Negative Soundbyters – good evening! I have a cold beer to my left, a bowl of potato chips to my right (I am a bit worried that I am developing a chip habit!) and three little helpers (excluding Mrs H!) from the neighbourhood putting Rafe to bed. Yup, bedtime has been outsourced; and to be fair they are doing a much better of it than I ever did. I mean what sort of man wouldn’t enjoy the attention of three young ladies (or guys – this is a blog that doesn’t discriminate) just before being wrapped up for the night. I did tell Rafe that it’s not something he should get used to; he’ll be lucky if he is able to manage one if his father’s track record is anything to go by! (That said Mrs H said yes, just!)
The family is off to Cape Town on Thursday night for some winter sun. I can’t remember when last my legs saw any rays; judging by their colour probably about 10 years ago but I’ve got my factor 50 and no doubt even with some liberal application I am expecting to return to the UK with a reddish tinge. Nice. There is one, small problem – I cannot find my South African passport which would have allowed us to circumvent the “foreigners” queue at immigration on entering the country. It is a queue certainly worth avoiding. Why? Because you have spent a crappy night with your ears around your knees in cattle class only then to have to stand for an hour while one official – literacy optional – deals with about a thousand tourists who just want to present their passports and begin their holidays. You know what they say about first impressions; thankfully all that foreign currency perseveres because if South Africa was judged on how it treats its visitors at passport control no one would bother going. (But I suppose it’s not that different anywhere else in the world…..)
*So most of the afternoon has been spent wracking my brains trying to recall when I last used it, what I was wearing and what hand luggage did I have. Well it could only be on holiday to South Africa (because the green mamba has no other use unless I want to enter Lesotho) and that was some moons ago so while I managed to deduce the destination (Go Sherlock!) I would have to be some sort of “total recall” genius to remember the exact clothing/hand luggage combo. Plan B was the old-school approach of opening every drawer I could find, praying that it would be there and then uttering a profanity when it wasn’t! I did find a five pound note and a 10p coin that looked like it had been minted in the 1800s - and an old pair of underpants. I asked Mrs H if it was in her study. She said it wasn’t. I asked if she had looked. She said no. No point in taking that conversation any further.
*
A quick geopolitical event before we move on….
Well done to Scotland for doing a “Braveheart” on the Poms in the rugby six nations this weekend. Safe to say that every thorn and petal was ripped from the English Rose until only a spindly, green stalk remained. A thumping of note!
Big Love to All.
Hoddy X
Admin.
I am not a massive fan of admin – is anybody? From paying bills to trying to decipher an EDF electricity bill in which you need a PhD to work out why your bill has doubled and my personal favourite – re-mortgaging.
I have been using a mortgage advisor who has been valiant in her attempt at corralling the bank and its lawyers, but I reckon I have received the same correspondence asking me to fill in the same questions about four times. I did it once as instructed, but as is standard practice these days, it got lost and I was forced to navigate my way back through all the questions at the kitchen table this morning. What makes this exercise even more challenging is throwing a shouty seven-month old into the mix!
Mrs H needed a few hours of chill time this morning so I did the breakfast routine with Rafe. Well Rafe was the recipient – he added no value to the process except lots of gummy smiles and plenty of gurgles. He knows the drill and woe betide you get your timings wrong because it might be early in the morning, but he can summon the strangled egret at a moment’s notice.
It goes like clockwork. I co-ordinate sterilising bottles, ensuring that his weetbix-yoghurt-pear combo is at the perfect temperature, warming his milky for post weetbix consumption, setting up the high chair with his bib and baby wipes close to hand and putting his toys out so that he is preoccupied while I deal with the aforementioned. It’s an operation that requires military precision and success is marked by a wide, milky grin mixed with wet, Weetbix dribble.
I am in business; milky lips and Weetbix in abundance. I take this to mean that I now have some time to “do some admin” while he lets his breakfast settle and Mrs H enjoys her morning lie in. I sit down at the kitchen table, fire up the laptop and begin working through the questionnaire – again – with a steaming brew to aid me through it.
Rafe is sitting up now so I have him perched him on the carpet surrounded by pillows (for the inevitable tumble) and his toys. He begins sucking on the foot of his plastic giraffe (as you do) and everything appears to be just hunky-dory.
I am just about half way through the interminable questionnaire when a rather muffled air raid siren breaks my concentration. Rafe has managed to topple sideways onto my pillowed barriers with a rather forlorn looking giraffe sticking out of his mouth while still gripping a panicked elephant with both hands. Not his – nor nature’s – finest moment!
I rescue him, the giraffe and the elephant and restore a semblance of order but no sooner have I sat down than my ear catches the sound that can only mean two things – baby wipes and a fresh nappy. Rafe knows that I knows and flashes me his gums,”Sorry New Dad, when a baby’s gotta go, a baby’s gotta GO!”
Needless to say as I sit writing to you tonight the questionnaire remains unfinished!
OUT :)
Pic of the Week
Spot the elephant :) - and I am not in the habit of cutting off my son's head!
