Channel 4 needs me.

Ok, first, apologies for the lack of blogs. I'm sure life has begun to lose meaning for my faithful band of 8 followers (is it really that many?!) without the random musings of an almost-certainly-criminally-insane friend. Time flies.
The end of term was pretty ... uh ... perhaps the best word would be manic. But I don't mean, 'oh it's been a bit manic here', I mean, when you're actually on the verge of mania due to the state of your own little world. I won't go into details, as it's not really my story to tell, but suffice it to say that it's all calmed down a bit now.
The other reason I'm writing this is because my blog has been the topic of conversation at more than one point in the last 24 hours (we've got friends staying who, for some reason, read it!) and I thought it was therefore time to give them something more up-to-date to look at.

And so to the point of the blog post title. I happened to mention that I've always quite fancied the idea of having a documentary TV crew follow me around. (No, I'm not really sure what the documentary would be on, but more of that in a minute!). This comment was met with some derision from my wife, and amusement from the rest of the gathering. The main reason I gave (other than vanity I suppose) is that I often think things that would be amusing to share with someone, or do things that I think are in some way worthy of being seen, but they never are (shared or seen...) and it seems such a waste. Of course, there are times, like when I was doing the washing up this afternoon having finished making the chicken pie for dinner, when I actually really like being alone without the need to talk to anyone, but even so, surely that's good TV in some way...
And then people started considering what the documentary could focus on (those of you who were there may wish to add things I've forgotten, and those who weren't there may have some suggestions too...) The documentary could be on being a stay-at-home-dad, or having to live with 74 of the 'fairer sex', or things to make with children (this was also suggested as a book I could publish, so that's another idea), or any number of other things.
So, if anyone knows any desperate Channel 4 bods who are fresh out of ideas, tell 'em to get in touch!
And it's not just me, is it? Surely other people must want their own TV crews...

And now to Joshua, who's been up to some great things recently. He's recently getting more keen on his drawing. A few days ago, this branched out into body art. I have photos, but unfortunately the carphone warehouse weren't entirely honest about what was going to be included with my 'phone, so I don't have a cable to connect it to the computer... I'm also set to download his first picture that's almost discernibly a human face. It appeared a couple of weeks back, but I haven't yet scanned it in. (I can't blame the carphone warehouse for that though...)

His latest phrases are, 'of course' (usually said in such a way as to make you feel like a right muppet), 'it's not fair', (didn't get that one from home, I can assure you!)

Last week we had a fab housegroup weekend away. Really good time, and a nice chance to spend a bit more time with people. We were able to go as a family too, as term had (just) finished, so that was brilliant. (Though tiring, for reasons mentioned above!). We looked at Jonah, and concluded it should really be called 'the story of Jonah and God' not 'and the whale', as the whale was only really a bit part, and wasn't there entirely voluntarily. Great book and good challenge. Unfortunately, the house was a bit falling-downish. We were in a three storey bit. The bottom floor had a whacking great metal prop in the middle of the room, holding up the ceiling. The second floor had a big sign on the door saying 'danger, do not enter', and we were on the third floor, with a floor so sunken that the single bed was about an inch off the floor in the middle of the room! I guess at least if the house had collapsed we'd have been near the top of the pile...

Anyways, I'm back off to spend some more time with our guests, before an early night (clocks change tonight!)

Fresh start.

Had a lovely birthday on Monday down in Worthing (thanks to everyone who helped make it a great day!). Great time catching up with friends too - here are a couple of pics from our trip to the beach with some friends ... The first one is the classic 'sun in the background over the crashing waves' shot. And believe it or not, this is not very long after Joshua's had his haircut. That's as short as it's been for ages!



The second is a wonderful picture of my brave little boy (!) running away from the waves. I know it's a fun game to play, but he's clearly a little less hardy than his mate, who's still ten foot closer to the sea than he is and hasn't even started running yet. Having said that, if you look closer at the photo, you'll see that Joshua's already failed dismally in a previous attempt - absolutely drenched trousers! His mate's mummy wasn't overly impressed with me either ... I was taking photos of them (as you can tell!) and saw a wave coming in. I legged it up the beach, staying perfectly dry, but leaving them to get wet. Oops.

Great to catch up with people at Worthing High too! Lots of new faces though ... weird. I now don't recognise half the school!

Then we got back home and I discovered this:


Yes, a tree fell over in our garden while we were away. Well, there's a bit of a 'did it fall or was it pushed?' debate, but the less said about that the better. It's funny, I was stood there thinking, 'oh no, that's our best cropping plum' (ok, call me sad if you like). And then I looked up at the sky, saw what a great spot the tree had been planted in and immediately started thinking, 'I wonder what else we could plant here instead'. If only all loss was so easily dealt with! And of course, there's the other advantage that we've now got more wood to burn!

I'm also now trying to work out what things need to be planted in the next couple of weeks. Our new fruit trees are on the way, so they'll go in. But I've got serious amounts of seed to go in, with what is currently quite limited planting space. I think more stuff may have to come out... Oh dear. Joshua and I planted some more tulip bulbs (WAY too late!) and some dogwood cuttings today too, so hopefully they'll make it... If not, it doesn't really matter, they'll just compost down over time!

And last but not least, we had a lovely lunch today with friends here. They introduced us to a game called 'chairs'. There are 24 little (like, two inches tall) plastic chairs that have to be stacked in a tower, with only one touching the ground. It's more fun than it probably sounds (think Jenga, but building from scratch, with plastic chairs...) and I spent some time crafting the amazing tower below ...

Little things please little minds ... as they say.

Happy not-so-New Year

Thankfully, I didn't make any rash New Year's Resolutions about blogging daily. In fact, I haven't really made any NYRs at all. My thinking is that I'll get around to making them when the dust of the holiday has settled somewhat. That way I can make some that are a bit more carefully planned than, 'Argh, seven-and-a-half minutes 'til the New Year, what should I promise myself?!'.

Had a lovely New Year though. I'm currently having a facebook conversation with a friend who refers to his New Year as 'insane'. I told him that I would have been most upset if my New Year had been insane (perhaps it's linked to the fact that I'm twice his age...)! Thankfully ours was very calm and orderly. So calm, in fact, that we forgot to set off the fireworks. Oops. A civilised roast dinner, followed by a few games of 'Snatch'. Rounded off with a nice bit of fireworks-on-the-telly and a glass of champagne. Even cracked open the bottle of Chateauneuf du pape. Very nice stuff. Silky smooth, in fact!

That was preceded by a couple of really nice visits to see old friends, (old in the long-standing sense, not in the long-in-the-tooth sense). North Wales was, as expected, grey, cold and somewhat wet, but brightened immeasurably by the renewal of friendship, occasional cup of tea, and roaring (well, more flickering actually) fire. Birmingham was also cold, but likewise was uplifted by the friendship and tea motifs.

And before that, of course, came Christmas. A Lewis spectacular: fantastic food, and a wonderful family Christmas. A highlight for me was the suckling pig (sorry if you're reading this Clare M...). In particular, Joshua wandering into the kitchen, seeing said pig in a tray about to go in the oven, and announcing, "I want to eat his nose!". No sign of vegetarianism breaking into his lifestyle! He was also taken by the disappearance of the sherry, mince pie and carrot left for Santa and co., and by the appearance of footprints in the ash by the fireplace. Ok, so the footprints were barely discernible despite being the work of a number of people and a fair amount of time, but the rest was good! Joshua was a huge fan of his new kitchen that mummy and daddy and granny and pops gave him. As you can see, he's cooking up a storm already.



And yesterday (apologies for the topsy-turvy chronology of this post) we did this:
I say, "we", but I have to say I'm the only one who saw the project through from start to finish. It was the (very well chosen!) gift of one of our girls. Anna and Joshua initiated the construction, but then abandoned ship on me. I think perhaps I was being a little over-enthusiastic about getting it 'just right' (though you might well question whether I actually succeeded...). A prize for the person who can spot the five differences between the two otherwise identical pictures...






Anyway, it's now a long long time since I actually started writing this (it's 20.42 now...) so I'm going to stop there. Joshua is now in bed, and I'm thinking of going out for a spot of sport :) Happy New Year to all of you. (All five of you, that is. I was hoping I might have hit 10 followers (not literally, you understand!) by 2010, but maybe I'll have to wait until 2011 for that)