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Scootering and other transports of delight
La Serpiente’s school finished its regular term last Friday, but to stop my wife going mad over the break until January, we booked La Serpiente into the holiday programme, which consists of her doing art and making stuff (and is thus indistinguishable to me from her regular school days, but I’m just a philistine, I […]
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The Perfect Distance
The Perfect Distance is a book describing the careers of Sebastian Coe (Conversative Lord, adviser to Nike and the IOC, and therefore more-than-slightly dubious, under some interpretations) and Steve Ovett, a shaggier-looking chap who was naturally talented and not whittled into a formidable middle distance runner by a obsessive father. (Not that Peter Coe doesn’t […]
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Dreading Dread Zeppelin and other Saturday morning nonsense
I slept in today, trying to rest my neck as much as possible, and when at last my wife could no longer deal with the high volume yelling of the children, I hauled myself out of bed, took a painkiller and we went out to our closest café for extra breakfast. Or rather, breakfast for […]
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Bad neck
I must have strained something while I was swimming, because even in the car on the way to the Affordable Art Fair my neck was hurting, and by the time I got home last night I could hardly move my head. The pain went on and on; although I’d drunk a couple of bottles of […]
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Swimming Lesson #15
It feels like it was a very long time since my last swimming lesson: three weeks have passed (although I did have that abortive splash around the hotel pool in KL). As I’ve been doing very little cardio work (climbing is more a strength and intelligence game) I wasn’t sure how I’d do in the […]
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The best 90 minutes I ever wasted
This morning La Serpiente went to the doctor, who looked in her ear and referred her to an ENT specialist. I stayed at home with Destroyer, or rather I took her out for a babycinno, laden down with toys and books for her. The waitress recognised the cover of Mr Jelly and exclaimed "what an […]
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Problems with ears and mouths
La Serpiente woke up cheerful and back to her normal temperature today, but as in all things there was fluctuation, and her ear was inflamed, and after another day at home watching TV, her fever came back, and went, and came back again. Perhaps annoyed at being left out of this fun, Destroyer decided this […]
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Feverish and four years old
La Serpiente had the day off school with a fever; she’d been a little peaky yesterday but by 10 this morning she was at 40 degrees and being dosed with both paracetamol and ibuprofen, and by 11 she was asleep, forgoing the pleasures of TV for her bed. Destroyer played on, blithely unconcerned by her […]
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Together Again
Either I was exhausted or the caffeine isn’t working any more; I went out for coffee, came back and fell asleep on the sofa while La Serpiente watched Super Monsters, a Netflix show for children which is basically Muppet Babies crossed with Dracula Meets Frankenstein, but with an extra message about the importance of table […]
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A weekend farce
My wife got home just after 2 this morning, which woke me up as I realised that La Serpiente was sleeping next to me. It’s like an English country house farce, with everyone in the wrong bed. When the kids woke up properly at 7:30, I was a bit of a mess and it was […]
