Warming Up

7640/20579

Phoebe has been off school this week, so I took Ernie in on his own this morning. He showed my a big toy jewel that he was keeping in his pocket. Even though it was purple he was calling it his diamond and he said he was going to tell his classmates that he'd stolen it from the Crown Jewels. (Ed Gamble would point out on Twitter that he was thus combining the stone clearing and crime aspects of his parents' podcasts). I should have taken it off him really, but I liked his chutzpah and wanted to see if they'd believe him. He was going to do a show and tell for the class using pictures of him at Pudding Lane and the Tower of London, so this would add a whole new layer to the proceedings. Coincidentally we had an online parent teacher chat tonight and his teacher let us know that he has wowed the class with the talk of the jewel being a diamond and that his classmates had believed him.

Annoyingly I had brought in Phoebe's bag instead of Ernie's, so I needed to do the morning school run twice, but my day was very full. We booked up an Air B n B so we can visit my folks after Christmas and also a short skiiing holiday in January - I am not looking forward to this, but after my efforts on the last two occasions (this one always worth revisiting https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vfHuRDprFlY) I will be avoiding the actual skiiing and mainly sitting in the hotel hot tub.

I then recorded an episode of Namaste Motherfuckers with Cally Beaton and went to the supermarket. Once home I managed to fit in a 20 minute run before parents' evening and then I did a stone clear in the dark (even though it was only 5.30pm) helped put the kids to bed and then did a thrilling frame of self-playing snooker.

And I had thought today was going to be a day off.

But you can never take a day off if you're a professional stone clearer/self playing snookerist. And dad. I am also a dad. That's almost as important. And one of my kids is an international jewel thief, so I am no slouch.