Night School

Friday at last!
Quite a normal day at school apart from the pygmy elephant in the room which was of course the sleepover.

I did get some homework (boo) and a new set of spelling words (baa) but mostly our minds were occupied by thoughts of escaping the parental nest for a while. I suppose it's possible that it's the first night away for some of my friends but by now, most of us have cut the cloying apron strings. I myself have been on Scout camp 3 times, Scout sleepovers a further few times, then there's the 6 months in the Navy and that time I had to take the diplomatic bag to Accra but that's a story for another time. I'm sure we'll all get lots of sleep (not) and there may be the odd co-worker with an amusing peccadillo such as giant Teddy bear (we had a discussion about this in school and some people have Teddies as tall as them, a Teddy height limit had to be set, not kidding), nocturnal wanderings/widdlings/wailings or calling the teacher Mummy. I'm sure Mr E is looking forward to that.

Also, the parents might not get much sleep either as pickup time is practically dawn tomorrow and apparently Friday Night is Beer Night, not sure how they'll get on without me. So we strode through the night in my pyjamas but with 2 coats and a pair of gloves and reached the school library entrance just as the boys were arriving. The girls were there already and what a load of pinkitude and bounciness and twitteriness they are, hence my face that says what have I got myself into, mmm.

Screen Time

The BBC reports that the greatest scourge for parents today is screentime. The little angels (such as my angelic self) would, given the chance, stay playing computer games until they starved, much like the monkeys trained to pull a lever to get a jolt of crack cocaine, and stay there self-administering until they die.

The uncontrolled child will become a grumpy disobedient one without friends or social skills, education or prospects so I have been given a deal. One (count them, one) hour of screentime per day (not including TV), doesn't matter whether it's tablet, X-Box or PC, doesn't matter which game I'm playing. No splitting of the hour - can't have 15 minutes before swimming and 45 afterwards. This is per working day which is weekdays, and all restrictions are lifted after 3pm Saturday, and all day Sunday. Others of my friends have their own screen-deals. Some do not. If I accidentally-on-purpose go back for a reprise after my hour has elapsed, I lose the next day's allocation. If I do it again, I lose a week. It's like when you put the 3rd house on a Monopoly property, prices rise dramatically.

Today was a pretty normal day at school and I fell over in the playground resulting in a severed leg, losing 9 pints of blood. Once I'd had my heart restarted, a transfusion of tiger blood and the leg sewn back on, a plaster was applied and it wasn't until I was getting changed after Extra-Swimming that the plaster came off revealing a half-inch cut, these plasters are amazing.

Today we lost a slate from the roof. The roofer bloke says he'll replace it. There's been quite enough weather, don't want it coming inside. I played my hour of Mario games and the sky outside the swimming pool showed a glimmer of hope that spring is on the way. Or is it snow.

Douglas Bader and the Unexpected Olives

School proper started today. We actually had to learn things, whoa there, boy, don't overdo it.

Our new topic is Star Wars, hence the dress-up day yesterday. While it may seem contrived and of dubious educational value, tangential aspects could work. One sub-topic was Geography, where we had to find 6 spaceports in the atlas.

Could you find 6 equipped sites capable of launching an orbital vehicle? Maybe not. We also had to design and market a Star Wars-related toy of your choice, I went for the Boba Fett costume kit with blaster and retractable infra-red sight on the helmet.

I also swapped out 14 Pokémon cards and have thus come home richer in terms of Japanese fictional animalcules and look forward to re-arranging my card collection later.

During my lunch hour, I open my temperature-controlled lunchbag and eat some or all of the contents, depending on how much playtime I haven't had. But today I opened the little bag of joy and found 1) fruit assortment with 2 added tomatoes 2) mini pork pie with a few cocktail sausages 3) pot of pitted green olives.

Now my family and I all know that olives are on the NOT list, it later transpired that Jof got over-enthusiastic grabbing the pre-prepared pots out of the fridge, a couple of inches to the left and it could have been a pot of gravy, some Thai vegetable curry or cheese sauce. So I guess I was lucky.

On the way home I selected a Grade 3 haircut at my usual establishment and got a cherry-flavoured lollipop as a reward. Well, you're not going to turn it down, are you.

I'd just settled down for a Pokémon session when he said it's Wednesday park, get your clothes on (for I was sadly lacking). It was at this point that I remembered the slight graze I got on my knee yesterday at gymnastics when somebody blind-sided me in Tag and I fell down. So I hobbled downstairs in total agony like the very ghost of Douglas Bader when the Sturmbannführer had confiscated his legs.

When it was clear this ruse was not working I manfully got over it and we got to the park taking the giant yellow tennis ball and all the usual suspects were waiting for us and they shouted last one on the swings is a pansy and I tried but slipped and fell in the massive puddle under the swing and got a totally wet leg on the trousers I'd had on for 3 1/2 minutes.

I sulked under the slide for 20 minutes or so and when I decided to cut my losses, Robert invited me over so I nipped home for new trousers and went to his place where we Lego Hero-ed and that was much better.

My Scout group require a noticeboard for event announcements and display of the code of conduct etc so Bud asked nicely at his work and we got a massive adjustable whiteboard and added corkboard, here I am using a 20 millimetre anti-aircraft shell to show how my share price just keeps going up and up.

From Sophia to Ky Loren

While this was the dreaded first day back at school, it wasn't so dreaded after all and I was looking forward to showing off my Kylo Ren suit.

Even leaving home was difficult as nasty parkers had blocked Jof's car in but soon I met up with all my Star Warsian schoolfriends and we jousted with Light Sabres and the girls compared their buns. This was because we all had to dress up as Star Wars characters and there simply aren't many openings for the ladies. OK, you've got a couple of Princesses in Oriental garb and Padme Skywalker and good old Leia, and that's about it. I left-fielded Anakin's Mum, easy to do the costume as beaten-up slave lady. So there were many Siths, a few Wookies, one X-wing pilot, and 37 Princess Leias. Oh, and about 2 wet blankets who didn't dress up.

In one assembly we had to announce our new year's resolutions but only about school. So we had a succession of 'Want to improve my Literacy' and 'I want to get more house points for my house' and stuff, a whole load of made-up nonsense it was, because clearly our real resolutions were to eat more chocolate, score more goals, get more Pokémon cards or get the new Sony Experia Z5 Premium, depending on taste.

I got the top costume award for my entire year, and one of my mates got most-effort award for being the X-wing pilot and having actually dyed his hair to match.

We hardly did any work at all today with double assembly and watching Empire Strikes Back and more Light Sabre fights and at going-home time, Bud had brought the new scooter which turned a few heads, especially with Kylo Ren riding it.

For afternoon snack I had watermelon and prawns, an obvious choice. It was a wrench coming off the Minecraft server and going back to Gymnastics and I said it was boring and asked to quit again but as soon as I was there, it was great.

Ice! Ice? Maybe

As it was the last day of the holidays (well, another one of those teacher-extra-holidays they insist on) we got up at a very gentlemanly 11am.

This didn't leave much time for food or getting ready so by the time I'd had breakfast and left the house, I was technically 1 meal behind the rest of the world. But then I often feel like that.

Jof ditched me at the JB's house and the fun began. On one of my favourite 11 1/2 mile bike rides down the disused railway linking Fareham and Gosport is "The Sailmakers", the pub where we have lunch. Visible from the car park of said hostelry is the Gosport Ice Rink which is one of those things you hear about but can't quite believe it still exists, like dog racing or church.

But this place was very real and Johnny had been ice-skated in the leg by a tumbling skater only a month ago and wanted to get back out there and twizzle, jump and spin. We hired some very clunky and amusing boots and hit the ice.

In fact, I hit the ice at least 6 times but slowly I graduated from holding-onto-the-side to holding-onto-Cal's-hand and from there to freeform skittering and only a few more plunges. I was too tall to hire one of the penguins (safety aid to hang onto for dear life) but that encouraged me to try and I wasn't as good as the boys but I was better than last time (2010). My bottom really hurt after one pratfall and she said you've landed on your coccyx but I said no, it was definitely my bum.

So we all had wet trousers from the plummeting and many other people were there and some of them skated around backwards and one tried a front-flip and landed on his head. Outside is the mini-assault course park I always complete on bike rides so we sat in the baby-bucket swings and the unidirectional swinging basket and assaulted the course.

Back at theirs we built some Lego Heroes and had a light sabre fight and then Ben joined in which only made it better until Bud arrived to take me home and that's when I remembered about being one meal down without a lifebelt and ate a whole quiche just before supper, which I also finished. It was all epic and why can't we have these holidays all over again, just saying.

Later, I taught Jof to play Minecraft on the X-box. She flew, destroyed blocks, tamed a horse, sheep and pig, and wandered through villages, because she is a cool mummy.

Pokédate and Block-U-Like

There I was, busy dreaming about Pokémon cards when Bud woke me up at 1227pm, saying that Ben was on the phone asking for a Pokémon playdate and card exchange session.

I had broken my own personal best for waking-up time. Luckily I know that adult life is like this so I will be able to do this for ever. In less than an hour, I was delivered to his place where we exchanged 14 cards and I got such characters as Poliwag, Timburr, Ichicrax, Leafeon, Toffpot, Antipasto, Goatse and Lardon, I think. Then we played Minecraft and found a village, slaughtered the inhabitants and un-built the entire village to get bricks to make our own buildings.

I was given (and liked) a tuna-mayo wrap, isn't it always the way that you only experiment on new foods at other people's houses. When I got home all the Xmas decorations had gone, the house looks bigger. All my kind of day.

Death by Pan Galactic Fartle Blaster

At last it was the day of Boys'R'Us Mungle-style. I had developed a plan over the last few months which was to take my best buds on basically exactly the same trip I did with Poppy, but to just not tell them and say it was a boys-only expedition.

And so it came to pass, Oh yes it did, that we left Jof in the shower and drove right past the JB's road and had to drive round again and picked them up and drove to Ben's and acquired him too. A carful of us boys is not a sight to behold so much as a sound to be-hear and very excited we all were.

I opened my presents which was a card saying Now You Are 6 and some Pokémon cards and some money and knowing that we would be in a swimming pool and a muddy field, Ben had brought his Pokécards with him so we sat and argued about whose cards were better for the duration.

We drove right past Grandad's place and reached the car park of Romsey Rapids which is vaguely like the Pyramids, really, but with a differently shaped waterslide and differently abled underground water pumping systems.

Only problem was, some other people had had the same idea as us, remarkably, and the advertised wait for pool entry was 1 hour. We posed by the sign saying how seriously they take pool hygiene and went upstairs to find a table only 4th time lucky.

The posing-sign said that if there was an "Accidental Customer Contamination" (small person crapping themselves in the pool) they would close immediately, filter for 9 hours, swap 20,000 gallons of water, load it with chemicals and work overtime to clean up. Also, they've had to do this Code 24 routine 10 times in the last year and it cost them an extra 50 grand, that's some expensive poo.

So we sat and waited ages while the tannoy lady said Bing-Bong can all those with orange wristbands exit the pool now, Bing-Bong can all red wristband holders approach the pool etc and eventually it was our turn (yellow band) and we attacked.

The pool has a long wiggly narrow channel which is part of the 'Rapids' aspect. Under-floor pumps make the water go around and every now and then, supplementary blasters increase to ramming velocity and undersea volcanoes blow bubbles up your butt and they are called Pan Galactic Fartle Blasters, honest.

We all had a go on the waterslide apart from Robert and many of us got bucketed by the big tipping bucket and we sat in the hot tub and chased each other round and round the wiggly circuit and lay in wait in the little current-free inlet and attacked and tickled and dunked.

I suppose we got an hour and a half wet-play and then we drove across Southampton to the Cowherds, my favourite pub-restaurant which has the added bonus of being right by the giant park. We had real food for real people and drew on the kiddie menus and a lot of it was very rude, with amusing pictures and ditties and our main hobby seems to be making up songs although we are not yet talented scriptwriters.

Outside it was immediately clear that although the rain had stopped, its after-effects lingered on in a mudbath of epic proportions. The climbing tree had been cut down so we missed out there, the slides were functional but ended in lakes and to be fair it was the 2nd of January so not necessarily the best day for extreme parking.

But we'd brought 2 bags of bready-type products and the ducks were looking hopeful. Sadly, the seagulls were much more aggressive and noisy so we had to scare them off while attracting ducks which is not easy, and then you find the pigeons are trying it on too.

It wasn't until we'd run out of Co-op loaf and shredded croissant that the swans arrived so we walked back down the Muddy Brick Road singing about seagulls and ducks and getting lost in the woods because we kept getting cut off by ditches.

We learned about duckweed-covered ponds and how they look deceptively like grasslands, but we didn't learn the hard way, as our spirit guide broke off branches for us to probe the murky depths and Johnny kept a couple of magic wands for later.

The day should have ended there but we had a pillow fight recently and grudges were still active so we came back to mine for a showdown, removed our shirts, cleared the room and let fly. Robert got one in the eye which was our only real adverse event of the day apart from the importation of 73 kg of mud and by the time the lads were dropped off, I think we did just fine. Teamwork was excellent and we had no casualties, what more do you need apart from more birthdays. Later we watched Star Wars (Empire Strikes Back), and you know, each one I see makes the next one make more sense. Looking forward to #7.

New Year's Evolution

Well, I think that much like the others I got to bed at around 2am today, although not all Puddlers made it into their own beds, mmm. Rising a mere 8 hours later, we had a blank day in which I played Minecraft and prepared Pokémon cards for an upcoming Pokedate with Ben, Jof looked up where to go for our summer holidays and Bud went for a run and made a deposit at the bottle bank.

We all feel like this sometimes

With just a little bit of eating badly and lots of lounging around thrown in, that's pretty well it. At least I have a boy's excursion to look forward to tomorrow. For supper I had bangers and mash with the sausages sticking up like antlers out of a close-encounters style mountain of potato, and taught Jof to play the Pokémon card game. Jof went to read quietly so I watched 'Twins'.

New Year's Puddle 2015

Today I got up with an 11 in it because, you know, things to do and places to go.

Of course the 'places to go' for me meant MinecraftWorld, but he insisted that I write thank-you letters to 3 people that gave me money this Xmas/birthday. Surely, I said, children have been tortured by this meaningless ritual for sufficient years, do I really have to. But I did, so I wrote the first one and simply copied it with different names and slightly different spelling mistakes in each one to add a personalizing touch.

Then we met a few familiar faces in or near Giant Tesco when we went to buy essentials like green tea and magic raspberries (yes) and I was off the hook. The ladies of the Puddle Group have a little superstitious ritual of their own when drinking 'Prosecco', it's to place one raspberry in the glass which wards off the evil spirits of Hangover, apparently.

So we proactively protected ourselves from Oestrogoth, Terror of Premenstrua by buying in some out-of-season soft fruit flown in specially from Spain.

We watched the skyscraper fire in Dubai, next town over from where I got my leopard skin (from the King of Sharjah) and I played 'The Fat Kid' on my favourite Minecraft server which is where one player is the Fat Kid who has impenetrable armour and a one-hit-kills sword but can't move very fast.

We waited ages for Jof to get ready and walked round to Erins' for a party that was full of Welsh people.

The dichotomy between the girlies and us boys is now complete, we found ourselves some electronic devices and hid ourselves away totally. Erin had set up a 'Photo Booth' which was a corner of the room with a frame and many wigs and hats and Elton John glasses etc and all the fun people wore them and we didn't because we're far too cool.

We got home at some point which was late but I've been in training for that so I didn't mind.

Good Afternoon, Sir

I have been working very hard towards a special goal recently and at last I have finally achieved my boyhood ambition, like a necrophiliac who rises through the ranks to become coroner. I have been getting up later and later and today I missed morning entirely and got up at 2 minutes past 12.

I wasn't allowed to stay in all day so we scooted down to Tunnel Park and my new, bigger scooter is quite hard work so we kept swapping scooters.

Scampi made a change from all that turkey and then we saw Star Wars #4 (New Hope) with the benefit of having seen the first 3 at last. We still don't know how the 2 Skywalker siblings will ever find out the truth about their relationship as so far, everyone that knew is dead.