This morning, as is becoming routine, I went bouldering. I’m improving, although because the learning curve is so steep in the US, it’s sometimes hard to see progress. There are a few climbs I couldn’t do before, that are now surprising if I can’t do them, and others I couldn’t start last week, where I’m close to completion, except for when I get worried about being too high and insecure. Which sounds a bit like a student in their first year of university.
I got back, the sun was shining, the kids went to the park for a bit, and I persuaded Destroyer to come with me down to the farmers market for a hot dog lunch. Fortunately she rode on the back of my bike rather than her own, because when we got there the hot dog vendor was having the weekend off, and if I’d dragged her out for a five mile ride with no hot dog at the end of it, I’d have been in trouble. Instead, I took her to the doughnut shop, then home.
We had a birthday party to go to, in a park fifteen blocks north of us. We walked up there and the kids gambolled happily for three hours. As the child whose birthday it is loves dinosaurs, while the kids were distracted we covered the play area in tiny plastic eggs, that they then hunted for, like an off season Easter. Plenty of whooping and excitement followed. I had one ill-advised beer, almost passed out from afternoon sun, alcohol and exhaustion. So good that we can walk around here and not have to drive.
All the walking wore them out, so bedtime was swift tonight, even if by 1130 there was a steady procession of daughters coming down to demand comforting hugs in the middle of the night. And onwards to the next big adventure.