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5am start today thanks to my stupid son and I was never going to quite bounce back from that. But I managed to find some time for two 45 minute naps during the day, which prevented my untimely death. For now.
In between weird daytime sleeps and the discombobulation I had fun with the family and a friend who came over for lunch. Our new little lawn is now bedded in enough for us to play on and the space is a little bigger than it looked when we moved in, now we've pegged back some of the stuff at the sides and moved a small apple tree from the middle. It's still a small space, but way bigger than what we had in London (which to be fair was practically nothing) and definitely big enough to do some chasing and kicking footballs and playing “What's the time Mr Wolf?†My daughter was temporarily inconsolable when I, as the wolf, caught her on one occasion. But without the possibility of capture, what is the fun of the chase? I let her catch me on the next one and she laughed at me as I cried about it, like she hadn't just done exactly the same thing. She could see it was ridiculous and funny when I sobbed about being eaten by a pretend wolf, but found it deadly serious when she was. This, I guess, is human beings boiled down to their essence.
This is exactly what I've been missing whilst away on tour (and to be fair, I still missed a bit of it due to being asleep) but I can see us whiling away some good hours out here over the summer. And I can sit and read and write my blogs and we can have barbecues or evening drinks. Or morning drinks. We can do what we want. And no one can stop us. An Englishman's garden is his pub. Everyone says so.
At one point, when I was in the garage looking for the streamer my son started choking on something. By the time I got out the crisis was over and I bounced him on my knee for a few minutes. I don't know if he'd swallowed it and regurgitated it or if it had been hidden in his cheek, but I then saw that the thing he'd been choking on was still in his mouth. It was a little dried bud from a tree or flower. It was now quite mushy. Babies will eat anything. I don't understand how the human race survives.
Typically by the night time I wasn't feeling tired at all and I sat up trying to knock out more emergency questions. I realised with some shock that tomorrow is the last gig I have in my diary until September 24th when the new series of RHLSTP starts up again. I can't remember the last time that I would have had such a long hiatus (and it's not impossible that other gigs will come up, but I will not be actively seeking them).
There's going to be plenty of long summer days to enjoy with my kids, whilst trying to stop them killing themselves. It didn't feel possible to really comprehend that the tour and the first draft the book were both around about a day from completion.
Now time to enjoy the fruits of my labour. If my baby doesn't choke on the buds.
