Category: Kids
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Spuds Up!
We harvested the last three of eleven potato bags at the weekend. A decent crop, and very tasty.
Highlights were regular watering and earthing up (using homegrown compost) with my kids, and big kid’s tenth birthday party where his friends got to (among other fun activities) harvest the first three bags and take home a potato bag each.
Fond memories of going potato picking with my mum in the Lincolnshire Wolds in the early 1970s.
Well, the super secure new lock on our super expensive new front door failed catastrophically today.
I couldn’t get my key out of the lock. We couldn’t lock the door.
The local locksmith arrived within fifteen minutes, diagnosed the problem (“you need a new lock, £180”) and proceeded to spend the best part of an hour removing the broken extra secure lock (finally, reminiscent of the birth of my second son, “it’s out, I’ll have to charge a bit extra…”).
£265!!!
Thankfully the lock is under warranty, but not the labour.
My polling station was empty when I went to vote around 1:30 pm.
My nearly ten year old looked at the TWELVE names on the ballot.
“Don’t vote Labour, Dad”.
He looked some more.
“There’s Joe!” he said.
“VOTE FOR JOE!”
Election Fever
My inbox is full of people asking for my opinion and personal experience of this UK general election campaign and who to vote for.
(Un)fortunately, as I sat down to type the words from my fingertips, my four year old decided he needed to express his thoughts instead.
It’s obviously not to scale (he’s only four!), but you can clearly see the Labour supermajority in red, and the Tory wipeout in blue. That they are a ‘uniparty’/two cheeks of the same backside is encapsulated in the red triangle atop the blue square in the centre.
The Green surge in vote share (in green, on the left) isn’t reflected in seats won, of course. In pink, you can see the rise of the independents, black is the Workers Party, and to the far right (in grey) is Reform.
The Lib Dems are an irrelevance (except in the South West) in yellow (this is where we had to stop, as he got very upset at the lack of orange).
“…when you look at it on a personal level, if Nelson was your friend or your neighbour, you would absolutely agree that he should be given the immediate right to settle.”
You. Absolute. Bastards.
If anyone knows of a crowdfunder to support this man’s legal challenge, I would like to contribute to it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-69016539
Two Little Ducks
Along with thirty-odd other parents, I saw my nine year old off on his big adventure this morning, a school trip away to Wales for three nights. Everyone was super excited and nervous, and so were the kids.
The teachers accompanying them were super-organised. We’d had several in-person meetings prior, as well as countless Dojo messages and crumpled lists stuffed into school backpacks telling what to pack and what not to bring.
One teacher checked all the kids into the school hall and gave everyone an identifying number to stick on their top. Another checked in all the sealed and named daily medication bags. A third handed out school prepared packed lunches. A fourth mingled giving out reassurances as required.
The coach arrived on time, and the teacher who handed out the numbered stickers announced that children would go to the bus in groups of five according to the names and numbers he read out - a bit like child bingo. Everyone put their suitcase in the hold and carried their backpack and themselves on to the bus. Finally they were all ready to go!
Mingling teacher then asked if anyone needed to go to the toilet before they set off, and I swear thirty-odd kids all got off the bus and went an did their last minute business before (hopefully) all getting back on board. A quick hand count (“only raise one hand each”), and the coach drove out of the school grounds to waves and sobs from parents.
A few minutes later, little Abdul emerged from the boys toilet… (well, I didn’t hang around to see that, I just hope that didn’t happen).
Stop the Planes
My wife was born in Uganda. She’s Black, like our kids. She came to the UK when she was five.
She’s just told me she feels like she should put herself on a plane to Rwanda.
Then she said she realised she came here legally, she has indefinite leave to remain, and she’s a British citizen.
I asked her what was it that made her feel like she should deport herself.
Unsurprisingly, she said it’s because of all the anti-immigration rhetoric in the news. As she said,
It’s obvious no one wants my Black face here.