Here and there and back again


My wife came in at 3 this morning and woke me up, so when my alarm went off at 6:30, I blinked and it was already 7. Panic stricken, I rushed around the house getting ready to go to the Parkrun. (Protip: it’s much better to go to the toilet then put on a pair of bib shorts, rather than the other way round.)

I pedalled as fast as I could, and only arrived 5 minutes behind schedule. But fortunately, the East Coast Parkrun pretty much always starts ten minutes behind schedule, so I was there in time to help with timing the runners. I rode back, ten minutes faster than last week’s bedraggled effort, and then tried my best to entertain the kids.

Today we went to a very civilised birthday party for a three year old, at a French restaurant, Au Petit Salute, where there was a three course menu and wine. This struck me as a slightly quixotic choice, given it was scheduled to exactly coincide with nap schedules. We would suffer, I predicted.

We ordered a car via Grab; they sent us a pimped out Subaru Impreza with an enormous rear spoiler ("a racing car!" La Serpiente cooed) and no way to secure the kids in the back because rallying cars (or aspirational rally cars) don’t have seat belts. So somehow I ended up going in the Impreza and my wife followed with both kids in a proper taxi with seatbelts. Similarly, on the way home the car only had one working seatbelt in the back, but this time I only abandoned my wife with one child. But can it be legal to be driving round with a car that doesn’t have working seatbelts in this day and age? Apparently so…

Apart from the danger of getting there and back again, it was a lovely time. We arrived and Destroyer was already trying to sleep on me, but for the next three hours they were well behaved, not smashing crockery or throwing food, or fighting among themselves. We adults even got to have conversations. The food was incredible; burrata and pasta and tart tatin, and the staff attentive without being obsequious. And there was a balloon artist (who seemed to make an awful lot of dicks for a children’s party) and somebody painting faces. What more could one ask for?

This afternoon, we let the kids have an hour’s sleep before waking them. This still didn’t make much difference when it came to bedtime – lots of tomfoolery, so it wasn’t until 9:30 that we had both kids down. We cracked open a new bottle of Australian gin, and then some wine, and then we had friends over to play Bananagrams until it was time for bed. Tomorrow I have a 6am start again, this time for the airport. And on we go…


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