Penfold

Today my son goes for the third time this week to the Optician to have his eyes re-tested and a pair of glasses fitted and it's made me incredibly depressed I have to say. Mortality creeps into everyone's life at some stage, time damages us all and there's no reason why these shouldn't apply to my son, but I'm finding it hard to accept for him. He's my baby, he's perfect, nothing can touch him and nothing can harm him...he seems to have accepted his fate better than me, when I'm sobbing at his feet, apologising to him for my failures as a father in not shielding him from short sightedness, he's patting my head and rolling his trains over me, telling me everything's gonna be alright...ah well, there's always layser treatment in 10 years time..
Something that's cheering me up however is the younger one's antics at the moment. Whenever I say "No!" to him, he throws himself, headfirst, onto the floor and kicks and screams! It's an incredible response, real spoilt brat stuff and it cracks me up. Poor sod though, he's in a real hole with this now with me, he only has to wander passed me, minding his own business, when I'll say "Fred....no..." and he'll hit the deck!...He'll look at me as he comes in the room, I'll shake my head (indicating "no" ) and down he'll go, prostrating himself, screaming, but somewhere in his head he must be thinking, hang on a minute!..why am I doing this exactly?...The missus tells me off, especially when I've had enough laughing, get up and leave the room, chuckling, leaving her to deal him him, calm him down etc..
Picture of my 4-eyed son to follow...sniff

Smashers 5th b'day weekend

Where to start, that’s the thing…I’ll skip Friday, nothing interesting happened then, and move onto Saturday. We all went for a walk into town, library, Tesco’s. the usual…hang on, should skip this bit too…had me a purge on the kitchen and bathroom, I cleaned it’s arse, top to bottom…Had some company coming see, me mate Doug and his missus from Northampton, and me sister. I cooked some pasta with bacon and mushrooms, all standard stuff until Doug told me that it was the first time he’d ever eaten bacon! And he loved it, had 3 portions of the stuff…Then we all went into town, met another mate Nige from St Albans and his missus, and we all got hammered. End of night, I go to the bar and get 2 bottles of red wine, a tenna each, to take home. Once indoors, most lost the will to live, struggled to watch The Day After Tomorrow, sank one bottle of red between us, before going to bed..rock and roll it wasn’t.
Sunday, I managed to get up to wave them all bye, but went straight back to bed, my head pounding…and that was pretty much it for Sunday…
Monday, Arthur’s 5th birthday, he had loads of pressies to open. We took him and Fred to the swimming baths, then MacDonalds for lunch. Later, he had a couple of his mates round for games and tea. I was still suffering, it’s Tuesday now, and I still am..

Lookers

So, I've had the car for one year now, not a scratch on it, 20 thousand miles done, up from about 9,000 when I bought it. I just been down to Lookers Nissan garage to pick up my car from it's service..
oh, sorry not ready sir, have a loan car till tomorrow...
OK, but I gave you my mobile number if there was any problems like, save me coming all the way down here see, you coulda just, like, called me!...by the way, how much will this service cost me?...
Hmmm...ooo-eeerrr...(sucks teeth)....hmmmmyir looking at £225..
What!!!!
Christ, nothing wrong with it, what-the-fuck!! and guess what, the reason I is getting it serviced it because it's tax is due end of month, fuck me, another £100!...I mean, for godsake..and the missus, just now, Oh yeah, my MOT and tax is due next month too!...bollocks...One good thing, I get t o drive around in a smart new Micra tomorrow...that'll be good...christ, i is upset i tells ya!

The big chill

The coal man came yesterday and deposited 8 sacks worth of coal on our doorstep. I'm thinking, ok, summer's defo over then, as I stare out of the bedroom window as rain lashes over his lorry. Sigh, working from home yesterday, the missus said, oooo I'll make us a nice fire, and she does too, and very excellent it was n'all, all cosy last night, watching The Big Bounce on DVD which was total and utter shite by the way. Take myself off to bed 10:30pm
This morning, 5:00am, cold snap defo here and I'm outya bed shivering like a wanker, Oi! missus wake up, the heating's not come on and I is freezing here!!...
Whoa, oh...erm...yeah...I turned the timer off yesterday because we had a fire on...says she, and goes back to sleep..I turn the light on, OK, let's have this out, right now! LEAVE the timer turn on, DO NOT touch it, turn off the radiators if you want to, turn down the thermostat, but NOT the heating. That said, I shivered off to get dressed, not sure she even heard me as it goes...she was pretty tired, she came home last night, 11:20pm, I was up sorting out a smasher with an ear ache. I go up first, get in bed, thinking, christ I gotta be up in under 6 hours! groan...BANG! CRASH!...whoa! She's only in the baby's room, tidying it up, putting toys away into a huge toy box!! I mean, 11:30pm, leave it for gods sake! Do it in the morning!!....come to bed, I need sleep!!!!!

Another Lemonade Steve?

After a long and exhausting struggle, I decided to take myself off to a get-together in the City last night. After work, I went to the Gym for a swim to kill some time, then got the train into Moorgate and wandered up to the Cross Keyes.
The reason I was agonising about showing up was the usual, leaving the car at work, getting home that night by train, pissed, getting into work the next day on the train, hung over etc...So, I thought, play it safe, stick to the shandy's and lemonades, see how it goes...3.5 hours later, bloated with fizzy pop, I made my excuses to a load of drunks, and got the tube back to work, got in the car and was home by 10:30pm.
This morning, I'm glad I did, in the Gym 6:30am this morning, feeling fine. Niggling feeling somewhere at the back of my mind about, bailing out on a drink sesh, letting mates down by being boring etc, but what the feck, I is not a kid anymore, I need my sleep, I cannae mix hangovers with work like I used to. Still, not a bad night, a great turn out, some very old faces turned up, and guess what? I remember the whole evening, everything people said to me, amazing. From now on, I do my heavy drinking alone, at home..

Arthur, the day of his first Disco

The Needle

Needless to say, he didnae pull..wasting my time I tell ya...So, Saturday, he licked his wounds and came into town with me and his mum and his brother, I said, son, you gotta show yir face mate, walk tall and all that, proud of him I was. That afternoon, he had another chance by hosting, with his wee mate, a joint birthday party in a local play barn. a dozen 5 year olds, screaming in an enclosed space doesn't sound like an ideal way to spend Saturday afternoon, and in all honesty, it wasn't. I tried to get out of it, but the missus, quite rightly, reminded me that it was my son's 5 birthday party, and I really ought to be there..sigh...
I wish I could've been a little more enthused, but try as I didn't much, I just could not look unhappier to be there...and it wasn't lost on all the mummy's either, who said as much to the missus during the party. What is wrong with me?!!...That evening, I sank 2 bottles of Kronie to calm down, my nerves red raw, calmer still at the end of the night with a bottle of red wine and a 10 inch pizza inside me.
Sunday, he couldn't wait till his actual birthday, 25 Oct, to open his presents his little friends had bought him, so we filmed him and took pictures of him, tearing open his gift. how sweet. But I'd had enough, I took baby smash to my sisters to stay out of the way whilst the missus transferred the digital images to the PC, then to photo paper, then to thank-you cards...Jesus..

Friday night's great for fighting

Tonight my eldest smasher goes to his first school disco, and charmingly, he turned to me, rather than the missus for some advice on dance and pulling birds technique. Naturally, I was happy to oblige. I've waiting a long time to share my skills and talents with the younger generation, typically they fail to pick up on my style when I do my thang on the dance floors around Britain and Europe, preferring to give me a wide birth instead, hoping I'll run out of puff before the track plays out, and I'll go and sit down for the rest of the evening...
So, then, tonight I'll be dressing the smasher in, I think, black, all black of course and mebbe put some gel in his hair, spike it up a bit; a spray of Old Spice I have knocking about somewhere to smell nice for da laydeeez and I'll bung on some Apoptygma to pump him up in readiness for the dance floor. Once the image is complete, I'll then run through some steps with him, starting with a hip wiggle, a twist, a dummy half twist, some vague waving hands in the air but warning him off his natural inclination to bang his fists into his head like some mad mullah (Christ knows who taught him that, the missus probably)....
Image and Dance sorted, finally the confidence booster which, in all my years, never failed me, that's right, two cans of Tenants Super. Are we ready to paaaar-tay!!...He's gotta be quick mind, it only lasts an hour so I've coached him, 5 minutes at the bar, looking cool, 5 minutes on the dance floor, possibly 10 depending on the music, NO American crap I've warned him, and 45 minutes working the room, table hoping, mine sweeping and chatting up the birds, working on another failsafe principle of one-in-ten, chat 10 birds up, one, at least one'll end up coming home with you.

bulbs

I was watching Room 101 last night, well, bits of it and Harry Hill was moaning about speed humps and general traffic calming measures…You know in the morning, when your auxiliary bladder fills up and you’re making tents in bed?…this morning, in my dreams, I’m encountering speed bumps in the road and I’m changing down, only to awaken and find I’ve my hand wrapped around me knob, doing the gear shifting movements, Christ I’m thinking, good job I didnae have to do a reverse…

Had an otherwise dull weekend, Sunday had to be the dullest day I’ve experienced in a long time, it’s funny because normally I long for nothing to do, just lay about and read, eat, watch TV you know, but Sunday I bounded outya bed all keen to make a difference to shed number 2. Clear out the crap, the bits of wood etc, and take it down the dump s’as I can fit my bike back in the shed. So, I leaped from my bed, bounded up the garden, tore open the shed door only to loose complete and utter interest the moment I set eyes on the mess…so I took myself to a chair and watched the missus and the smashers plant 100 Daffodil bulbs instead. Exhausted, I then took myself to the sofa, and there I stayed, pretty much all day.

The missus went and got me a car bulb from Halfords, for the rear break light that needed replacing, but, get this, she got me a double filament bulb instead of a single filament bulb, I mean, school boy error or what! So, I sent her back down to get it replaced, I mean, honestly, It would’ve been quicker if I’d done the job myself!

I like sitting in my car

Before every Gym sesh I like to take a moment or two in quite contemplation, and who can blame me? When I get to the Gym, I'm usually 10 minutes early, so I turn off the engine, set the seat back, lock the doors and close my eyes. Now, you might think, why not have 10 minutes extra in bed and leave 10 minutes later, arrive at the Gym on time like?...you would think that, but I'm actually doing the opposite, getting up earlier, leaving the house earlier just s'as I can do my private thing in my car. There's something warm and safe, almost Childlike in being in a parked car, rain pitter-pattering off the roof, dark outside, that's very comforting to me. Isn't that silly?...or am I just a lazy sod who cannae be ersed leaving his warm car for the cold harsh Gym?