Good afternoon Negative SoundByters! To my right is a very large G&T (well earned as I am still celebrating my birthday!); to my left is a table of millennials discussing the John Lewis Christmas advert and complaining that the wine is corked (!!) and upstairs in Room 8 is Mrs H and Baba H, chilling after a very gentle ride down from London to a place called Rye – a quaint little town nestled on the coast where we are staying for the next few days. This is our first mini break away with Rafe and while I have a certain sympathy for the residents of room 7, I think we are set to have a fantastic few days in the bracing sea air, feasting on locally caught seafood and unwinding as much as is practical with a baba that is apparently experiencing a “neurological leap”!
The logistics of combining a mini break and a 3 ½ month old is akin to planning the itinerary of POTUS sans the blacked out Suburbans and Secret Service heavies on every door. It is a very serious undertaking. The sheer volume of stuff that accompanies a baba-on-hols is beyond comprehension and if we didn’t have a car the size of one of those Suburbans, it might have been Hoddy staying at home to man the fort! It has meant that Mrs H now understands what it means to pack light; in the past I required a portable crane to heave Mrs H’s Samsonite into the car – now it’s hand luggage only which slots neatly into the back of the boot next to my postage-stamp-sized Northface daypack and all Rafe’s paraphernalia, which easily fills any residual space in the boot as well as the backseat.
As one of my friends rightly pointed out, in these circumstances a “New-Dad” becomes a human mule, tasked with carrying lots of stuff from A to B. Take for instance our approach to the hotel. It’s situated on a very narrow one-way; luckily the loading bay is free right opposite the front door – Mrs H pulls up (I don’t drive; I don’t have the temperament in this country), leaves the wagon idling (as it’s a loading bay for deliveries as opposed to babies) and I jump into gear. Boot open. Pram out. Open side door. Leave Mrs H to assemble pram and insert Rafe. Return to boot. Strap bags to every available limb. Clamber up the stairs into reception. Dump bags and leave Mrs H to take care of check-in. Return to wagon. Of course the only parking lot is at the bottom of the hill. Park car. Stride purposefully back up hill. Go straight to bar. Order a double gin. Track down family . No doubt to be reversed when we check-out!
What of events of geopolitical significance….
A big one right on the border of the motherland; a so-far-bloodless “coup” initiated by the army in Zimbabwe which was supposed to culminate in Bob Mugabe resigning on national television but when push-came-to-shove he effectively showed all the Generals (who had lined up alongside him for the address) the middle finger by refusing to keep to the script and jumping on a plane to Singapore to enjoy all his ill-gotten gains! Just like his comrade across the border – you couldn’t make it up. That said a lot of his fellow countrymen who “supported” him through thick-and-thin have suddenly discovered a certain part of their anatomy (it’s amazing what happens when the Army changes sides) and it is highly unlikely that Bob will still be in office when the next edition of NSB hits the streets!
And now a very quick anecdote before I head back upstairs for bath-time.
Big Love to all.
Hoddy X
Winter Wonderland!
Mrs H and I thought we would take Rafe for his first taste of Christmas festivities (I know it’s only November –don’t hate us!) and head to Hyde Park for a few beers, a brandwurst sausage roll and a crepe in the Bavarian Village of a fun-fair-on-steroids called Winter Wonderland. It’s cheese-tastic but a lot of fun; and an excellent precursor to all the frivolity that lies ahead in December.
The military might that is Mrs H mobilises and Rafe and Hoddy are squared-up, ship-shape and good-to-go just after lunch on a bright, sunny, Sunday afternoon. We high tail our way down to the railway station; it’s a quick 20-minute hop on the train and then a gentle stroll up to Hyde Park. Streatham Common is a station on which trains operated by Southern Rail, the world’s worst train company, pass through. I therefore should have expected the worst. A sign greeted us at the entrance to the station: NO TRAINS. Not like “We apologise for any inconvenience, but due to engineering works, trains will not be running from this station over the weekend”. Just “NO TRAINS” scrawled by somebody whose handwriting resembled Rafe’s.
Immediately I started re-calibrating our journey, factoring in an infant in a pram the size of a medium-sized utiity vehicle, while trying to keep my internal thermostat in check; the words “Southern” and “rail” uttered together generally gets my blood pumping. “Bus replacement” was our only viable option. It sent a small shiver down my spine…..
Buses are not massively conducive to babas, especially those packed to the rafters with all the other Sunday commuters hoping to do something fun on their afternoon, only to be kaibosched by Southern Fail. But Mrs H was not to be defeated and we lined up at the bus stop to wait patiently for the next bus.
It appeared on the horizon and everyone started jostling for position, trying to second guess where the bus was going to stop. Naturally the driver pulled up past just short of where everyone was standing (think Bob as the driver; his Generals as the commuters), the doors flapped open, and all shapes-sizes-and-ages scrambled for the entrance – no holds barred, every man-woman-and-child for himself. Mrs H was having none of it; she cut a swathe with BUV (Baby Utility Vehicle) through all-and-sundry and managed to board the bus – Rafe chortling and gurgling in glee!
I scrambled aboard by the skin-of-my-teeth and the bus pulled off with about a billion long suffering passengers on-board, a very determined Mrs H, a baby ensconced in his snuggly snowsuit and Hoddy jammed into the wheel chair area, one leg wrapped around the BUV, an arm draped inadvertently over two fellow commuters, and his face glued against a window pane that has been the resting place of one-two-many greasy hairdos! Love Bus Replacement!
But we made it eventually. We still had to navigate the tube escalators using the technique called “Hang-on-for-dear-life” but having survived the trauma of said buses, this was a cakewalk!
Note to self before we next endeavour to travel on weekends with mini-R into Central London – check the train timetables.
OUT:)
Pic of the Week
All aboard! "New Dad" please pull up the car...at pace!
