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I went into calm Ernie at 5am and then to save waking up my wife any more (I already do enough of that with my snoring) I shared my daughter’s bed for the last hour of almost-sleep. My daughter can sleep through anything,
She snuggled into me as I lay there and I was wrapped around her feeling like the shell of a tortoise. It was a good feeling to be embracing my sometimes emotionally reticent child. And I was filled with love for this squidgy little child and happiness at holding her so close. But I couldn’t help wonder if the tortoise shell metaphor was apt. She’d moved in so perfectly and instinctively that I wondered if what felt like love was merely a subconscious attempt at self-protection. If a wild animal attacked then I, the shell, would be ripped away and my daughter, the tortoise would be fine. I suppose we got some reciprocal warmth from the situation, but I wondered why my body made me feel so happy to be being used as this tiger sheath. Obviously in biological terms my body wants me to protect this vessel of my genes more than it wants me to protect myself. She is young and will carry those genes for longer and I am over 50 and basically just a waste of valuable resources that could keep my offspring going.
And it’s true - I didn’t resent my daughter for using me as armour and I was ready to give my life so that hers would be spared. But it’s easy to claim that - even though my night time stories are full of them - there are no tigers in Bournemouth.
It’s been a run of late nights and early mornings over Christmas and I thought that I might be good for nothing today, but I didn’t really flag until late afternoon and we had a fun day heading down to the beach and then to an Italian restaurant. There was a playground outside with slides and ropes to climb and a pirate ship and all the kids played happily. Some young offenders were employed moving some sand around, smirking as they went and outwardly at least enjoying the camaraderie that had been the result of their presumably rather minor infractions agains society.
The kids scooted along the promenade, stretching the invisible elastic that connected them to their parent to their limits, but never out of sight. We stopped and I helped them make a sand castle with our hands and they rewarded me by kicking the sand all over me and laughing. We walked along the beach a little. Luckily they didn’t spot the discarded fish and head tails that had been discarded on the beach by some fisherman or sick fish serial killer (it was hard to discern which).
After lunch we went to the extremely impressive
Moors Valley country park where there was a huge narrow gauge railway, which the kids loved and where I shot the intro to next week’s RHLSTP.
It was a full-on family day and utterly exhausting after so many late nights and early mornings, but worth it. I’d intended to have an early night but we stayed up drinking and chatting again. I have not been socialising enough in the last year or so, unsurprisingly given my workload and stupid decision to have children and become nothing but a pudgy flesh-shield for these Midwitch cuckoos who have made me love them through guile and sweetness. We must do it more. Provided the sleep deprivation from this week of fun doesn’t kill us all first. Chances of survival 23%.
Still a chance of
winning all this stuff (and more) by becoming a
badger or
Dripster before midnight on 31st December. You'll also be entered in all subsequent draws (one entry per pound a month), get lots of other benefits including secret emails with advance warning of RHLSTP guests and help us making more podcasts.
