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It’s been an active weekend for me - this morning we went for a family swim and I spent most of my time trying to keep up with my now nearly swimming daughter and fishing her out if she went underneath for too long (more than a second). She also said she was going to do a potato roll. We didn’t know what that was, and I am not sure she did, but she pushed herself off the side, facing upwards and then flipped over underwater. It was an incredible bit of unexpected skill, as neither of us had seen her taught to do this at any of her swimming lessons.
I tried to do it too, but was not lithe enough and gave in as soon as the water was going up my nose. How had she managed this manoeuvre without that happening? She revealed she hadn’t. She’d just let the water go up her nose.
Still she can do something that I can’t and doesn’t care if she gets water up her nose doing it. I have a lot of respect for this little human.
I managed to do a few lengths when not looking after my child, but it’s been a long time since I’ve swum, partly because of the arm injury that I’ve had for about nine months now (which I just realised comes from the dog pulling my arm in weird directions when I am holding the lead). It’s nearly better and I was able to swim without any serious pain.
Niggling pain is something that you just have to get used to after a certain point.
We also did a long dog walk round a field and woods near my in-laws house. I was feeling knackered, but the good kind of knackered, where you’ve been super healthy. We went through a wheat field where everything seemed normal, except for a weird patch in the middle of the field (of maybe an acre in size) where all the plants were pink or orange and slightly stunted. I thought it was a different crop and wondered what it was, but my father-in-law surmised that it was the same stuff as elsewhere (which would make sense as who would plant a little square of something different in the middle of a big field of the same product) but that maybe there had been a miscalculation with insecticide or some other chemical sprayed on the field, which had basically fucked this patch (my words, not his). I think it was aliens.
My wife had been hoping to see bluebells in the woods, but it seemed we’d just missed the season, as they were all drying up and no longer blue. She remarked that it seemed unfair that the nettles persisted for so long, whilst the bluebells window of existence was so tiny. I thought that was the way of the world. Beauty is transitory, but if you are spiteful and cruel like the nettle you survive for longer.
But then, by magic, we saw one more patch of bluebells that had survived that little bit longer. Giving me hope that my own beauty might still survive in this world.
What do you mean I’m a nettle? Fuck you you little dick.
The first guest for the Edinburgh RHLSTP has been announced. Tony Slattery will be joining me on 11th August. Probably worth booking ahead for this one (I suspect all the weekend ones will sell well)
Plus get loads more brilliant benefits including stand up shows and hours of unseen backstage interviews with my guests. It's really good.
