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Of course being on holiday when you have kids is way harder than being at home, because there’s no nursery or groups to fob the tiny idiots off on, so you’re with them 24/7 or more hours than that if your son wakes up at 5am.
I am already exhausted and that’s before travelling back to London tomorrow for a podcast record. I am nothing if not an idiot.
I did escape for an hour though when I went to play tennis with my brother-in-law. Ten to fifteen years ago I was playing tennis semi-regularly, but I’ve only tried once in the last decade, when my wife and I had a go, but it turned out she didn’t really understand how to hit the ball.
I was worried I’d be rusty and that my bad shoulder might flare up (something that was made more likely when my son pulled on my arm with his full weight this morning sending shooting pains through my ligaments). But I wasn’t too terrible and my arm only hurt when I tried to smash the ball or had to reach backwards for a shot. So I managed to concentrate on strokes that didn’t cause me agony and it was an enjoyable knock up, though I did feel a bit faint in the middle and had to go and get a jug of water from the bar. It was all fairly gentle, but it destroyed me.
I then had a little knock up with my daughter with plastic racquets, which was a bit more my pace, though she was still better than me. We then headed off to climb some trees - which is something I was too scaredy-cat to do as a child, but that she really loves. My kids run towards danger and often times just create danger out of complete safety. They have not inherited this from me. Or my daughter is trying to kill me and is annoyed that the rolling didn’t do the trick.
We were stuck in in the rain this afternoon, a situation that brings out the absolute worst in my son who wants to be free to explore and throw himself into threshing machines and our plan was to go out for a Father’s Day meal with Ernie asleep and Phoebe in her pyjamas. And with a Doctor Who still Three Fathers adventure, with me, Catie’s dad and my dad all being honoured. By 7pm I was feeling that the greatest father’s day treat I could receive would be to be allowed to go to sleep. But that would seem rude. But it meant I didn’t mind too much when Ernie refused to go down in his pram and so out only really option was for me to bring him back to the apartment. I ended up eating muesli whilst watching the Tory party leaders’ debate, but not only does this make me the best of all fathers (and able to tell my son for the rest of his life how he ruined this celebration), but also I then got an earlyish night too. It was actually all I wanted on this special day to celebrate some spunking up men.
