" and army base attack and throwing wood-chips down the curly yellow slide. We also proved that we are not yet too old to employ our pet adult in a game of attack chase.
Bob feigned injury to get close enough to punch, always a good ruse the first time. Ben did get damaged with a chance meeting 'twixt chin and boot, but then he plays the role of Dead Body on Battlefield really well.
When we were sent home it was cold and almost dark, definitely a nip in the air, if thou knowest whereof I speak, Herodotus. We left the park facilities to the hiding teenagers.
You may recall that on Monday, Bluebird (Beaver Scout section leader) gave me some cress seeds to grow, to make up for not having a garden any more. Possibly twisted logic and at the wrong time of year, but we planted them anyway. A mere 3 days later we have new life! Gosh, I'm good at this. I suppose I am a god, after all.

A little bit of who you fancy

Goodness me! A little brisk this morning, I had pink cheekies walking to school.
Mrs M is still off sick, obviously trying to get out of the teachers' evening where they diss us poor kids behind our backs.
Today we did preliminary auditioning for the school Xmas play. We had to read out the Narrators' part, just so we could get the pitch of the hall and the teacher could assess our declaiming abilities.
School plays always have 'Narrators' because they have to find enough parts for everyone to be involved, and having 3 or 4 of them reading out some background information gets rid of a few of them. In my last production, several kids were 'Grass', some 'River' and in two rather depressing cases, 'Bricks'. These lowest-of-the-low were supporting columns in the troll bridge and didn't even show their faces at the end where all the parents have to clap for that little bit too long. At least 'Grass' and 'River' got to wave in the wind or ripple a bit, the bricks just had to hide their suitable-for-radio faces.
 Now clearly, I was the troll. The best part in any production is the bad guy, and so I again asked if I could be the bad guy. I'm not sure if there is a bad guy in the Nativity play.....
Anyhoo, our Children-in-need day on Friday means we get to go to school in fancy dress. As usual, I have chosen Great-Grandads' work clothes, and accordingly, we got them out of the loft a few days ago and tried to get the smell of mothballs out of them. It hasn't completely worked, but never mind eh. They have a few years' wear left in them before they get too small for me, and by the time my kid is wearing them, they'll be a hundred years old.
Teachers' Evening.

We scooted there and found Ben. We played football moves in the empty gym/assembly hall until he was retrieved and so I played bowls (both cricket and skittles) and keepy-uppy 3-way pat-ball and skid penalties and investigating deserted areas of the school and stuff for ages until all of us kids congregated outside in the dark playground. This is our normal stomping ground so we were in our element and played Den-chase while singing the We Are Sexy Girls song. Incidentally, in the trophy cabinet in the gym, I saw a wooden crest of arms/plaque from Her Majestys' Prison Magilligan, which is in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. Why do we have such a thing?
We waited slightly over an hour for our scheduled appointment to come true and then we were told that I was competent in maths and needed to learn more times tables. It was barely worth the wait and Jof said Poldarks to cooking at this time of night, let's get a MacDougalls. I had Poultry McNuggets.

Over-exertions

Straight out of school we went shopping, because we didn't do the supermarket shop at the weekend so we're running out of everything.
The first thing we did was post my passport renewal application. You never know when you're going to have to skip the country and emigrate to Australia. Meanwhile I bought 1/4 pound of Jelly Bears, it was only 78p and I stood outside the other shops munching on Ursa Minorae while he did the shopping.
I have moved up a level in Gym. It is much more strenuous and you actually have to do stuff instead of laugh and jump in the foam pit. Last week I admitted that although it was tiring, it was much more fun. Jof said I could ask the teacher if I could only do half of it until I'm used to the new exercise regimen. A naughty boy kept stamping on my Achilles tendon and I nearly had to be carried upstairs. Of course, as soon as I got in the shower I started bouncing around.....

The Unexpected Grandfather

I see they're doing Buy-2-get-1-free laser eye surgeries at the Caveat Emporium, must make a booking.
We did a 2 minutes' silence at school today to remember Great-Grandfather, didn't know anyone else had met him.
We did deaf and blind people in school today and someone said about the little rotating thing under the button you press to make the traffic lights go red. But we couldn't find one, and we checked both sides.
Just as we got home, Grandad popped round the corner. I did a great double-take and running jumping hug which made his visit worthwhile. His arrival was a surprise so I dutifully showed him all the coloured snowflakes I'd made at Nanna's house and my collection of insects in resin blocks and Jof's Dad's Dinky Toy Spitfire. Of course Grandma couldn't make it, she doesn't even make it out of bed any more.
He was full of questions such as where are Kiwi fruits from and can you find it on a globe. I got extra TV time while they were talking about change-of-address notifications for stockbrokers and why they wouldn't accept verbal references. Times have changed from when Gentlemen would accept a letter from the Ambassador on Consulate headed notepaper, funny handshake not included.
But after he'd gone, Ben turned up as usual with his exceedingly muddy footprints and we Legoed loudly while the old people dissected who'd done what at the firework party. I was the best behaved in Beavers and I was given some cress seeds to grow because I said what a rubbish garden we have. Being mid-November, it's not exactly the right time to start growing vegetables but we'll try anyway, because you can never have too many vitamins.