The Beast with Two Heads

Today was a child-minding day of relaxed timing. Jof took me in and I chose the multiple ball-games activity set for the morning session.
I played badminton and beach volleyball and bombardment and football and similar. I wasn't allowed to get my Harrier jump-jet out for lunch so that was dull but in the afternoon we had 8's and over swimming and the loud older boys shouting at each other in the changing rooms made a little boy cry, but it wasn't me.
Leaving early to attend good ol' Thursday park with Ben, we chased each other round and invented the Monster with 2 Heads which is where we climb up the slide and slide down on each other and swap places and it all looks quite affectionate but it wasn't really.
Then suddenly Alannah appeared. All good villains have a nemesis. So far I have a shortish stretch of pavement outside an off-licence on Highland Road which is my Nemesis Pavement, because bad things always happen to me there. But Naughty Alannah is my Feminine Nemesis (Femesis?) and she is a bad girl so Ben and I hid from her and scooted away and then she caught us and I pinched her bottom and we met Harry and his sister Emily from my old school and we all played boys against girls, even after Ben had to go home. Some of us may have thought it was kiss-chase but not me.
Harry and Emily already have a ... robustly antagonistic relationship, and this mirrors the way I feel about dear little pink Alannah. So the rugby attack quickly degenerated into a massive wood-chip fight and it was all for one and one for himself and we only left the park at half six, so another hour and a half of calorific consumption. This picture may be blurred but it most clearly represents the rough'n'tumble with added woodchips, which we shall all be turfing out of our socks for weeks to come.
I have finally admitted that taking my hay-fever medicine is better than sneezing constantly and itching my eyes all the time.

Sandy Crevices'R'us

The call had gone out for worthy adversaries to attend seafront location "Canoe Lake Splashpark, you know, the bit where you can picnic, sorta elevenish". Well, this is me all over, for I am on hols!
Cycling with all our worldly goods upon his back (and having made sure the front door was shut this time), we stopped off to berate the prune-faced old woman at the laundrette. She has repeatedly denied losing Jofs' work shirt, and also refused to believe that another time, they had given us someone else's shirt. This time was different, as we proffered the Shirt of Unknown Derivation emblazoned with the tell-tale motif "Portsmouth University Humanities Department Admissions Team", because even she knew we didn't work there.
In such radiant sunlight I need sunglasses. So we cycled to Specsavers in Southsea who sent us over the road to Superdrug, who sold me some and I looked like the Terminator which is all I've ever wanted really.
Found Ben and Elizabeth and Erin (make sure you pronounce it Erinn, not Erran) at the Bench of Destiny. We made dens under the logs (wind blew the groundsheets away) and picnicked on the grassy knolls (chased away by 3rd Gunman) and met some schoolfriends.
The modern age of public health has led to an exercise station over by the sea road. So we all pushed and pulled and lifted and clanged and generally monopolized it for ages until one amongst our number noticed the swan-boats on Canoe Lake. It's £7 for 20 minutes, but with 5 of us that's practically cheep (aha) at half the price. So we chose some pedallers, a steerer and 2 passengers and set off by going in little circles due to arguing. When you have 4 children in 1 boat you have 7 factions and none will agree, the pedallers pedal in unrelated directions, the ones at the front cry "Forward!" and the ones behind cry "Back!" so it was a 20-minute shout-a-thon but we all swapped places many times and all got to sit everywhere at least twice. We collided many times with various other swan-ships, sometimes deliberately, and once Ben got on steering duty we actually got somewhere.
I had refused to pedal because they weren't apologizing to me and they weren't doing it properly and they were all shouting at me and then Bud heaved me out of the driving seat and took over. There's just nowhere to hide and cry in a sea-bound plastic swan of epic proportions so I did my best which was a 45-minute Level 7 sulk, my swansong for that voyage.
Eventually I came around, but I'd missed the choccie brownies and strawberries by then. Still, we played football and pretended not to watch the canoodling teenagers and rolled each other up in Bens' groundsheet and had ice creams and all went to the beach where we threw rocks and got sockless and paddled like the true Puddlers we are.
It was somewhat cold but we were strong, they laughed when I contrived to fall in and we all got sandy cracks and Ben had a wee in the sea and the girls giggled so I did it too. We walked back to base camp like a load of zombies (or like an over-used sailor man) and did the zombie chicken dance and then we weren't so cold.
One by one we left (I did 4 1/2 hours there) and after finishing the ice cream from the freezer I hit swingpark but there was nobody I knew. I strutted around helping 5 year-olds climb the rocks and boy O boy I was desperately cool in my Terminator glasses, and just think, none of those kids knew I was a secret infiltration robo-agent.
A splendid day for Vitamin D, friends and exercise, albeit punctuated by a massive hissy fit.

A Contradiction Infirms

Jof was on lates today so I was actually up before her. My homework (apart from the spelling one where you have to make as many words as possible out of the phrase "Chocolate Easter Eggs" without simply doing the old online anagram service and getting Google searches/St George Hotel/Stargate School) is to make an Egyptian artefact.
I had heard one of my classmates saying he's making a pyramid from Lego but I just don't have enough slopes so I want to make a Mummy. Just the bust, though, no need to make it complicated. Thus I have had Bud separating out the black and white bricks from my bijou collectionette, took 3 days. Of course, as soon as you start, you're trying to build a rounded item from square-ish bricks and it was like something from the three stooges so I was re-negotiating with things like "Well, I might not be able to do this..." and "if this doesn't work out, I'll do something else...". etc.
I was just doing my homework when the ground floor ring was tripped by the washing machine blowing a fuse. We fixed that and got the laundry outside in time for the rain and we walked into town to get the car back from Jof, but she wanted to keep it. On the way I found the Landport Adventure Playground on Chelsea Street so we went in and met Harry and Emily in the sandpit. Only yesterday I was moanily allergic to sandpits in the rain. But today it was raining and I had the same trousers, shoes and raincoat on, so I went in the sandpit and we dug drainage ditches in a race to the sea and made Chester Castle and discovered cheese A go-go which was that foam you get when you run water into a sandpit. But right in the middle of a sandfight they closed for lunch so we walked home again (no car). Google Earth says I've walked 3 1/4 miles already today. Ben invited me to the park which you can't turn down, but I just didn't seem to have my usual madness, plus the target we wanted to have a fight with wasn't playing. There is a little "When you see it" at the top left of this picture. We got a bus into town to get the car. In the rush, I forgot to shut the front door: he sent me back to do it properly.
At gymnastics we got a little bit of funtime but not the big extend-y one with the parachute and messing about in the foampits, I guess I'm in the senior class now so fun is in the past.
When we got home we discovered I'd left the front door open all that time so I am off TV for the rest of the week.

An Unexpected Allergy to Sand (and Parking Attendants)

I have 2 weeks off due to half-term so clearly, we have to pack everything in to the first day.
We started with double dentistry and I had to wait 40 minutes for my appointment and all he did was count my teeth again and paint fluoride guck on them. I pay my taxes for that?
However I did get to watch Bud getting X-rayed which was disappointingly low on powder burns and resuscitation, there was a tweet, we counted his fillings on the screen and that was it.
But then we drove to Worthing, as you do. Obscure Cousin Margaret is looking after the boy upstairs and needed our help in running him around outside a little. Lukas is half Italian, half Spanish, half Argentinian and definitely hyperactive. He is 9, a lot bigger than me and very clever with it, he has lots of letters after his name like ADHD, so he can fly a plane but not tell the time. He liked the super-magnets we gave him, perhaps he can try some TMS* on himself.
We babbled a lot so got on fine, although I did find him a bit contradictory when we argued about British and American and Southern States Rebel flags, there's a lot of information in his head but it's a little miswired.
First up was lunch and we walked through the rain to the diner we used last time and it was quite empty, so we filled it with jabbery noise. He really likes salt and poured it all over his food and asked for another glass of water. The rain stopped! We climbed all over the benches in the diner!
So we headed for my old favourite sandy swingpark where the rain started again. We splodged through the sand and the diggers I liked so much have been taken away by the council killjoys and we filled the buckets and threw stones at the wooden horses because there was nobody else in the park at all, apart from the homeless man who had his own golf club so was playing crazy golf by himself in the abandoned out-of-season minigolf course.
At going-back time I got most upset because the sand in my raincoat was itchy and I took it off and got cold and annoyed at the sand. The Aladdins' Cave shop had some rare vintage Lego sets but they were £80 so I got half a car for £1, why not.
Margaret had specially kept a coupon from the local paper which gave £2 off parking in the multi-storey car park. So we paid the ticket and gave the coupon and the proof-of-purchase ticket to the cash desk which is on the exit ramp (no pedestrians) of the car park and they said here's a special ticket, put it in the machine when you pay. But we've already paid, we said, look, here's the ticket. Oh, no, sir, you have to give us the coupon first, then we give you the extra ticket, and that makes the machine drop the price by £2. OK, we said, but the machine said cash only, no coupons, can we have our £2 back please. Oh no, sir, I can't help you if you've already paid, but this ticket is valid for another 3 weeks, you can come back. But we don't live here, and we're not coming back. But you can come back next week, sir, and get £2 off.
We ground our teeth (use your dentist here) and drove home. Lukas has splendid Nerf guns and I am invited back for a rematch.
* Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

The Out-of-Towners

I was just settling down for a Sunday of TV when the Berties arrived. This Euro-crossover family (German and French) met at university with Bud and Jof and I haven't seen them for about 4 years. Their 2 daughters are older than me and don't really like Lego but they do like beating up their Dad, so we have that in common.
So once I'd given them the tour of the house we did the normal things that you do with out-of-towners which is throw stones into the sea and wander around the seafront, chewing over memories of times past when things were different.
They also like the arcades at Clarence pier so we all wasted lots of coins in the flashing lights game and I played skittles which were funny because they're on little ropes and one always falls over or gets stuck and the scoreboard doesn't work properly but we laughed anyway and played air hockey.
We had a big lunch on Spice Island and I played Pirate Golf and Jof met us down there and at home I put on True Lies again and they talked all the way through it so I kept turning it up.
Jof brought me Lego Movie "MetalBeards' Duel" which is the amusingly built pirate from the film fighting a micromanager which is like a microwave on little legs. She has been away looking after Nanna again and was pleased to get a proper hug.
MetalBeard is effectively a Lego Cyborg reconstructed from parts of his ship following the loss of his original body. He has real shooting cannons and a parrot, treasure chest, anchor, guns and 1 leg made from barrels of rum. A Robo Swat fits inside the Micromanager and poor little Skeletron is designed to come apart when struck by a cannonball.

Day of Bloke-ish things

As Jof had left us again, we decided on a day of being blokes. While I can go to the pub, it just doesn't hold the same level of interest for me as the pool tables are too tall. Thus, we decided to invent a bike ride.
Previously on "Mungleton - My Life", I have cycled a 12-mile circuit using the Hayling Ferry, the old abandoned Hayling Billy railway line (now footpath and cycle way) and a train to get home. This has been very good for me, because I get to have a pub lunch, visit new and interesting parks and not always wear a shirt. So this time we thought we'd try something completely different and get a train somewhere, cycle down an abandoned railway line, check out a few parks and get a ferry home.
From Fratton, we got the Cardiff Sprinter. This short train has only 3 carriages and the tannoy man insisted in a west-country accent that it would become very busy later so take your seats now (or simply add more than the 3 existing carriages, perhaps).
Soon, we were at FAREHAM. It drizzled coldly on us as we struggled to get the bikes up the stairs, calmly ignoring the lifts at the other end of the platform. The railway used to go from Fareham to Gosport dockyard with a branch line to Stokes Bay, but it's been discontinued. As soon as we got onto the old embankment expecting a dirt path, we saw the BRT. The Bus Rapid Transit has (very recently) taken over the old line and is spanking new, lovely smooth asphalt, fenced surround with reflectors and spotless kerbstones and brand new bus stops and an aura of professionalism in this run-down district. Of course, being on the course of an old railway, it's flat, wide, straight and goes directly do not pass go, and there's only buses and bikes, not even pedestrians are allowed to mar its clean edges.
So you can see for miles. I cannot overstate how wonderful it is to ride a bike on. I mean, you could land a Cessna on it. You should try it. It's called Henry Cort Way after some bloke that made iron and helped trigger the industrial revolution. We made our way south-east passing through such fine neighbourhoods as Bridgemary, Forton, Rowner and Brockhurst, delightful places to leave.
In meedle of no time we'd missed the first swingpark we were due to stop at (Jof has taken all the maps in the car) and missed Fort Rowner, when we were distracted by a very thin house that has platforms in its garden, clearly the old station at Brockhurst. You go past lots of railway-related things - roads called Station Road, a pub called the Junction, the original level-crossing lift-up gates preserved for posterity, a house with platforms in the garden, etc. Where the cycle path diverts slightly, you can see the old line drowned in a pond with trees growing through it. In a place called Brownfield just to the south, you can still see (on Google Earth) strange shapes in the grassland. These are training trenches used by the old Regimental Sergeant Majors to give fresh troops a taste of life on the front line in good old World War 1, how we don't miss those horrible halcyon days. So the troops in question may have arrived on this line, on their way to rather bad places.
Gosport Leisure Centre had a swingpark so we swung it. It is newly built and nice, but small. Leesland park has a massive pyramid of ropes, some wooden hill forts and big holes in the ground. I fell over one and kissed the hallowed sod of Gosport. The swings are missing, the zipline is noisy and the rocks are sorta lonely but if you had that much space in downtown Pompey, someone would just build flats on it.
Determined to find the fort we'd missed, we doubled back and failed again, but found St Faiths' micro-swingpark where we met some boys my own age that can't afford baths and found yet another park near where the PuddleDaddies drink at beer festivals but like the others, it was quite broken and the floor was not always present. The Gosportian parks are generally very poor, ours are a LOT better. We continued to the city centre. I chose lunch which was jumbo sausage and chips from the Fish'n'Chip emporium opposite the ferryport and on the ferry itself we met Ellis, to whom I sold my old cotbed a couple of years ago.
Stopping only to buy a Lego Star Wars X-wing fighter in Palmerston Road, we rode home.
Time out of house: 4 1/2 hours. Distance cycled: 11 3/4 miles. The next time we perform this circuit, we will do better: that is why we do a preliminary investigation circuit. Later, Lego. I have to make an Egyptian artefact for holiday homework so I need all the white blocks. Even later, Arnie film night was True Lies, with Meat Feast Mega-Pizza. Blokes need to drink beer and watch an Arnie movie and laugh at each others' farts so I have chosen a comedy classic with guns and bombs and a horse in a lift and bad guys and a nuclear explosion. Of course we told Jof it was Spanking Nuns get a Special Delivery and College Girl Sleepover IV but it wasn't really. I totally demanded to rewind and see again the bits where Arnie blew away the 20th floor of the Miami tower block using a stolen Harrier Jump Jet and said "You're fired" to Art Malik before shooting him into a helicopter. Bed kinda elevenish, honest.

Mufti Day: Arriving in Style

I first met Bud at 0515 when I was exploding in the toilet. I was not exploding ON the toilet, which is a bonus, but I was sneezing splurgily and snottily. It was his getting up time anyway.
Later Jof diagnosed hay fever and prescribed kiddie anti-histamines, which she had magically bought previously. I didn't like it so spat it out all over the sofa which earned me a shouting.
It was the last day of term so we paid the teacher £1 to come in without uniform. She did come in dressed, so it didn't quite work.
In the playground, our favourite blonde photographer from the News was snapping a group of Year 6s saying goodbye to our Head teacher Miss Linscott who is leaving us today. I believe we raised enough money to buy her a bench. Perhaps there could have been something more useful but who knows.
We had to take the laundry to the laundrette but Jof had taken the car to go and see Nanna again. Therefore we cycled; he wobbled precariously due to carrying a vast bag of sheets and towels, I wobbled precariously due to travelling on real actual roads without him running alongside me. But in meedle of no time, I was enjoying it and wanted to experience more traffic lights, junctions, oncoming traffic and one-way systems. I even signalled.
From there we accessed the park by JoniBobs' school and immediately met 3 people I knew from parties. Then, why spoil a good bike ride? We rode to my swimming lesson as well, arriving in style, shame lots of others had thought of it and the bike park was full. I could get used to this cycling lark.
Incidentally, when Ben and I were trading skillsets yesterday, I can do "Floater", the dead body in water, because I can float. He can do a really good cowboy-getting-shot-off-roof-but-doing too-much-staggering. Thinks. If I ever get to the Dead Sea, where even normal humans can float, would I be able to walk on water? I believe that Jesus chap in the stories could do that, maybe he was a floater too.

Golf? It's a Piece of Cake

Today was Easter Cake day. Jof brought me to school, triumphant in procession with the cake tin held high, I only needed a Roman Emperor costume and maybe some of those chaps with the long trumpets with flags on.
Our team activity for the day was the Tri-golf tournament. Seven teams from several schools competed in the whopping great gymnasium in Rubys' school.
We had to chip the ball, hit it and otherwise land it in bands, near the pin, as far as possible, and on the bullseye target.
I personally did well and scored lots. But the oafs on my team dragged me back with their chronic ineptitude and we came last. Last! O, the humiliation. Our other team came 6th (out of 7) so the Meon Mingers came home with nary a medal between us, and a lingering aroma of golf oil and broccoli.
Fresh from this defeat, I ran out (last of the class) into the playground at let-out time to find a crowd at one end. I asked where the cake stall was; Bud indicated the crowd. I could not be sure so I asked a teacher, who indicated the crowd.
I got into the queue. The cakes were being sold off in aid of school funds and I was at the back, holding a £20 note, enough to retire to my own cake in the country. By the time I had got to the front of the queue and actually attracted the attention of one of the serving wenches, all the decent cake had gone, and all that remained was pink fairy cake and some nests with rabbits, that were plastic. Despondently, I slouched off with naught but a promise of chocolate at home. Don't send me up to the bar, I'd suggest, even if I do have a £20 note.
Due to not listening to instructions properly, Thursday Park was on again and I played with 2 classmates. Our first task was to bury the support strut of the swinging basket: as it stands over 8 feet high we would have needed a bulldozer but gamely did the terrier dig-a-dog-a-dug shuffle until the JBs asked me to play football.
When they had to go, Ben and I had a picnic feast and taught each other to die convincingly for our film careers. Unbeknownst to us, the Police were circling the park looking for a real actual stranger-danger who had been loitering with intent to molest, and all the adults threw a cordon of security around the park which is standing around looking worried.

Toga! Toga! Toga!

Roman and Celt day at school at last and a chance to Lord (well, Emperor) it over the rest of them.
At kickout time the playground was full of costumery: 74 Roman soldiers in a sword-fighting melee (going pieces of eight, Aaargh! and have at thee, varlet in a glorious chronological and cultural clash), 1 chap with a blue face (1 more for the woad) and 75 Arthurian Ladies of the Lake tripping up over their trippy raiment.
I scooted home in battle dress and I can't help thinking that the Roman army would have been better invaders if they had scooters, perhaps they would have rid the world of the dreadful Scots, instead of just building a wall around them.
Scooted to Wednesday Park and waved to the JBs who drove right past us.
But nobody came to the park so I played with LittleMax and gave up when he left and it was overrun by abusive teenagers.
Later Jof finished the Easter Cake for the school competition and it's got nests made of chocolate with eggs and chickies and rabbits and lemon icing but the carrots-that-look-like-umbrellas wouldn't fit on. Erin says hers is better because she uses professional-level icing.

The Foggy Bottom Boys

The world was hidden in a thick blanket of fog today. But against all odds, it came back again, perhaps it was an April Fool.
I have a break from guitar lessons so that gave me more time to negotiate my way out of having to practise.
It was such a lovely day once the fog had faded, we revisited Hilsea Lido park. This small but colourful park is mostly sand and has some short but very slippery slides. I banged my nose twice trying to climb up the red curly slide.
Next door is the old Lido splashpond, it used to be a very wide kidney-shaped paddling pool a few inches deep but has now been refurbished and kitted out along the same lines as the D_Day museum splashpark, with squirting chairs, a chain bridge and brightly coloured stepping nodules. It was closed. I asked to go into the water park next to it, but the old Lido itself is still a big rusty hole in the ground and very very closed.
After Gymnastics I tried on my Roman Toga. It is Celts and Romans day tomorrow and there is a pitched battle scheduled to see who will be the winning tribe.
Jof has excelled herself again with my Imperial Roman outfit, with braiding and a belt and everything. Look haughty for the picture, she said, so I am being one of those statuesque street performers being Caesar the Invincible preparing to conquer a vassal nation. I have a laurel wreath of gold leaves and one tug on the bow on that gold belt might cause unrequired draughts and possibly gales, of laughter.