Adventures with ants, balls, etc


I took the girls out for pancakes this morning, and then handed them off to my wife and went climbing for an hour. I was mainly working on the same 20 mantle problem, and I’m still not finishing it, but it feels like I’m getting slightly closer. I also keep smacking my right elbow on the same thing, again and again, so this could be a war of attrition.

I got home, bringing cheese with me, and then in the afternoon to stop the kids going mad, I took them down to the playground to play catch. When we’re not playing Blood Bowl, I really enjoy playing catch with the girls. But there’s a funeral going on downstairs (for funerals in Singapore, there’s usually a tent full of people for two days, playing mahjong while bored kids run around) so the girls were joined by three boys who wanted to play soccer. 

La Serpiente couldn’t cope with this, because playing with a ball means she holds it most of the time, and nobody else kicks it. After a while the ball got kicked into the bushes in the trellis above some benches at the edge of the playground, and the kids all came over to ask me to get the ball down. 

This entailed me getting a stick and poking at the ball, until it fell down. Along with a nest of enormous red ants, who kept biting me. On the ankles, on the arms, on the neck. At least the children crowded round and helpfully pointed out where the ants were so I could slap and swear at them. At the ants, that is. 

After what felt like several hours of this, we went swimming. The girls jumped around a lot, I swam one length, and our friends came down to show off their new puppy. That meant extricating La Serpiente half an hour later with her weeping a lot, and then a very quick bedtime with our exhausted children. 

And thence… Blood Bowl and bedtime… 


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