the adlards

Summer’s arrived and we’ve been in the low thirties this weekend. Thirty-four today or tomorrow apparently. The girls are managing to stay hydrated and unburned. I’m not relishing a day in the office – not a little envious of Ben and Anna on the beach enjoying the four-day weekend the US is having.

The saga of the phone continues. On Saturday morning I had a buy-it-now bid from a New York registered buyer who’d registered on e-Bay that day. It was 2am in New York and she’d used a non-existent address, which was a little suspicious.Yesterday “she” made payment using a fake paypal address and requested shipping to Nigeria. Ooh. Ummm. Let me see … NO!

So we’re in the throes of the eBay complaint and relist procedure. Fun.

A friend I haven’t heard from in a very long time got hold of me yesterday (cunningly not disclosing his email address – perhaps I should downgrade his status to acquaintance). Still, he reminded me of one of the highlights of the time I spent working in an office at Monument.

It was late May and warm, as the blistering summer of 2003 started to get underway. The London ricin plot had been uncovered and the emergency services were practicing full decontamination drills at the local tube station. The building I worked in had bomb-proofed windows that we couldn’t open and downstairs security who would have liked nothing better than to have a phalanx of determined intruders – preferably in full armour – to deal with on a quiet afternoon. All mail coming into the building was x-rayed as a matter of course. If you got through the front doors you had security, an electronically operated barrier and keycard operated lift to negotiate before you could get anywhere remotely useful. There’s some question as to whether there actually was anywhere useful to get to in that building, but we were clearly Very Valuable People in our T-shirts and jeans on the 5th floor.

Anyway, I was sitting at my desk minding my own business when I got a cryptic call from the ground floor spycatchers:
“Hi James. Are you expecting anything from someone called Nick?”
“Ummmm. Nick who?”
“It just says Nick.”
“Don’t think so, no. Why, what is it?”
“Well … it seems to be a test tube. Were you expecting anyone to send you a test tube?”
“[deafening pause] … No, pretty sure I haven’t ordered a test tube from anyone.”
“OK James, we’ll take care of it.”
“OK, thanks. Oh, and please don’t send it up here …”

Ten minutes later an embarassed security guard brought me a padded envelope (somewhat the worse for wear) containing a cigar tube and a note from Nick congratulating me on the birth of Josie. I later heard that the security team had braved the risk of imminent horrible death crouching behind a row of cabinets in the x-ray room while one of them gingerly opened the package.

It was a good cigar …

In an astonishing display of intuition, Josie has of late been donning a cape and flying about saying, “I’m a stupidhero! Do you need help?”

Much chasing of lions from the stairs and dragons from the bathroom. She packs a pretty mean roar.

Stupid is at the forefront of my mind at the moment. I’ve been on waiting lists for a phone I particularly want for about two months. I got it today and signed the paperwork thinking, “This doesn’t feel quite right. Walk away and have a think James.”

Now I’m tied into a 12 month contract and am going abroad in 3. Duh! To eBay goes my shiny new phone to defray anticipated contract buy-out costs.

There’s an art to watching football with your three-year-old daughter. During the England v T&T game, when England finally scored I leapt to my feet and yelled “Come o-o-o-n!” at the top of my voice. As one does. I looked down to see Sophie looking up at me with the widest startled eyes imaginable and Josie in floods of tears. Yes it does worry me a little that they’ve not seen their dad quite so passionate about anything before.

I’ve overcome Josie’s fear that football’s causing the disintegration of her family unit by teaching her to yell G-O-A-L at the top of her voice. It is annoying that she was yelling it every time Ecuador got near our goal, which was rather a lot on Sunday. Still, better to have her participating. It’s quite an act of discipline to delay yelling long enough to tee up a joint response.

Football is still “Your game Daddy.” She still doesn’t quite understand the dynamic. Besides, it intereferes with her telly watching – never thought I’d be a dad who did that.

I resigned yesterday. Time for a change. Time to refocus. Time for some time.

Our intention is to spend some time in Cape Town letting the girls get to know their grandparents, giving Michelle the space to pursue some of her interests which motherhood seems inevitably to put on hold for a while, doing some consulting (I think) and enjoying a year without a winter.

We’ve instructed our solicitors such that the house sale should complete shortly before my last day at work, which will leave us – for the first time ever – entirely debt free and with a little capital stored away.

If you’re one of our many good friends reading this before we’ve had a chance to speak to you don’t be offended – we just decided last Tuesday. Come and stay with us while we’re there!

Of course we’re around for a few months yet and only intend to be away for a short while. If I trusted the Road to lead us directly back here without any diversions or adventures en route I’d say, “We’ll be back soon.”
I don’t. Whatever happens, though, you’ll find the detail here …

overnight in the gallery.

We made new friends on the beach yesterday – jellyfish girl and octopus boy (sic) spent quite some time with Josie digging pools and rescuing very dead (but very beautiful) jellyfish. Josie absolutely idolises the 6-year-old jellyfish girl. We had them round for a barbeque last night. They brought their parents and younger brother, who goes by The Most Excellent Name of James. He calls hippos harrypottermuses, which is what they should be after all. We had a great time. The different dynamic between parents with kids on the beach is interesting and refreshing.

On a more scientific note (and therefore of more inherent interest to my direct forebears) there have, for the last few days, been great schools of whitebait in the shallows. If you wade out to waist depth and stand very still – as opposed to rushing screaming through the shallows with a net on a bit of stick, for example – you will soon be surrounded by a dark cloud of hundreds of thousands of tiny silver fish. Following the fish are hundreds and hundreds of bright purple and blue and orange jellyfish. I remember seeing these in 2000 when I first sailed in this bay. The water is exceptionally clear and I could see them – some quite large – floating below me. They really are very beautiful. Most of those the kids get hold of are dead, but if you wade out you can find them hunting – some just an inch across but dealing with whitebait. The largest I’ve found was about eight inches across when it’s mantle wasn’t flared and was towing ten inches or so of folded sheet-like lethal stings. It was eating a couple of small fish. I wandered back to my towel to watch and see if it would find any small children.

Many parents are warning their kids off, but I’ve picked up a few and reckon they’re safe if you’re not whitebait. I think there would be a lot more screaming kids about if that wasn’t the case.

I think I might take the Laser out this afternoon. I have been barefoot for nearly a week now. My feet might be blistered and bleeding but like the Spartans I feel better for it. Unlike the Spartans, I’m not living on a diet of olive stones and water. Stuffed chillies and Bud. My feet aren’t really sore, but I do feel better for it. There’s a jazz festival here this weekend, so that’s something to look forward to.

This is our fifth straight day of sunshine, blue skies and calm sea with temperatures in the high twenties. Michelle and Jo are out on a kayak together in the bay and Soph alternates between sampling the sand (its flavour apparently improves daily) and standing against a big yellow buoy (which should just never be pronounced booie).

This is idyllic. We’re not quite sure why we’re battling to relax – in particular sleeping badly. We shall try not taking any more calls from work and not trying to get the kids down in the tent (which is difficult when it’s light until 11, although my suggestion of starting camping in mid-winter didn’t go down well). Perhaps an hour or two in the evenings to ourselves will help!