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It’s unusual for comedians and writers to actually take bank holidays, but neither my wife or I have done a lick of work for this long four day weekend and just hung out with our family and it’s felt like a wonderful, sunny holiday (with only the odd bit of sick and shit to deal with).
Today we went to Knebworth Park to look at the dinosaurs and play on the Adventure Fort. Ernie was asleep in the pram when we got to the dinosaur bit, but woke up part way through and roared as he saw a dinosaur looming over him. He didn’t seem scared. But if I’d fallen asleep in the car and then woken to find a dinosaur looming over me then I would have shat myself. But Ernie didn’t. He saved that for later.
The Park was crowded and it took a while to get in, but I think that was only the double whammy of it being Easter Monday and there being some jazz concert in the grounds. It actually meant that everywhere else was fairly empty, at least for the first hour and we had a fun mini picnic and some ice lollies. We then took a vintage bus down the hill to the adventure playground. I was pretty exhausted by now and Ernie took some shepherding, so I was delighted when he did a massive sticky poo that soaked through his clothes. Nothing remotely scary had happened, but it may have been delayed reaction to the dinosaurs. So my main memory of the day will be lying underneath a tree in the sunshine trying to clean up my son and find his spare clothes deep in the rucksack and then find a bag to keep them in. I wouldn’t mind but my son is 28 years old.
I had more energy than I’ve had for a while though (and I’d also had a 30 minute run this morning so was amazed I was keeping it together). It’s an odd conflict between wanting to enjoy every second of this golden time with the kids and being impatient for bedtime to arrive so you can finally relax and watch Game of Thrones.
At the park Phoebe was as always keen to get something from the shop - she didn’t really mind what, just grabbing whatever was in her eyeline insisting that she had always wanted it. I managed to bat down all her requests for squishy dinosaurs and plastic swords, but on the way out she saw a bucket of those little windmill on a stick toys. She really liked them. I said I’d see what her mum said, because I am a parent and that’s how I roll. But I softened on this one, because I have a very clear memory of my parents buying me one of these and how excited I was to play with it. I was 28 years old at the time. Like my son was when he shit himself. Same deal. And that’s fine. It’s OK for 28 year olds to play and it’s OK for them to shit themselves and if they do shit themselves, a parent should help them out. If you find any of this funny you really need to take a good look at yourself.
Catie said we could maybe get one when we were leaving - classic parenting from her too, we probably wouldn’t be back at the shop and Phoebe would forget. But as it happened the charabanc dropped us back outside the shop and even though Phoebe had forgotten I brought up the toy. Because in my heart I knew I wanted the symbolic passing of the pinwheel spinning thing on a stick. It’s not like she’d asked for the moon on a stick.
I am not involved in a bet to get as many Lee and Herring 20 year old catchphrases into this blog, but now I am looking forward to the time when the 28 year old routine is 28 years old. Put it in your diaries.
And so we got her her windmill and she loved it, just as much as I’d loved it. It’s the kind of toy you get a day’s worth of fun out of and then forget about. But then you remember about nearly five decades later. I hope she’ll remember it too. It was fun controlling how it spun and how it whizzed round in the strong breeze. In the end she stuck it in the garden and it spun round near to her rock collection. There is so much of me in this tiny funny brilliant girl.
