A nice finish to Valentine’s


chair
It was Valentine’s Day today, so my wife and I celebrated by using a tin of Ronseal wood varnish to treat the Ikea stepstool that La Serpiente uses to get to the worktops in our kitchen. Could there be a more romantic way to finish the day?

Last night, we went out to the Esplanade to watch U-Theatre, a Taiwanese drumming and dance group, as part of the Huayi Chinese New Year celebrations. The first twenty minutes were great – very loud and high energy, but after an hour of sitting still in a darkened space without a small child pulling at my leg, I began to drift off to sleep. It wasn’t helped that after the big opening with lots of big drums being hit very hard, the middle section meandered into a series of black-clad men with progressively smaller items of percussion walking onto the stage, culminating in a man with what looked like a paperback book held above his head walking around, while what was either badly translated Chinese or utter bullshit was displayed on TV screens to either side of the stage. I couldn’t help but be reminded of this scene from The Big Lebowski, and almost started laughing.

So yeah, I enjoyed that. Afterwards, we roused ourselves sufficiently to go and buy cut-price Havianas, and then go home to bed. Not for long, of course, because in the night I had to get up to sleep on La Serpiente’s floor, and it was only about 6 that she relented and let me out – by then she’d requisitioned my pillow so she could lie on the floor on her pillow and rest her head on mine. Incensed, I went out for a 10 mile run with a friend of mine, down the reliabily muddy Green Corridor, getting home a little before nine.

My long runs are rather sluggish at the moment, but still: trust in the system. Eventually I’ll get some speed back again.

To recover after this, we went out to Ronin for scrambled eggs, and then carried on for a while, until La Serpiente was properly worn out, at which point we went home and put her to bed. That was at the unexpectedly early time of 12:30, which meant she woke up at 2pm, which in turn meant that she went down to sleep about 8 (and then woke up again and mucked about for half an hour) which did at least give us some of the evening back. Of course, it also meant we had to spend time entertaining her this afternoon. At her request, I loaded her into the baby carrying backpack and took her down to the bakery for a loaf of bread (for the house) and a beignet (for her). She ended up with a brioche while we watched a lion dance at one of the shops a few doors down. I always forget quite how loud, and how long, a lion dance is. This year La Serpiente is still fascinated by them, and also no longer terrified by the drums, so I think that’s a progression. Our local hostess bar (the kind of place where the ladies all wear numbers and you can pay to have one sit by you as you drink overpriced whiskey) is advertising a lion and dragon dance, though I can’t see us taking La Serpiente there.

After the music class (where La Serpiente ran around in circles as usual) we bought a new bin, which was very exciting – almost as exciting as buying varnish and sandpaper in the DIY shop. Truly I have become domesticated.


One response to “A nice finish to Valentine’s”

  1. […] Today I got up about 6am and worked or took taxis to meetings or took taxis away from meetings until now, so that was a 16 hour day. I have nothing else to say about it, other than I want to sleep. And to think last year, I was capable of exercising in my hotel room…buying varnish for my stool on the weekend […]

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