After going out on the town last night for the first time in months, I woke up this morning feeling distinctly second hand. I’m not entirely sure how much I had to drink, but one thing’s for sureI can’t drink anything like as much as I used to be able to. I’m not so sure it’s a function of getting older eitherit’s just that I don’t drink much any more.
Little Miss 6 arrived in our bedroom at about 7am, laid inbetween us, and talked non-stop for the next 2 hours. I drifted in and out of sleep, and woke repeatedly to an endless torrent of conversation pouring out of her. In the end she sensed I was awake (with my eyes closed), and started doing impersonations of my snoring.
When I grinned and half opened an eye, she froze with the most delightful maniac grin.
After dragging outselves out of bed, the morning was spent getting ready to spend the day at the school, helping with a fund-raiser. The parent teachers association had hired a number of bouncy castles for the kids to play on, with a flat fee to go on them all day.
En-route to the school, I stopped at a friend’s house and picked one of our daughters up that had a sleep-over, and also found myself taking one of their daughters with me to the school. When you already live in a house with 4 women, adding one more doesn’t really make much difference (no doubt I’ll recount that comment when the children are in their teens).
For the best part of the day I camped out on the school field and caught up with friends while drinking beer, eating all manner of food I bought on the way, and wandering around watching the children on the bouncy castles.
It’s probably worth mentioning that I bought my first beer at 11:30amand felt really strange doing so. I wandered up to the drinks stall, and asked if they were selling beer yet. Of course I can’t get away with anything now W works at the schooleverybodyknows who I amso the Mums running the drinks stall offered to tell the entire school via the PA system that I was buying beer before lunchtime
Oh, how I laughed (I did actually)
After returning home, something told me that W wanted the kids out of her hair (she had been helping run several stalls at the school), so I headed out onto the green outside our house with them. I’m not entirely sure how it happened, but I ended up with all the local children diving on me, running around me, pulling at me, and variously using me as a climbing frame.
I learned several things;
When a six year old pulls your ear, it hurts.
Eight year old girls can run reallyfast.
A kick in the shins hurts no matter how small the girl that did it.
My ability to throw a foam football almost the length of a football pitch elevates me to godly status among the local children.
If I keep throwing foam footballs colossal distances, my shoulder ends up feeling like I might need surgery on it.
The day finally rolled to a halt with me making boiled dippy eggs for the girls, complete with lots of bread to dip. Since putting the girls to bed, we’ve done nothingwell, apart from hang out on the sofa, read webpages, watch rubbish television, and drink enough cups of tea to displace the titanic. A long day, but a fun one. I’m sunburned, a little sore, but ultimately happy.