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As if to prove my point, tonight, even though there was no moon, the night stone clearing was amazing. I found a couple of monster stones in places that I had been inches from last night, having to get down on my hands and knees to pull one of them from the clamped jaw of the stocean. Here I was, a 51 year old man in a field in the dark, excitedly extracting an unwilling tooth from the mouth of Mother Nature and never feeling more alive. And man, the excitement of being out on the ocean, zig-zagging around so you’re unsure where you started and if you’ll ever get back to the shore…. it’s everything that I wanted to describe yesterday, but the Stone Gods, in Their wisdom, had another lesson for me. But if anyone is worried about me after the next podcast, know that I was ecstatically happy tonight. Which might worry you more.
I left the field realising that what I am trying to do is undo the damage caused 14 billion years ago by the Big Bang. If someone- and I am not saying that it is me, but who else would do this? - could just gather together all the stuff blown apart in that unfortunate accident and place it back together, even in a higgeldy-piggeldy fashion, then all that has gone since might be forgotten. Or at least forgiven.
For now I shall content myself with the unHoly delight of finding priceless (in that it literally has no price) treasure in the dog-shit encrusted field. But once this is achieved I shall aim for the stars.
Today was one of those days that is so long that you can’t quite believe that the first part of it was actually within the same 24 hours. I’d woken very early to be fair and again had tried to take the lion’s share of the child care (though my wife took Phoebe to a party in the afternoon, that was in a forest which sounded more exhausting than anything I did), but I’d done a supermarket shop in horrible Harpenden with both kids (rather sweetly sitting beside each other in the trolley), then having to dash to get Phoebe to Little Gym in time, then keep Ernie entertained for an hour whilst his sister ran over balance beams, then get them both home and fed and Ernie to sleep. And we were only so far at midday.
It’s getting a bit easier to look after the kids and my daughter is extremely good value, though I forget all the funny things that she does each day, which is probably fortunate for you. We are though, at that lovely stage of the year where the threat of displeasing Father Christmas can make her behave almost all of the time. I remember being in the Santa thrall myself back in the early 70s. All a parent had to do was to say they would phone him and let him know what was going on, or just say that he was all seeing and knew when I was being naughty and like some feckless idiot I would pull out all the stops to appear to be worthy of my upcoming gifts. It seemed genuinely possible that it might not happen (and a few years back- I think when we were in Chicago- I did hear a parent boasting that they followed through on this threat with their own child). Phoebe is the same.
Imagine if you were able to pull off this trick with adults. Like they’d believe some big man in the sky was watching over them and gave even the tiniest fuck about their transgressions from some arbitrary moral code, mainly based on saying human nature was wrong. You could make millions.
I feel bad threatening the Santa disapproval, mainly because my daughter is generally a very good child. But it works, so it gets rolled out at least a dozen times a day.
The joke’s on her. Santa Claus doesn’t even have a telephone.
And with this entry I have completed 16 years of blogging with an entry for every fucking day. Tomorrow is the 16th birthday, but my 17th entry for November 25th. And I will not be stopping just because my blog is now able to get married (with my permission). Because I am a fucking idiot. Anyone who doubts that I can clear a huge field of its stones does not know me very well.
