Tiny Flirt’s nursery school was open today, and after yesterday’s ASDFriendly invasion of a local playbarn, we decided to pack him off for the day and have some peace and quiet at home. No shopping, no visitors, no cleaning.

But after lunch, Little Nutter came down from his bedroom wearing two coats, a hat stolen from his sister and a pair of frog wellies. “Play snow!” he shouted.

So I added a few essential items to his outfit (like socks and trousers) and grabbed Little Madam, the dog and a sledge on the way out of the front door. The whole of the Vale of York is filled with freezing fog today, and the field by the river in the city centre has about two inches of snow.

I sat the two kids on the sledge and Holly & I pulled them to the field where we spent about an hour sledging down the ings.

Little Nutter was fantastic. He didn’t just take turns, he policed the turns, refusing the ‘double turn’ offered by his big sister when she couldn’t be bothered to pull the sledge back up to the top of the ing. He shouted “One! Two! Three! Wheeee!” every time, and when a train passed and I pointed it out to him, he shouted “No train! Norby train! Bye bye train! Hello snow!”

Finally, when he was absolutely covered in snow that was melting through his many layers of clothes, he happily sat back in the sledge and let Holly and me pull him home.

Then when we got inside he stripped and pissed on our brand new wool rug.

“Shhhh everyone. Mummy is asleep. Don’t wake her!”

Daddy settled down to read a book and drink some coffee.

“I want five Weetabix!”
“No, Little N! No shouting! Mummy is fast asleep!”
“Don’t shout at him! You’ll wake mummy!”
“I’m not shouting! You’re shouting!”

“Roar!”
“Oh no! Norby dinosaur! No dinosaur on train!”
“Rooooooaaaaaaaaarrr!”
*Whack*
“Waaaah! Daddy! He hit me!”

chuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuffchuff *crunch*
“Oh no!”
scrapescrapescrape
“Oh no! Not broken! Not broken! Oh no! Daddy daddy daddy!”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I think it is broken!”
“Noooo! Norby boy! Train not broken! Nooooooo!”

Gigglegigglegigglegiggle *yelp*
“No! Don’t do that! That’s the horridest thing in the whole wide world!”
stampstampstampstampstampstampstampstamp
“Daddy! Do you know what my youngest brother did to our poor, sweet little puppy?”
“No. But I bet it involved a dinosaur…“

Peace on earth was disturbed on the island of Sodor this morning, when Thomas the Tank Engine and his friend Percy were terrorised by an enormous inflatable tyrannosaur as they tried to deliver the mail.

Unfortunately, while the Fantastic Four were fighting the dinosaur off (”Norby boy!“) four smaller fair-trade dinosaurs were able to derail the engines and eat their drivers. (Many thanks to the vicar of St Mary Redcliffe for the supply of ethical man-eating beasts.)

Wishing you all a happy, peaceful Christmas. I’m off to counsel my son, who has a severe case of dinosaur envy.

It wasn’t Little Nutter who embarrassed me this time, although I have to admit that the discovery that he’d pinched a metre-tall placard announcing “Parsnips, 59p per kilo” from Tesco was, frankly, startling. I thought I was keeping a close eye on him.

Nor was it Little Madam who waited until we were in a crowded queue at the checkout before announcing, in a loud voice, to a total stranger, “I saw my Daddy in his pants this morning, and there’s a hole in them.” That had the potential to be horrific, but the lady she told rescued the situation by answering, “Well, I’m not wearing any pants.”

Actually, she didn’t. So Little Madam is lucky to be alive after that comment - but it still wasn’t my Worst Moment of the Day.

That was when I arrived at Tiny Flirt’s nursery school and was told that he was taken to see Santa today, and had demolished his house.

Little Nutter spent a total of 4 days away from the family, and he was the last of the children to be collected.

When he saw us he was hungry, and grumpily demanding sandwiches. There was absolutely no chance of a “Hello Mummy, Hello Daddy” or a cuddle.

However, since then he has let us know how happy he is to be home - in his own inimitable style.

Right now he is perched on the arm of my chair like a bird man, humming deleriously. He keeps on climbing onto people’s knees (and he is twice the size of Tiny Flirt!) and hugging them ferociously in a very noisy, back-slapping way. He leaves bruises.

And since getting home last night he has eaten eight piglets (sausages rolled in bacon) and three plates of roast vegetables, half a loaf of bread (toasted), five bowls of cereal and a dozen boiled eggs.

We took Little Madam and Tiny Flirt out to buy a Christmas tree this morning, on our way to collect Little Nutter from Respite.

Everywhere had sold out.

It’s five days before Christmas and, as far as the British economy is concerned, it’s all over.

Once again, Darling Wifey and I are behind the times. Confusingly, we thought we were still ahead of them by a good three or four days.

“So, what do you want to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know. What is there to do?” answered Darling Wifey.

Little Nutter was in respite for a long weekend, and Little Madam and Tiny Flirt were staying with Grandma.

“Anything you want.” I said. “You’ve never been go-karting. Why don’t we do some go-karting?”
“I’ve never been to Cornwall,” said DW. “Why don’t you book us a nice hotel?”

Eight hours later we were checking into a hotel overlooking the ruins of King Arthur’s castle.

The hotel was just the sort of place you end up in when you spend three minutes planning a weekend away. It was a pebble-dashed castle, built in about 1905 by someone who had spent far too long looking wistfully at Lawrence Alma Tadema’s paintings, ending up an awkward fusion of high Gothic, fantastical Romanesque and, of course, Arthurian legend. This delightful mish-mash was then buried under a flimsy layer of cool Britannia, as the hotel had been taken over by a couple of wannabe Young British Artists who have turned half the building into a collection of recording, painting, sculpting and performance studios, and the other half into a gallery.

It was hard not to laugh.

However, all was forgiven next morning when the sun rose - and we saw the unrestricted view of the sea and Tintagel Castle from the bay window in our room.

So, from this base in “King Arthur Land” we explored Cornwall, visiting “Lands End Land” (a theme park located at the end of the civilised world - nothing but a few rocks and lots of water separating us from France and the USA…) and popping into “Pirate Land” (aka Penzance) before exploring “Daphne du Maurier Land” (”Joss Merlin died here” read the plaque that I tripped over as I was carrying my jacket potatoes and beer from the bar of the Jamaica Inn to a table not too close to the large screen TV showing highlight’s of England’s latest pathetic performance in the cricket…)

Being a childless couple it was all incredibly easy. Toilet stops took seconds, and usually coincided with ‘mobile snacks’ of service station tea and sandwiches, eaten on the go as we hunted down the next tourist attraction. The only difficulties we faced were Cornwall’s strange habit of running out of diesel during the week before Christmas (apparently it always happens!) and the appalling lack of working cashpoints and EPOS terminals in shops. Everyone wanted cash, but there weren’t any machines that would let us get any!

The best bits were meeting up with friends in Bristol, Exeter and a tiny town we’ve never heard of, just up the road from St Austell. Coming in fourth was DW’s first visit to the most spectacular theatre in Britain. Darling Wifey was blown away - not just by the theatre, but also by the breathtakingly pretty cove right next to it. I suspect we shall be returning in the summer…

Right now, though, I’m knackered.

I spent this afternoon in hospital, having my knee injury investigated by a consultant. And I got more than I bargained for.

My last couple of appointments were fairly modest occasions: the doctor manipulated my knee into a few uncomfortable (and one or two painful) positions and wrote some notes before telling me not to run and be careful when turning.

Today, though, they had Plans.

First, I was shown to a cubicle where an attractive blonde greeted me with “Hello sir! Nice to see you here. Can you take your trousers off please?” Teacher Nightmare #1…

After having my knee pushed into all sorts of excruciating positions by a consultant who just couldn’t stop himself from taking the piss out of me for having once taught his helpful young nurse (the bastard,) I was then sent for an X-ray. “Be good and give sir his trousers back.” (Total bastard.)

I didn’t limp when I arrived at the hospital, but I did on my way to be nuked. After waiting for ninety minutes whilst the radiography staff enjoyed their gossip, I was then shown into a darkened room where three women hid behind a screen and laughed at the sight of me, in my shorts and still smarting from the pain of consultation, being contorted into strange positions on a table by a totally unsympathetic young woman; “Stop wincing and get your leg over!”

And then, back in the consultation cubicle, I was asked to drop ‘em again…

Voter apathy anyone?

The 1992 General Election (Registered voters 43,249,721: Turnout 77.7%)
Tory - 14,093,007 (41.9% of the vote, 51.6% of the seats)
Labour - 11,560,484 (34.4% of the vote, 41.6% of the seats)

The 1997 General Election (Registered voters 43,765,391: Turnout 71.5%)
Labour - 13,517,911 (43.3% of the vote, 63.3% of the seats)
Tory - 9,600,470 (30.7% of the vote, 25% of the seats)

The 2001 General Election (Registered voters 44,405,826: Turnout 59.4%)
Labour - 10,724,895 (40.7% of the votes, 62.5% of the seats)
Tory - 8,357,622 (31.7% of the votes, 25.2% of the seats)

The 2005 General Election (Registered voters 44,180,243: Turnout 61.3%)
Labour - 9,566,618 (35.2% of the votes, 55.1% of the seats)
Tory - 8,785,941 (32.4% of the votes, 30.7% of the seats)

Some interesting points from an amateurish analysis:
compare Labour’s 1992 result (34.4% of the vote, 41.6% of the seats) with it’s 2005 result (35.2% of the votes, 55.1% of the seats).
Labour got fewer votes when it won the 2005 election than when it lost the 1992 election.
There was only 2.8% difference between Tory & Labour in 2005, resulting in a 33 seat majority for Labour. There was a 7.5% difference between Tory & Labour in 1992, giving the Tories a 10 seat majority.

And people say that the USA has dodgy presidential elections.

(All statistics courtesy of the The Electoral Reform Society website.)

I’m redecorating the sitting room this week. This involved spending two days with a steamy stripper (removing wallpaper) and two days with a large scrubber (sanding the floor.)

When I turned the front room into a study, it was a lot easier. We had a lot less furniture in those days (last June) so I just cleared the junk out to the nearest tip (oops! “Civic Recycling Centre“) and set to it. So now the front room is a haven of calm and tranquility, with low lighting, places to put scented candles, warm colours and a desk for Darling Wifey’s Apple. She spends a couple of hours in there most evenings writing. (Note to DW’s many fans who inspect this Blog for news: full-sized novel almost finished. You know where to look for it. No links from here.)

But the sitting room is a different story altogether. For a start, clearing my corner involves finding temporary homes for assorted computer games, six remote controls, about two dozen books of assorted trashy- or geekiness, several copies of Private Eye and three phone and PDA chargers. Then the kids’ toys need to be removed, large furnishings relocated and the jumble of multimedia equipment dealt with. The last lot I just wrapped up in plastic and dumped on the hearth.

Everything else was deposited in the study. Much to Darling Wifey’s disgust.

I was still out collecting children when she got home from work and had to step over three large plants, two extra chairs and several boxes to get at her desk. Then when the kids arrived and demanded immediate access to a laptop to watch “Finding Nemo” (by the way - there’s a fab fish & chip shop just outside Selby called “Frying Nemo”) and sit on her chenille rug to eat double pepperoni pizza with mustard dips, she decided that enough was enough. The kids were going to bed at 5pm tonight.

The mess will, unfortunately, last for a while longer. Progress is slow and the job is large. But with luck all will be completed in time for the Christmas hop.