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I will rue this in a couple of weeks, I know, but I’ve pretty much treated the last week as a holiday. I have so much work to do, but then how many Christmases will I get to spend with my daughter as she approaches her second birthday? (answer - one, the questions will get harder).
We went swimming this morning or rather to lark around in the kids pool at our gym. Ian Virgin has done very well out of me this year. I have kept paying him for gym membership and hardly soiled his premises with a single bead of sweat. Maybe he might let my daughter have a swim for free as a result… of course not. Ian Virgin didn’t get to give birth to Jesus through charity. He’s now getting an extra tenner a month for my daughter not to come to the gym.
Though having said that, the kids’ pool is a lot of fun. Not so much for the first five minutes when I sat on a bench waiting for my wife and child to come out of the ladies’ changing room and was eyed suspiciously by the other parents. But after that trial by accusatory glances it was fun all the way. Phoebe, who loves slides, particularly loved the tiny little slide that splashed down into the water. Amazingly none of the other kids were bothered about it, so she got to monopolise the slide and went up and down it for the best part of 40 minutes. By the end she was brave enough to slide down face first. She only fell down the stairs once, which was entirely my fault, but luckily her mum was in the adult pool then and knew nothing about it.
Plus the pool had various fountains and jets and overhead huge shower heads. This was easily the best ten pounds I have ever spent. And I can come back as many times a month as I want. You were winning this competition before Ian Virgin, but I am going to take you for every penny you’ve got now. I really wanted to come down the slide too and it looked sturdy enough to take a fat man (can’t work out why I have put on so much weight - almost like there’s some correlation between not exercising and gaining fat), but I thought the life guard would tell me off. Not that he could have stopped me. I am such a conformist and this time I was conforming to the imagined rules in my own head. I am glad my daughter does not take after me in any way. Both bold and reluctant to follow instructions of any kind.
I had a Proustian rush back to my Christmases of old as my sister had bought me a jar of malt extract for Christmas. Back in the 1970s this was the greatest treat a child could have and I think we got a jar each in our stockings. The more I reminisce about my childhood the more I am convinced I was brought up in Victorian times. But brilliant present skills from my sister. I think I used to just eat the whole jar in pretty much one go, but two spoonfuls was enough today. I had more capacity for malt back in the old days.
