The Wrong Side of the Road (Part 2)

Despite the sun playing peek-a-boo most of our first full day in France, I managed to get sunburn. Not sunburn in any normal, conventional sense. No. In my finite wisdom, I decided to put factor thirty on my tattoo and my mole and then, being distracted by the Girl shouting at wasps, forgot to put any other sunscreen on. When I get sunburnt I find it's very binary in nature. I either don't have it, or my skin turns the colour of red wine and then sloughs off in great quantities for weeks on end. Plus, it creeps up on me. So I didn't notice how burnt I was until I got home, had a shower and started screaming. When I got out of the shower a gibbering, scarlet wreck I glanced in the mirror to discover I was glowing red save for a neat circle around my tattoo and another around my mole. I looked, in short, like the flag of Japan in reverse. 

The next day it was cloudy and grey, so someone (an idiot) came up with the grand plan of going to the local caves. As you may recall, I deal with tunnels in the same way small children deal with a cold, clammy hand grabbing their ankle as they climb into bed. The same is said for caves. So it was a surprise even to myself that I was the idiot that suggested going to the caves. I suggested it for two reasons;

1. it would be cool in there
2. they are called La Grotte Clamouse - which makes me laugh (it sounds like someone crapped on your dessert)

The Kids loved the Grotte, and to anyone not concentrating on the billions of tonnes of rock just waiting to collapse on their head, it is very beautiful. Unfortunately, for me it was like being suspended by a single cotton thread over a ravine filled with crocodiles armed with chainsaws. Whilst on fire. For two hours.

"Daddy's saying 'ship' a lot."

On and on and on it went, with our guide taking pains to explain how the caves were first discovered, and when this seventy tonne stalactite came crashing down, oh, and how the caves fill up with water in seconds during a rain storm. Lovely. Next time we're on holiday I'm going to suggest train surfing.

"And 'ere we aff a tank wiz ze fish zat aff no eyes..."

I turned to the Boy and said (in a noticeably quavering voice)

"Boy! What do you call a fish with no eyes?"

"No eye deer!"

He replied, and cracked up at his own joke. Tosser.

Eventually we got out, only avoiding being crushed to death by the piffling fact the cave didn't collapse whilst we were in it.

"That... was... AWESOME!"

The Boy yelled, and we took him and Girl to the shop where they eschewed buying anything cave related and instead bought the worlds most disgusting sweets. They consisted of little plastic fire extinguishers that sprayed cola flavoured hydrochloric acid in your mouth. Naturally, the pair of them redecorated the interior of the car with them, smearing the windows and creating a large, mobile wasp magnet.

The next day we went to the local market. Now I have failed to mention up until now that we were with family. Brother-In-Law, Sister-In-Law, Father-In-Law, Step-Mother-In-Law, Step-Brothers-In-Law and their respective girlfriends. The group of us went to the local market, wandered around acquiring all manner of tat and then took a seat at a bar in the town square to enjoy the particularly awful service. After forty minutes of waiting we moved to another bar where we waited forty minutes to be told it would be forty minutes before they would serve us. This made the Girl grumpy. To compound matters, the Wife had volunteered to take one of the Brother-In-Law's girlfriends to the local tattoo parlour to help her book an appointment. The Girl wanted to go. We disagreed, 

Thus was lit the fuse on the worst tantrum she's thrown in recent years. We waited for the Girl to look the other way and I hissed "Run!" at the Wife. This gave me about thirty seconds of peace before the Girl looked back round, saw what had happened and went a funny colour.

Interestingly the French have a different way of dealing with the sudden appearance of a satanic, screaming infant in their midst than the English. In England, everyone pretends not to have noticed. In France they treat it like a form of street theatre, and pull up chairs next to you to watch.  So, with approximately two-hundred people looking at me, I tried to deal with the Girl. Since she was blocking the door of the bar and I was getting "that look" from the staff, I braced myself and  picked her up. My plan was to take her to the other side of the road, where she couldn't get in anyone's way. I imagine it was a similar experience to cuddling a wolverine. She screamed blue murder, kicked and fought and then ran her fingernails across my sunburnt shoulders.

Ouch.

This made me let go, at which point she tried to run out into the road. In a moment of panicked reflex I managed to grab the back of her dress and yank her out of the path of a car before we both ended up in a pile by the side of the road. What felt like a month passed and, just as she was calming down a little old lady with a zimmer frame came over, smiled at me and before I could say; "Non!" started talking to the Girl - who reacted with such volume and bile the old dear literally ran away. And queue another god-knows-how-long of; "No! No! No!" Eventually I managed to distract her by showing her a statue of a lion and in a blink of an eye the whole storm passed like it had never happened. The assembled throng of French market goers looked disappointed, turned back to their drinks and went back to ignoring us.

The next day we went straight to the lake, as this didn't appear to cause the Girl to melt down. I like the lake, it's very peaceful save for the Girl yelling;

"SHUT UP! WE'VE GOT TO BE QUIET!!"

We swam a lot. The Boy insisted, at one point yelling at one of the Step-Brothers-In-Law;

"GET IN THE WATER, YOU JESSIE!"

Before more kindly pointing out;

"It's okay once it's over your nuts."

We inflated the Kids dinghy, tied it to my foot and swam out across the lake, looking for fish and dragonflies. When it was time to come back in I turned around and made for the bank again.

"Did you tie that on properly?"

The Wife asked. I sagely nodded, and explained my expertise with knots.

"Are you still attached Kids?"

"Yes!"

I gave the Wife a "told-you-so" look and swam on laughing about how funny it would be if we turned around and found they were a dot on the horizon.

"Dad."

A small voice said.

"We're not attached any more."

And we turned to discover they were, in fact, a dot on the horizon. Took me a quarter of an hour to catch up with them. By the time I got back I was shattered, and the Girl was geographically disadvantaged;

"Are we in England?"

The rest of the holiday passed relatively uneventfully. The Boy found a level of humour I couldn't have imagined when I explained what happened to the French monarchy;

"Ha ha! Heads cut off! Brilliant!"

And before we knew it, we were having a meal out to celebrate our last night on holiday - where I had the single best pizza of my life. The Girl, clearly enjoying the bonhomie of our last night, pole danced gratuitously for us, around a tree growing up through the middle of the restaurant.

Dear god, no.

Once she finished she sat on the floor in the middle of the restaurant, legs akimbo, skirt hoicked up, and graphically scratched her bits and pieces - thereby putting everyone off their food.

And then, at the end of it all, something weird happened. On the journey home we stopped at some services in the middle of the night so the Kids could go to the loo. The Wife took the Girl to the lady's, whilst I took the Boy to the men's. As the Boy and I walked back out into the warm night I realised I'd had the first real family holiday abroad that we would all remember - and I came over a bit wobbly. I picked the Boy, gave him a cuddle and told him how much I loved him. He smiled, looked at me and said;

"You're the best dad in the world."

And then;

"Heads cut off! I love it!"

P.S. I mentioned the murder thing, didn't I? Funny thing - we were in the South of France, four people got murdered in the Alps and I got bombarded by people asking "Was it near you?" I've come to the conclusion people were rather hoping I'd been shot. Which is just plain mean, you rotters.

The Wrong Side of the Road (Part 1)

For once I have a lot to say, so this will be a two part post.

Yesterday my next door neighbour gave me a very funny look. The sort of look I expect she'd have if she'd found me unexpectedly in her bathroom. I'd been innocently packing our belongings away in the shed after our trip to France last week. The Wife had let the chickens out of their run for a while, and they were merrily getting in my way. Chickens are fundamentally stupid animals, and when you approach them they think you're going to kill them, so they do the only thing they can think of to survive - they offer themselves up for sex. I have to say, when the Wife gets angry enough I try the same tactic. It doesn't work for me.

Anyway, they do this by crouching down and raising the shoulders of their wings slightly. They also stop walking, which meant I was continually staggering around, carrying heavy stuff and trying not to tread on the bloody things. Eventually, this all got a bit much for me. I'd had two hours sleep, driven eight hundred miles and been subjected to motorway service station coffee. So I yelled;

"For Christ's sake I don't want to shag you, you dumb ****ing bird."

And that was when I saw my neighbour.

It was nice to be back. And by nice, I mean shit. Only a week before the whole family had been positively ecstatic at the thought of buggering off to the south of France and doing little other than eating and sleeping. So much so the Kids nearly exploded with excitement as we boarded the ferry at Dover at eight in the evening.

"We're in France!"

"We haven't left yet."

The plan was to drive through the night from Calais to Montpellier, swapping the driving duties as we went. How simple it all sounded. The ferry crossing was smooth enough, I had been slightly nervy we might have to endure one of those vomit-chain-reaction crossings, but it was all plain sailing. Literally. Except without sails. So maybe not. I'm confused, so I'll move on.

The only fly in the ointment was that the Girl insisted on walking around with her hands down the back of her trousers. When I told her off for this she turned and waspishly yelled;

"MY BUM IS ITCHY! I NEED TO SCRATCH IT."

This drew some attention.

Eventually we docked at eleven PM French time. We bundled the Kids in their pyjamas, strapped them in and -

"Are we in France yet?"

"Yes."

"Why are we in France?"

- were off. Now you'll be expecting me to tell you that something happened with Kids on the way, probably involving poo, and the whole journey turned into a nightmare. Wrong. Instead, I had a coffee on the ferry and threw our whole sleeping/driving plan out of the window. I couldn't get to sleep when I needed to and then when it was my turn to drive, all I wanted to do was sleep. At one point I was so mesmerised by the combination of unlit roads and tiredness I couldn't work out how to pull off the motorway. You might wonder why we didn't stop and sleep, but that would have meant driving for seven to ten hours with conscious children in the back. If I tell you I would rather risk hurtling into a ravine with my entire family than suffer that, the parents among you will probably understand why.

The Kids woke up just after dawn, just before we were about to cross the enormous bridge at Millau. It's an amazing spectacle and you haven't seen it I urge you to do so. It's very beautiful. The Boy was very impressed and, as we drove onto it said excitedly;

"We're on the bridge!"

And then, slightly ominously;

"The bridge of dooooooooooom."

And then;

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"

As it turned out, we didn't, which everyone agreed was the best outcome. Still, it took another couple of hours to get to where we were staying and even then we had to fart arse around, waiting to be able to get into the house we were staying in, driving around, being lost, trying not to shout at each other, shouting at each other. The short version is that after thirty six hours without sleep we finally got into the house.

To celebrate this the Girl threw a two hour tantrum because after twelve hours of being drive through France she didn't want to get out of the car. Any other child would have stabbed you as soon as you looked at your car keys, but not my Girl. She's got commitment. And she's contrary. Consequently, barely able to see with exhaustion, I carried the wailing wildcat into the house and essentially sat on her until she calmed down.

After forty hours without sleep I finally drifted off, only to wake up the next morning to find my left eye had stopped working, meaning the Wife had to drive everywhere. The upside of this was that I could drink. So I got plastered. This, I discovered, massively improved my outlook and therefore I decided to remain that way.

We spent most of the next few days swimming in the local lake, sitting in the sun whilst the children played, drinking wine (us, not the Kids), eating out and relaxing. The Kids were particularly taken with lake and especially with the idea that if the needed a wee they could simply walk out to waist height and... bingo. The Boy pretty much turned this into his new hobby. The Girl didn't initially get the idea and would simply walk a foot into the lake, sit down and wee. At one point she was eating an apple when she was caught short. Clearly paranoid that her apple might become contaminated, she held it up above her head whilst she sat in an inch of water and wet herself. I have a photo if this. It will be brought out when "boyfriends" turn up at my door, oh yes.

Fortunately they didn't crap in the lake. I'd had my concerns but the one time the Boy needed a poo (as ever, announcing it with panicky gusto to the world) he allowed the Wife to trot him off to the porta-potty we kept in the car. It's basically a stool with the seat cut out, over which you place a bag and they crap in the bag. Then you tie the bag up and throw it into any passing convertible with the roof down. At least that's what I do.

After some time the Boy returned without the Wife. When I asked him where she was he jerked a thumb in the direction of the car park and said;

"She's double-bagging and gagging."

It transpires that the Boy had been "saving up" and done a poo so big the Queen turned up and smashed a bottle of champagne over it.

Coming up in tomorrow's thrilling instalment;

I get sunburn

I get claustrophobia!

The Girl throws another tantrum!

French drivers!

We set the Kid's adrift!

A quadruple murder!^

A terrible secret is revealed!*

^ Er... well, sort of.

*Not really.

Arse

I just spent two hours wandering around thinking I was being attacked by a jester. Everywhere I went I could hear the cheery jingling of bells, which rapidly became really bloody annoying. I didn't manage to work out where it was coming from until the Boy was dropped off from his swimming lesson and greeted me with

"Why have you got a spoon sticking out of your bum?"

Now in my defence, the spoon wasn't actually sticking out of my bum. And technically it wasn't really a spoon it was a reindeer. Or a wooden spoon painted to look like a reindeer (complete with a bell on its collar - hence the jingling noise), which the Girl had pushed through the belt loops of my jeans whilst I wasn't paying attention. This makes me fear the day that she learns to spell rude words, because at some point I'm going to end up wandering around with "Bell end" written on my forehead. Not that I need this, people come to that conclusion astonishingly quickly when they meet me. Once, at a festival someone threw a pint glass full of piss at me from about thirty feet away. It's rare that people have such good aim and are such a good judge of character.

Bums are an oft-commented-upon part of life's rich pageant of life in our house. Recent the Boy clumped himself on the wall and yelled

"Ow! My butt!"

It was odd enough that he was using an Americanism, but even weirder because he'd hit his head.

Whilst we were on "holiday" in the New Forest I was dutifully taking pictures (with my phone, through binoculars - we've lost our camera). I'd had a bit of a row with the Boy because it was impossible to take a photo of him without his tongue sticking out. Finally on a little bridge over a stream, with a beautiful pastoral scene in the background I got him to stand in the right place and then lined up the shot. At which point he mooned me.

You may have noticed that things I do often come back to haunt me. And so it is with the Boy. Two days ago at bed time I had ordered the Kids to get into their pyjamas after bath time. The pair of them had been running around naked, jumping up and down and generally acting like they were in "Where the Wild Things Are." I went out to the bathroom to tidy up the mayhem they'd wreaked, and that was when I heard the Boy say;

"AARRRRRGH!!!!"

He then ran into the bathroom clutching his bum and told me, very earnestly

"Dad, the Girl stuck her finger in my bum!"

Naturally I reacted to this the way any good parent would, and burst out laughing, causing the Boy to have a minor meltdown. In fairness, I was laughing partly out of relief.

Imagine if she'd had a spoon.

The Great British Camping Trip

This is a story about rain.

Being collectively tighter than a duck's arse, the Wife and I have long been associated with going on camping holidays. The Wife will comment that she loves the taste of camping tea, and that the food always tastes better but in truth we do it because we're skint. Otherwise we'd be in five star hotels, drinking Chateau Le Pin and eating grapes off each other. Or in my case, peanuts. I don't like grapes.

So we go camping A LOT, and consequently have a tent approximately the size of Madison Square Garden. Admittedly I've never been to Madison Square Garden, but I did see it in the film Highlander and it seemed quite big.

In spite of what I'm about to say, I love camping. However the Kids love camping. It's a "going back to nature" thing. As in - not washing and acting like animals. So last week we shoved every blanket we owned into the car, hitched up the roofbox and headed to the New Forest.

Now... I was a bit worried about the weather. For the previous week I'd been looking on every weather website I could find, unable find a forecast that I liked. The best of them said; "Torrential downpours, temperatures just above freezing, outbreaks of hypothermia, occasional shark attacks." But based on the fact that a) we couldn't get our money back and b) neither of us wanted to deal with the Girl's reaction to a cancelled holiday (BOOM!), we went.

We pitched up in the early afternoon with the sun shining, managed to get the tent up without divorce being mentioned, chatted amiably with the friends that were with us. As ever in my life, things started swimmingly, before going a bit wrong.

Going camping is not the most relaxing of holidays. For a start it's the only sort of holiday where you have to build your accommodation on arrival. Also, the Kids are generally so excited that they don't manage to fall asleep until several hours after their bed time. When they do go to sleep it's not long before someone shouts "I NEED A POO!"  forcing you to negotiate a number of zips, hurdles, tent pegs and guy ropes in the pitch black, trudging across to a hole in the ground someone has creatively called a toilet and watching the apple of your eye crap on a hedgehog (true story). In fact, most camping holidays I've been on have been dominated by the logistics of having a crap. Hence I spend a lot of time drunk.

Then there are the camping beds. It takes a particular person to go into the design of camping beds. The sort of person that wanted to go into dentistry or vivisection but thought they were a bit "soft." 

• Example 1; the inflatable mattress that you spend three hours inflating on arrival. Net result; waking up in the early hours to discover it has a puncture and you're lying on the freezing ground with paralysing backache

• Example 2; the child's "Readybed" which consists of an inflatable mattress and zip-on sleeping bag. Net result, you're awoken in the early hours because the Boy has flipped over and capsized for the fourteenth time in the night and is being suffocated by the mattress

• Example 3; self inflating mattresses which, for reasons best known to the freak that designed it, are frictionless. Net result; you wake up on the other side of the tent. Or someone else's tent

This means you spend the holiday constantly exhausted and paranoid about your next bowel movement. Or at least I do.

Day two arrived and brought with it the sort of weather you can only expect when you're on a camping holiday in England and GOD HATES YOU. The rain was falling like Facebook shares (topical!) and bouncing off the ground. And just to compound matters, halfway through the day there were gale force winds. So we went off to the National Motor Museum which was brilliant for me because I love cars.

On entering the dimly lit hanger full of cars the Boy suddenly excitedly yelled

"Look! Shaka laka boom boom!"

"That's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."

Naturally being a car enthusiast I took to explaining to the Boy the history behind the cars such as Bluebird, or Graham Hill's 1967 Lotus formula 1 car. The Boy responded to this with

"Ha ha, that car looks like an orange!"

Or, when I was explaining how the internal combustion engine worked yelling

"Suck! Bang! Blow! Squeeze!"

"It's 'suck, squeeze, bang, blow' and for Chrissake's stop yelling that!"

We also went on the monorail - except the Girl who climbed the two story building to board it, decided it looked like a roller coaster and galactically shat herself. It was a grand day out. Save for the fact that as the day went on the rain got harder and the wind picked up. Later we got back to the camp site to discover the awning for our tent had been rescued from inside our tent by our friends. And then they went to the pub and all their tents fell over. I rushed around, re-constructing everyone's tents before assisting a French couple who's tent had actually turned into a hot air balloon. Much fun was had as their tent canopy dragged us face down around the field. Oh how we laughed and swore. Fortunately, our tent stayed up, and when our friends had decided (wisely, since their tents had holes or bits missing) to go home, we decided to brave the night. I'm pretty convinced the people in the Titanic's lifeboats had a better night's sleep than we did that night. It sounded like an Apollo mission was launching in our tent.

However I'm pleased to say that the next day the weather improved and we got to spend two days wandering around the New Forest, communing with nature and seeing thousands of wild ponies.

I hate ponies.