Edition 44: "Monster Munchies!"

Good Afternoon Negative Soundbyters! It’s a blustery afternoon in London town and as I look out from my perch at the top of the house, the leaves on the trees are turning a rusty brown throwing up the signal that autumn is upon us which means that what passes for a summer i.e. a few consecutive days of sunshine-and-chevrolet, is now well-and-truly behind us. Everyone who lives in the UK has a memorable summer though; you know “that summer” where the sun blazed for weeks, people passed out on the tube from heatstroke, news channels talked of the risk of sunburn and lots of people, usually of the slightly rotund variety covered in a mish-mash of faded tattoos and chunky gold jewellery, did their weekend shopping at Tesco’s with their shirts off. That said the summer of 2017 will always be a memorable one for Mrs H and I for obvious reasons.

I must keep the introduction short today; my anecdote is a little longer than usual but on the geopolitical scene I did note a headline in the Sunday Times today:

“Gender-fluid girl boards with boys”.

Apparently if you are merely questioning your gender these days you are “gender-fluid”.

Might be a handy way to gain access to the lady’s locker room methinks….Hoddy, best take care, gender is NOT A JOKE these days.

Moving on swiftly…!

Big Love to all (including all those gender-fluids out there!)

Hoddy X

Basements.

Our house has one. It’s where all the things you don’t want to keep above ground manage to accumulate. Often I get the instruction “Just stick it in the basement”. In the past I might have asked why we were keeping said item but the retort “In case we need it one day” ("like when Jesus comes again" I’m thinking very quietly to myself) is difficult to counter. To be fair though to Mrs H she does countenance an annual clear out and a lot of the stuff that eventually finds its way to the tip is mine! However this weekend our basement became the centre of attention for a completely different reason; apparently a monster lives down there!

Our nephew Joshua came down with Katie, his Mum, to visit Rafe. Joshua is as bright as a button and in a prior post I described how the two of us had a boys’ “day out” while Mrs H hosted her baby shower. He didn’t miss a trick the entire day as we trained, bussed and walked our way across south London, always mindful of never ever crossing the yellow line!

So in passing I mentioned to Joshua that we had a basement. You would have thought that I had said Christmas had come early and that Santa was at our front door. His eyes lit up and he said: “Can I see it?” I was like “No problem, follow me.”

While we were putting our shoes on I thought I would spice things up thinking that showing him an assortment of plastic boxes and garden tools wouldn’t be all that exciting: “You know Joshua, a monster lives in our basement so we have to be sure to turn the light on before we go down”. I was expecting a “Come on Uncle Chris what do you take me for – a six-year-old??” but his eyes sparkled even more brightly and wide eyed he said very seriously: “Really? Well you must go down the stairs first and I will follow you…” and as if to reassure me, he demonstrated one of his karate moves in case the Monster caused us any problems. I was like “Okay but be sure to hold my hand”.

We quietly approached the door; I turned on the light and we both peered into the basement. Silence. I went first and we both descended the stairs into the Monster’s lair. Joshua had a very careful look around. He spotted a chair (recently discarded) and enquired as to whether that was where the Monster sat. I was well “I think so” and keeping with the theme pointed at an old portable heater and said “he plugs that in when he gets cold”. Joshua nodded sagely as if that made perfect sense.

“Do you think he has been down here long?” enquired Joshua while we stood surrounded by household junk.

“Um, er – ja, I would say at least one hundred and twenty years”; by now I could see that a narrative was beginning to take shape and that if I wasn’t at my JK Rowling-most-creative-best, Joshua would see right through me.

He mulled that over; he was a bit uncertain as to whether he could count that high, but I took him through it; we nailed it counting in tens!

We then discussed whether the Monster ever escaped from the basement. A detailed investigation of all the drain pipes then ensued with Joshua providing an accurate assessment of all external points of entry to-and-from the basement. We even found a peep hole in the side return but Joshua was a bit reluctant to look through it: “Uncle Chris, you do it”. On my hands-and-knees I confidently informed him that the Monster was nowhere to be seen. Joshua seemed a tad disappointed, but when I explained that he was most likely shy, that did the trick.

I did try and knock on a pipe to fool Joshua into believing that was the Monster but he wasn’t having any of it. “That was you Uncle Chris, I saw your hand” he said pointedly. In Joshua’s imagination there was absolutely no reason why a Monster with bulbous green eyes (words were failing me at this point!) could not live in our basement, but to try and trick him using the Monster – well he wasn’t having any of it!

That said Joshua did ask “Is this Monster really real?” I didn’t answer immediately – we were having a lot of fun – so I just let the words gently hang there before he asked a much more pertinent question: “What’s this Monster’s name?” I started mentally scrambling around for something suitable, but Joshua came to the rescue: “Grandpa Joe” and I was like “Grandpa Joe it is….”

At Foxholme there are now two new additions to the family, Rafe (who has pride of place upstairs) and Grandpa Joe who keeps all things basement related in order!

OUT :)

Pic of the Week

The Boys! Mind the Gap!