Paul Davidson
Weeknotes 082: Mmmm. Smells like sellotape
The swifts returned this week. Piglet and The Chef braved glacial weather at the beach. It’s officially summer!
To ameliorate Piglet’s daily demands that I climb in the bath, we’ve made Wednesday night shared bath night. It’s after 5-a-side, so the spritz is good. When I lifted her out this week, she announced, “When it’s Christmas and I see Santa I’m going to ask him for roller-skates.” It’s May. This could get tiresome.
Not as tiresome as “why?” I’m winning the never-ending answer game. I haven’t needed to resort to my cheat phrases of “why do you think?” and “I don’t know but let’s look it up.” Any time she strays into science I can see the boredom well up in her eyes before I even hit my stride. She’s going to hate being a teenager around me.
Waking her for nursery she told me “At the moment, I’m mostly enjoying Zog, the orange dragon.” Know your own mind, Piglet.
With a pleasant turn in the weather, we tried cycling to work/nursery as a family. There’s a shocking paucity of cycling routes that go anywhere in Newcastle. Stretches broken up by hellish roads. Juxtaposed horribly with my solo route from nursery to work which winds along tree-lined bridleways.
I had a work leaving do on Saturday afternoon, so naturally Piglet chose to forgo her nap in favour of a meltdown. We bumped into our neighbours in the park and I sheepishly left a sour Chef and whiny Piglet to chat with them. My cycle beset this time with fences across the cycle path which need a climb off / climb on to navigate. As we had a BBQ planned and my WhatsApp check-ins were staying on grey ticks, I kept the visit short. I anticipated coming back to a general air of annoyance and found instead the neighbours piled round drinking prosecco in the garden while the kids bounced and swang. I chose to kick the BBQ off with what is, frankly, a tune.
Having said that I would recommend 4000 weeks to The Chef, this review has given me pause by centering it on female experience. And made me realise I really need to get involved in the meal planning again.
As per the above review, having a toddler makes living in the now not only possible, but essential. Which is to say, we went to the Baltic and came home via I scream again.
15 May 2022