the adlards

 Play: Josie’s gogglessessess

Yes, my middle brother has made a belated appearance in the blogosphere. It’s not pretty but if you take the time to get to know him he’s well worth it.

You’ll find the inner workings of Pete’s mind being played out at Sofapop now.

Josie, we need to get Mummy a birthday present. What do you think she’d like?

Ummm … Ummm … Um-Um-Um candles! Pink candles. She might love those. She would be very proud of those, Daddy.

Yes, we’re all ill. Raging fever and disparate painful bits. When the meds and hot toddies wear off it’s murder. Michelle and Soph are both on antibiotics.

We had a great Easter break. We had a positive viewing on Friday, though our dear agents’ giving us just 35 minutes warning was a bit mean. We spent the afternoon at a kiddies’ party at Peter and Judy’s together with the next door neighbours from the house we want to buy. They’re a lot of fun and apparently the neighbours on the other side have children of baby-sitting age. Which is all fine and dandy, only …

… on Saturday we lost that house – the owners accepted an offer from someone better placed. We had a wonderful day at Kew, though, and visiting Phoe and Nin. Kew had a little touch-farm set up for Easter including the most amazing vegetarian pigs from New Zealand.

We spent most of Sunday at a barbeque at Patrick and Dallah’s. Sophie slept well and Josie demonstrated the real effect of chocolate icecream on the two-year-old body. She ran me ragged. I think it was a bit of an eye-opener for the company.

On Monday Michelle had a bit of time to herself while I looked after the girls. I don’t know what I did but by late afternoon it was clear that they were both developing nasty fevers. The last two days and nights have been spent nursing the girls while beginning to go down with the same thing ourselves.

Parenting is an amazing thing. In the dead of night as waves of vomit run down your chest in regular succession, pool in your crotch and drip inevitably onto the floor all you think about is the welfare of the child in your arms.
And of course how you’re going to get the carpet clean before tomorrow’s viewings … “and this is bedroom 1. Just step over the vomit if you would; we’re tying to avoid tramping it through the rest of the house.”

At church on Sunday morning the first thing Jo noticed was a row of Easter eggs at the front.
“What are those for, Daddy?”
“I think Chris is going to need some children to help him later and he’ll give those to the children who do.”
Sure enough, a little later the call came and she was off like a dirty shirt to join about twenty other kids on the platform. It was a moment of great pride for me; Josie really stood out from the crowd. Among all the neatly aligned and smiling kiddies she was the one with her back to the audience and both arms wrapped around an Easter egg at least as big as her head.

After several pints of fine cider at the Goat yesterday evening with a colleague I spent the night – somewhat bizarrely – dreaming of interviews.

Do you have a favourite interview? Mine took place in a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere on the East Coast of South Africa. It’s a rugged rocky stretch of coast with small towns scattered irregularly along it. In between the towns there is absolutely nobody. It’s one of my favourite places.

I’d arranged to stay in a remote fishing shack for a couple of weeks and was being head-hunted by a company who wanted to see me during that particular period. I told them where the nearest excuse for civilisation was and they’d arranged to have someone meet me there. By the time the day came I’d been at the shack for a week or so, so must have smelled rather strongly of fish and other things, the shack not having benefit of a hot water system of any kind. In fact one of the best things about that shack was the ablution arrangements. Perhaps a story for another time.

That morning I bathed in cold water in a tin tub on a grassy bank overlooking iron-grey sea with a 25-knot freezing south-westerly wind whipping up the white horses. Washing more-or-less accomplished, I drove five or ten miles in a 4×4 over beaches and through rivers to meet a very nice man in a suit for breakfast. I’m sure I still smelled of fish. A little surreal it was. I took the job.

I dreamed last night that an interview panel came to my offices to interview me for a job they wanted doing. There were some slightly awkward moments such as when we had to leave the meeting room we were in because it was double-booked for my FD. In the course of the shuffle she recognised the Chief Exec who was meeting with me, sparking some rapid fabrication on his part to explain his presence. We moved to another meeting room and finished things off. Later the whole company was lounging in a break-out room which looked remarkably like the venue for Tuesday’s IT projects post-mortem. In a corner Myles was paging idly through the reception visitors’ book and boomed, in his own inimitable way, “James, did you have an interview today?”
“Yes. Yes I did.”

The gallery‘s been updated. First time in three months! Sorry all …

Mummy … snakes can talk.
No they can’t Josie.
They can, I saw them on Little Bear. Little Bear talks to a snake.
Josie, that’s not a real snake, it’s a story my love.
No, it’s not a dvd, it’s on telly …