The children are having a boot sale. They are raising money for airplane tickets to America. Perhaps it's time for me to loosen the purse strings just a bit.
A 'boot', for the benefit of my American-speaking friends, is a car trunk. Thus, a 'boot sale' would imply that a certain amount of the stuff would actually be in a boot. Given that we do not own a car, however, this is simply not possible. They have moved their small play table and chairs out in front of the house, and Caroline's friend has made a 'Boot Sail' sign which they have hung on the table. Michael is the barker. "Roll up, roll up for the car boot sale," he hollers up and down the street, harassing the passers-by.
Their inventory consists of a number of items expropriated from their cupboards and toy chests and my bedroom. Four pairs of shoes. A hat belonging a moose on a keychain dressed as a Canadian Mountie. A dozen or so bunches of weeds liberated from Green Park earlier in the day, prices varying according to size. Several homemade aliens at 5p each. Last Friday's newspaper. My copy of The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux, later realized to have been a first edition for which I'd paid a premium.
Sales are, predictably, less than brisk, but I applaud their initiative. Yesterday, Caroline and Michael and Caroline's friend made us breakfast in bed. Caroline has learned to make scrambled eggs in the microwave; now she does so at every opportunity. These she made in one of her toy pans, a relic of an earlier life in which we had space for an entire toy kitchen. The pan is heart-shaped, the eggs are not exactly.
They have also folded the laundry, washed and dried and put away the dishes, hoovered (vacuumed) the carpet. Helpful little things, aren't they? Now, if only they would fold the clean clothes rather than the ones straight from the hamper, or rinse the dishes before drying them we'd be on easy street. We might not get out of bed, what with the heart-shaped eggs and all.
I feel vaguely guilty about allowing my children to be so feral. I should be playing with them, interacting, building forts, telling stories, shouldn't I? Instead, we're sitting in the sunshine with a bottle of white wine, having grown-up conversation with a friend while the children cook and clean and sell their belongings so they can live out their dream. Is that how it's supposed to be?
Thinking about it, I suppose that's kind of how life is. We do for our children, a lot. And sometimes they do for us in return. That's not a bad thing, I think. Maybe I'll remind them how to use the washer.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Elephant Hunt
Today, we hunted elephants. In the rain, armed only with notebooks.
Desperate for something to do with the kids, I stumbled upon Elephant Parade, a city-wide art installation in which painted plastic elephants are displayed around the city and will be auctioned on 3rd July to raise funds for Asian elephant habitat preservation. I thought it would be fun to trek around the city and see how many elephants we could find. And it was, apart from the fact that a steady, soaking rain was falling, or more accurately, swirling around us when we arrived in town.
We'd brought one of Caroline's friends with us, a very sensible French girl, and it was a lot of fun watching the three of them hunting elephants and fastidiously writing the name and lot number of each one in their little notebooks. In all, we found 25 elephants - 7 on the South Bank, 5 on Embankment, 7 in Covent Garden and 6 in Trafalgar Square. To be honest, I cheated a bit - I had a map of the elephants' locations on my iPhone (a great little device which I absolutely love and wonder how I ever lived without). This seemed an impressive number until I met a woman who, with her daughter, had found 143 of the painted pachyderms over three weekends. Better get up earlier tomorrow.
It's also a lot of fun listening to the children's conversations. At one point, we were approaching two elephants situated under Cleopatra's Needle, an Egyptian obelisk on the Embankment flanked by two Sphinxes when Caroline gleefully pointed and squealed, "Hey, look, there's the Shrinks!"
It was an exhausting day. We ate both lunch and dinner out, which is always a little trying. Lunch was at Wagamama, a chain Japanese noodle joint that the kids all love. Unfortunately, every time Caroline eats there, she gets sick, so hopefully tonight will be the exception. Why, you ask, would we continue to go to a place where Caroline gets sick? Because it was raining, the kids were starving and cold, and everywhere had a 20 minute wait except the dim sum place, which didn't seem kid friendly. I'm sure a couple of custard buns and maybe some chicken feet would have been fine, but we chose Waggers instead. There's nothing like a nice bowl of ramen on a chilly London afternoon.
I ordered a bowl of edamame - steamed, salted soybean pods. These things are one of my favorite things about Japanese food. The kids enjoyed them, too; or rather, they enjoyed squeezing the little buggers until the beans popped out and flew across the room. I can see the appeal, but this very nearly killed a waitress when she slipped on one of the beans. We had to put a stop to the beanapulting at that point.
Now, I'm spent. Caroline's friend is sleeping over tonight, and they're all in their pyjamas watching some bug movie now. I may just fall asleep before them, dreaming of elephants and soybeans.
Desperate for something to do with the kids, I stumbled upon Elephant Parade, a city-wide art installation in which painted plastic elephants are displayed around the city and will be auctioned on 3rd July to raise funds for Asian elephant habitat preservation. I thought it would be fun to trek around the city and see how many elephants we could find. And it was, apart from the fact that a steady, soaking rain was falling, or more accurately, swirling around us when we arrived in town.
We'd brought one of Caroline's friends with us, a very sensible French girl, and it was a lot of fun watching the three of them hunting elephants and fastidiously writing the name and lot number of each one in their little notebooks. In all, we found 25 elephants - 7 on the South Bank, 5 on Embankment, 7 in Covent Garden and 6 in Trafalgar Square. To be honest, I cheated a bit - I had a map of the elephants' locations on my iPhone (a great little device which I absolutely love and wonder how I ever lived without). This seemed an impressive number until I met a woman who, with her daughter, had found 143 of the painted pachyderms over three weekends. Better get up earlier tomorrow.
It's also a lot of fun listening to the children's conversations. At one point, we were approaching two elephants situated under Cleopatra's Needle, an Egyptian obelisk on the Embankment flanked by two Sphinxes when Caroline gleefully pointed and squealed, "Hey, look, there's the Shrinks!"
It was an exhausting day. We ate both lunch and dinner out, which is always a little trying. Lunch was at Wagamama, a chain Japanese noodle joint that the kids all love. Unfortunately, every time Caroline eats there, she gets sick, so hopefully tonight will be the exception. Why, you ask, would we continue to go to a place where Caroline gets sick? Because it was raining, the kids were starving and cold, and everywhere had a 20 minute wait except the dim sum place, which didn't seem kid friendly. I'm sure a couple of custard buns and maybe some chicken feet would have been fine, but we chose Waggers instead. There's nothing like a nice bowl of ramen on a chilly London afternoon.
I ordered a bowl of edamame - steamed, salted soybean pods. These things are one of my favorite things about Japanese food. The kids enjoyed them, too; or rather, they enjoyed squeezing the little buggers until the beans popped out and flew across the room. I can see the appeal, but this very nearly killed a waitress when she slipped on one of the beans. We had to put a stop to the beanapulting at that point.
Now, I'm spent. Caroline's friend is sleeping over tonight, and they're all in their pyjamas watching some bug movie now. I may just fall asleep before them, dreaming of elephants and soybeans.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Garden Party
Broadly speaking, there are three things in my liquor cabinet: a very large bottle of neglected gin, a collection of rums from various sugar-producing parts of the world, and lots of vodka. It's this last that I attempted to push onto my friends at today's little garden party.
I find that almost any vodka can taste good when mixed with Crystal Light lemonade. Stoli Vanil. Yes. Stoli Strasberi (or some such ridiculously pretentious spelling of 'strawberry'). Yes. Somebody's raspberry or other. Yes. Stoli Citron, sure. Finlandia lime. Yup.
As you might have surmised by now, almost any vodka goes well with Crystal Light. But not the Finlandia mango. For some odd reason, Finlandia mango with lemonade is absolutely disgusting, even after a fair bit of other stuff. It tastes like a dentist's office mixed with feet.
Besides vodka, though, there's Pimm's. Pimm's is absolutely the cat's ass. (That's 'just totally super' for you Americans). I may or may not have provided a recipe for Pimms Lemonade yet. If not, please follow along in your hymnals.
Pimm's Lemonade
1 70cl btl Pimm's #1
3x 1L bottles of Sprite/7Up
1/2 cucumber
15 large strawberries
1 orange
1 apple
1 lemon
1 lime
a whole lot of mint
Cut up the fruit in small pieces. In a large container, pour the Pimms over the fruit. Let soak for as long as possible. To serve, pour 1/3 of a cup of Pimms and fruit over ice, then add 2/3 cup of lemonade (Sprit/7Up in the US). Stick in a big piece of mint and some cucumber and you're golden.
I strongly recommend this fantastic drink. It's Tops!
Hope you all enjoy your own garden parties etc.
Yours
Paul
I find that almost any vodka can taste good when mixed with Crystal Light lemonade. Stoli Vanil. Yes. Stoli Strasberi (or some such ridiculously pretentious spelling of 'strawberry'). Yes. Somebody's raspberry or other. Yes. Stoli Citron, sure. Finlandia lime. Yup.
As you might have surmised by now, almost any vodka goes well with Crystal Light. But not the Finlandia mango. For some odd reason, Finlandia mango with lemonade is absolutely disgusting, even after a fair bit of other stuff. It tastes like a dentist's office mixed with feet.
Besides vodka, though, there's Pimm's. Pimm's is absolutely the cat's ass. (That's 'just totally super' for you Americans). I may or may not have provided a recipe for Pimms Lemonade yet. If not, please follow along in your hymnals.
Pimm's Lemonade
1 70cl btl Pimm's #1
3x 1L bottles of Sprite/7Up
1/2 cucumber
15 large strawberries
1 orange
1 apple
1 lemon
1 lime
a whole lot of mint
Cut up the fruit in small pieces. In a large container, pour the Pimms over the fruit. Let soak for as long as possible. To serve, pour 1/3 of a cup of Pimms and fruit over ice, then add 2/3 cup of lemonade (Sprit/7Up in the US). Stick in a big piece of mint and some cucumber and you're golden.
I strongly recommend this fantastic drink. It's Tops!
Hope you all enjoy your own garden parties etc.
Yours
Paul
Happy Birthday, Michael
Occasionally, like David Byrne, I am forced to ask myself, "How did I get here?"
Today, for example. I find myself at the dining room table holding a Meteor Mud encrusted Build-A-Bear gift card in one hand and a dozen or so wet Martians in the other. It's a little surreal. Come to think of it, I have to wonder whether something can be a little surreal. I think that's like being a little pregnant. Either it's surreal or it isn't. In this case, it was.
You see, today is Michael's sixth birthday. Traditionally, we have one of these around this time every year. We opted to celebrate this auspicious occasion at Wacky Warehouse, which sounds about as Wacky as it actually is. Wacky Warehouse is situated on the second floor of a rather seedy pub called Kiss Me Hardy, the origin of which name I have yet to establish. The pub itself, and the attendant piggyback Wackiness, are located in a rather dismal shopping plaza, alongside a weed- and rubbish-choked watercourse which oozes alongside the main road.
The pub is also located next to a drive-thru Burger King. This may seem an insignificant and superfluous detail to my American friends who are accustomed to such conveniences, but I assure you, it is neither insignificant nor taken for granted. The drive-thru is quite a novelty here. I am aware of only two drive-thru fast food restaurants - one on the A3 between here and Southampton, and the Burger King next to Wacky Warehouse. Our neighbor says that he will occasionally drive his 5 year old daughter through the drive-thru several times of an evening because she's so enamoured of the whole thing. I'm not sure what will happen to her when she grows up. I hope she'll be OK.
Today was an absolutely gorgeous day, weather wise. The sun hung in a cloudless turquoise sky, and a cool breeze and low humidity kept the temperature comfortably in the mid 20's (low 70's for the Fahrenheit users). Just a perfect day to be outside. Or it would have been, except Wacky Warehouse, as its name implies, does not shine its Wacky light on the great outdoors. And of course, like most places here, it's not air conditioned, which meant it was hot as hell inside. Add to this the surly staff and the fact that our party room, with its solid cinderblock walls and not a soft surface in sight, was reminiscent of a Cold War era fallout shelter, and you can imagine just how sweaty and sticky the two hours were.
I have concluded that I have but one job at my children's birthdays - I am a punching bag for the 10 minutes or so between the end of the meal and the arrival of the cake and ice creams. It always starts off so well. The children, after playing on the climbing frame for an hour or so (one of our guests found herself hung upside down by her ankles in the 'protective' netting), make their way into the bomb shelter to enjoy their rations of processed reformed chicken or mealy, granular pizza. They were relatively subdued, munching away, talking quietly. Occasionally belching. But then, there's always one. Always one kid who, having finished their meal and becoming bored with wiping their leftover fries on the floor and dropping them into their neighbour's lunchbox, thinks it'll be a hoot to sneak up behind me, smack my bottom with all their little six-year-old might and then run back to their seat.
I actually don't mind this at all. It's a fun little game. The instigator leads off from her seat, I pretend that I don't know what's happening until she gets a few paces away from me and then I spin round, growling, and she runs squealing with delight back to her seat. This advance, growl, squeal, retreat cycle continues until the 17 other children, emboldened by the fact that I haven't yet eaten the inventor of this game, decide that it's just not as much fun to watch and join in. This on its own wouldn't be so bad, but there's always that one kid who runs full tilt, head down and fist extended, directly into my crotch. That's when things get ugly. Because he doesn't just do this once. Oh, no. He does this again and again, backs up with his fist still stuck out like the big gun on a Panzer and takes another run. I'm going to start wearing a cup to children's parties.
Last year we had a Batman party at home for Michael. It was great fun. I played the role of the Riddler. I wore a mask and the greenest outfit I had (a green T-shirt and a pair of shorts which had once been brown but had faded to a neglected colorless nothingness that might have passed for green in the days of black and white television and booming sales of acid). The kids threw water balloons at me (water balloons which, I might add, I myself had to make. It's a good thing those kids are cute). If you've never had a bunch of five-year-olds throwing water balloons at you, you really haven't lived. The funny thing is that none of them had the arm to actually make those balloons break on me. They all bounced off me and broke on the ground, ironically wetting the kids more than they did me. Everyone agreed, though, that it was the best party ever.
And so it is that I find myself scraping off the table a puttlylike substance that Michael received from our soon-to-be-former friends. This gloop is part of a Martian making kit, which features multiple canisters of this puttystuff, some sort of coloured gel and the need to time things so as to allow the gel to set. This was not how I'd imagined my life turning out. When we talked about moving to London in 1999 BC (Before Children), I envisioned myself living in a somewhat edgy yet fashionable part of the city. Travelling to the Continent every weekend. Wearing black. I hadn't factored in children and the changes and responsibilities they bring. But it's all good. I don't really look good in black anyway, and who needs mussels in Belgium when you've got Wacky Pizza.
Happy sixth birthday, Michael. You and your sister are everything to me. I'm so proud of you, and I'm so fortunate that you're my son. I hope that you feel loved and valued, because you are, more than you can comprehend.
Today, for example. I find myself at the dining room table holding a Meteor Mud encrusted Build-A-Bear gift card in one hand and a dozen or so wet Martians in the other. It's a little surreal. Come to think of it, I have to wonder whether something can be a little surreal. I think that's like being a little pregnant. Either it's surreal or it isn't. In this case, it was.
You see, today is Michael's sixth birthday. Traditionally, we have one of these around this time every year. We opted to celebrate this auspicious occasion at Wacky Warehouse, which sounds about as Wacky as it actually is. Wacky Warehouse is situated on the second floor of a rather seedy pub called Kiss Me Hardy, the origin of which name I have yet to establish. The pub itself, and the attendant piggyback Wackiness, are located in a rather dismal shopping plaza, alongside a weed- and rubbish-choked watercourse which oozes alongside the main road.
The pub is also located next to a drive-thru Burger King. This may seem an insignificant and superfluous detail to my American friends who are accustomed to such conveniences, but I assure you, it is neither insignificant nor taken for granted. The drive-thru is quite a novelty here. I am aware of only two drive-thru fast food restaurants - one on the A3 between here and Southampton, and the Burger King next to Wacky Warehouse. Our neighbor says that he will occasionally drive his 5 year old daughter through the drive-thru several times of an evening because she's so enamoured of the whole thing. I'm not sure what will happen to her when she grows up. I hope she'll be OK.
Today was an absolutely gorgeous day, weather wise. The sun hung in a cloudless turquoise sky, and a cool breeze and low humidity kept the temperature comfortably in the mid 20's (low 70's for the Fahrenheit users). Just a perfect day to be outside. Or it would have been, except Wacky Warehouse, as its name implies, does not shine its Wacky light on the great outdoors. And of course, like most places here, it's not air conditioned, which meant it was hot as hell inside. Add to this the surly staff and the fact that our party room, with its solid cinderblock walls and not a soft surface in sight, was reminiscent of a Cold War era fallout shelter, and you can imagine just how sweaty and sticky the two hours were.
I have concluded that I have but one job at my children's birthdays - I am a punching bag for the 10 minutes or so between the end of the meal and the arrival of the cake and ice creams. It always starts off so well. The children, after playing on the climbing frame for an hour or so (one of our guests found herself hung upside down by her ankles in the 'protective' netting), make their way into the bomb shelter to enjoy their rations of processed reformed chicken or mealy, granular pizza. They were relatively subdued, munching away, talking quietly. Occasionally belching. But then, there's always one. Always one kid who, having finished their meal and becoming bored with wiping their leftover fries on the floor and dropping them into their neighbour's lunchbox, thinks it'll be a hoot to sneak up behind me, smack my bottom with all their little six-year-old might and then run back to their seat.
I actually don't mind this at all. It's a fun little game. The instigator leads off from her seat, I pretend that I don't know what's happening until she gets a few paces away from me and then I spin round, growling, and she runs squealing with delight back to her seat. This advance, growl, squeal, retreat cycle continues until the 17 other children, emboldened by the fact that I haven't yet eaten the inventor of this game, decide that it's just not as much fun to watch and join in. This on its own wouldn't be so bad, but there's always that one kid who runs full tilt, head down and fist extended, directly into my crotch. That's when things get ugly. Because he doesn't just do this once. Oh, no. He does this again and again, backs up with his fist still stuck out like the big gun on a Panzer and takes another run. I'm going to start wearing a cup to children's parties.
Last year we had a Batman party at home for Michael. It was great fun. I played the role of the Riddler. I wore a mask and the greenest outfit I had (a green T-shirt and a pair of shorts which had once been brown but had faded to a neglected colorless nothingness that might have passed for green in the days of black and white television and booming sales of acid). The kids threw water balloons at me (water balloons which, I might add, I myself had to make. It's a good thing those kids are cute). If you've never had a bunch of five-year-olds throwing water balloons at you, you really haven't lived. The funny thing is that none of them had the arm to actually make those balloons break on me. They all bounced off me and broke on the ground, ironically wetting the kids more than they did me. Everyone agreed, though, that it was the best party ever.
And so it is that I find myself scraping off the table a puttlylike substance that Michael received from our soon-to-be-former friends. This gloop is part of a Martian making kit, which features multiple canisters of this puttystuff, some sort of coloured gel and the need to time things so as to allow the gel to set. This was not how I'd imagined my life turning out. When we talked about moving to London in 1999 BC (Before Children), I envisioned myself living in a somewhat edgy yet fashionable part of the city. Travelling to the Continent every weekend. Wearing black. I hadn't factored in children and the changes and responsibilities they bring. But it's all good. I don't really look good in black anyway, and who needs mussels in Belgium when you've got Wacky Pizza.
Happy sixth birthday, Michael. You and your sister are everything to me. I'm so proud of you, and I'm so fortunate that you're my son. I hope that you feel loved and valued, because you are, more than you can comprehend.
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