A rude awakening


I was just settling down for the evening when there was a thump as La Serpiente fell out of her bed and smacked her head on the floor, and then began to howl. We went in to comfort her and of course the din set Destroyer off, so I had to go in to her room and try and placate her without lactating for her.

I patted her back and rubbed it and talked to her, and for a moment or two she quiesced and I thought I was The World’s Greatest Dad, until she rolled over onto her back and started screaming again. Luckily by then my wife had found the factory reset on La Serpiente and got her back to sleep, before coming in to spell me off.

I hadn’t had a high parental load today. I deposited the kids at the bus stop with their mother, then went to an icy cold conference room in the Pan Pacific hotel. The only thing colder than Ocean 2 (close to the amusingly named Ocean 11, like a cut-price knock off of the George Clooney vehicle) was the hallway just outside. Both utterly Baltic. It was only reasonable, therefore, that the swag for the conference would be an enormous blanket for each person to wrap themselves in. No good though; even with blanket and sweater, I was cold enough to begin to pass out, eyes blurring in the Arctic weather. This is the tropics, apparently.

After work we had dinner at Coriander Leaf, an excellent restaurant ten minutes walk from the hotel, or a fifteen minute coach ride through the one way system. I had two desserts, then tried to burn them off by walking home to my flat. By walking up to my flat. I admitted defeat at the 26th floor and took the lift the rest of the way. In my defense, I was hefting a laptop, a blanket and some very heavy shoes, but it still feels like a defeat.

Still, onwards and upwards. Tomorrow, more swag?


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