Time for another joke.

Jack was on holiday in Wales, visiting a small fishing village. He bought a pint in a pub on the harbour and sat outside to drink it. Nearby was a local who was mending fishing nets. They started to talk. After a while, Jack introduced himself and asked the local his name.
“You see all those fishing boats there? I mend all the nets in those boats. But do they call be Dai the Net?”
“I suppose not,” Jack answered.
“And look at those lobster pots. I made every one of them. But do they call me Dai the Lobster Potter?”
“Well, no.”
“But shag one sheep…”

In the past couple of weeks I have transformed the house. Granted, I paid the man who put the kitchen floor down, but he let me put a good proportion of the stones into place (after they had been professionally cut and the mortar prepared just so.) But I stripped and varnished floors, replaced woodworm-ridden timbers and was generally skilfull and efficient. I even mended a chair that Little Madam broke - and nobody could tell where I mended it!

But one dab of superglue and my glasses…

We have a cleaner. Apparently that makes us “upper-middle class” on the social scale. (To be truly posh she would be a “maid” and work for us full time.) She “does” for us on Mondays and Fridays - except that now she has other commitments on a Friday and would we mind if her friend fills in for her?

Of course not. What do we care, as long as the kitchen floor is mopped, the carpets vacuumed and the payment disappears from the kitchen table?

So today, for the first time, “friend” arrived to clean as I was being manly in the front room (removing woodworm-ridden floorboards and replacing them with lovely new ones, accompanied by lots of masculine power tool noises.) “Friend” is barely out of her teens and wears her underwear visibly, as the less hormonally-challenged people do these days.

Being self-consciously middle-aged, I was powerless. I tried to resist but simply lacked the ability.

I dismantled and unblocked the vacuum cleaner for her. Even though it wasn’t blocked, but was merely making a funny noise. Which it does anyway, because it’s one of those trendy cyclone cleaners.

I changed the head on the mop. The old one was perfectly servicable, but it was an opportunity to wield my tool in a powerful way.

Then I got carried away and decided to fix my broken glasses. That was when I superglued my spectacles to the kitchen table.

1. Nasal hair.
2. Backache.
3. Grey pubes.
4. Seeing a teenager - and fancying her mother more.
5. Sounding like my dad.
6. Thinking that lumbar support is a more important feature on a car than a turbo.
7. Big pants.
8. Being totally blind without my glasses.
9. Listening to political analysis.
10. Paying attention to my conscience.
11. What happened to my hormones?
12. 72-hour hangovers.
13. Snoring.

I’m still doing lots of work around the house - and today I made the mistake of leaving a couple of tools on the kitchen table when I went out to fetch the children.

When we got home again, Tiny Flirt demanded food and Little Madam was sent to rummage through her bag for letters & homeworks. It was almost two minutes before I realised that Little Nutter was suspiciously quiet.

He had followed the dog out into the garden, picking up the tools on his way past the kitchen table. By the time I had found him he had dismantled two patio chairs and was looking carefully at the table.

Obedience training.

Darling Wifey says that having a puppy around the house is good for convalescence. But it isn’t. It’s extra stress.

Living next to a river should involve throwing sticks and watching the aforementioned faithful pooch swim happily to fetch them. But it doesn’t.

1. Pooch ignores stick and sprints to the river with such balletic grace that either i) God is a poet or ii) the Blind Watchmaker is peeping.
2. Pooch leaps into the river with all the poise and elegance of those many-antler’d bucks seen on overpriced golfing clothes.
3. Pooch disappears without a trace beneath the still waters of the Ouse.

So we start with something simpler. Differentiation for dogs with Special Educational Needs. “How to fetch.”

1. Show ball to pooch. Play with ball.
2. Pooch shows interest in ball and wants to play too.
3. Throw ball a short distance so pooch can see it roll away. Shout “Fetch!”
4. Pooch sits and watches ball bounce away into the distance.

Dog now needs evaluation from an Educational Psychologist, and an Individual Education Plan is drawn up. “How to chase a ball.”

1. Show ball to pooch. Play with ball.
2. Pooch shows interest in ball and wants to play too.
3. Throw ball a short distance so pooch can see it roll away. Shout “Fetch!” and run after it.
4. Pooch runs after ball, gets there first, jumps on it, and then sits, looking at you from a distance.

Little Madam is learning how to ride her bike in that inimitable style she shares with her mother. With absolute, unwavering determination.

If the bike doesn’t co-operate and get learnt soon, I fear for it.

Meanwhile, much to his delight Tiny Flirt has inherited the much smaller “Ladybug” bike with stabilisers. It’s far too big for him, but he doesn’t care. He sits on it, not moving an inch, shouting “Wheeee!”

Little Nutter is not impressed with all this bicycle business. Obviously, trains are far more interesting.

My own cycle, of which I am immensly proud, is a top of the range Peugeot Tour de France, made of superlight alloys. The absolute cutting edge of bicycle technology… in 1989. It may as well be a Victorian boneshaker for all the hilarity it provokes when people see me riding it.

And Darling Wifey needs a new bike. She doesn’t mind what style it is, as long as the saddle is designed by someone who understands the effects of three babies on a lady’s nether regions. I suspect she may need a bike with suspension.

I got into trouble with the psycho this week.

It’s been a good week for me, in terms of my recovery. The kitchen floor was finally laid - removing the cheapest, tattiest lino you have ever seen and replacing it with large sandstone flags. This was a long, slow and tricky job but I enjoyed helping out. I also did a fair amount of gardening and (how’s this for being manly-about-the-house?) I fixed the vacuum cleaner!

I took it apart and found that it was blocked by a pair of Darling Wifey’s knickers. (I didn’t ask. Best not to.)

So I went into the psycho’s office and told her that I was feeling pretty good. Excellent signs of progress in my recovery.

No. Apparently I am just evading the issue…

Great. This week I will evade things by stripping the wallpaper in the front room.

Tonight was “Parents’ Night” at Tiny Flirt’s nursery (that’s kindergarten for Americans and other non English speakers.) Since this involved walking there, drinking wine and eating crudités with a gang of teenage nursery nurses, and then staggering back again, naturally I suggested to Darling Wifey that she should have a nice relaxing evening with her Buffy boxed set and let me suffer the stress. And I have given up drinking!

She’s so lucky to have such a supportive husband.

Tiny Flirt’s nursery nurse is from the South coast of France, and so within thirty seconds of meeting her I could understand why he enjoys his time there so much. I do like his taste…

I am also gratified to see that my youngest son has ‘a way’ with the ladies. He is, apparently, a favourite among the staff at his nursery school. That’s my boy.

He is, they tell me, a natural leader with only one weakness: he will not back down. (He must get that from his mother’s side. I’m far too equitable to be responsible for that.) He organises and supervises all the other toddlers during the day, and has even been known to reprimand management for breaking the rules.

And he has launched a “Toddlers’ Rights” campaign at the nursery. He thinks that teddy bears should be allowed in the dining room at lunchtime. He was caught orchestrating a disobedience protest this week, distributing soft toys among his classmates as they queued for their lunch.

I wish them luck in their opposition to my ginger-headed son’s plans for world domination… but I’m putting tenner on the Flirty one.

A friend has posted her Desert Island Disks on her Blog.

Darling Wifey saw this and said, “Desert Island Dicks.” Suddenly we know what all those deep and meaningful thought processes are about.

However, instead of doing something interesting with this topic of conversation, we started to argue about whether it was a Spoonerism or a Malapropism…

I was sitting with the boys watching The Tweenies when a message arrived on my mobile phone.

“Dear Daddy,

Little Madam“