Surrealism at home - 3

A lithe Oriental lady of my close acquaintance and I frequently start the day with a conversation that runs broadly along these lines.

"Have you finished in the shower, my darling?"

"I'll be out in a moment, dearest."

"Can you mind the freshly-fed Guthlac while I perform my ablutions, Precious Jewel of the Orient?"

"I am already running late, Thruthelthrolth son of Ethelbreth. What you ask is impossible."

"But as to the young Guthlac, Most Favoured Daughter of the Yellow Emperor?"

"You'll have to take him into the bathroom with you, lord of the semi-detached mead-hall."

"But that is - and I freely admit my shortcomings in this area O Glowing Lantern of the Huaren - beyond my powers."

"You are in this respect a typical man, he of whose DIY and garden-related incompetence the bards sing extended comic lays, in that you find multi-tasking beyond your pitiful handful of so-called competencies."

"So are you in fact telling me, Paragon of Wifely Control of the Nansha, that you are better at multi-tasking than I, a fact which I am more than ready to grant you?"

"That is undeniable, O ring-loser and sword bender."

"Then why can't you have Guthlac in the bathroom with you?"

"Stop talking now."

Just a quick shout....

... for the Roaming Trail event. I'll be there if I can...

Surrealism at home - 2

The other day, I was out in the garden viewing - with considerable sadness - the latest attempt by the foxes to excavate a major development underneath the decking.

Guthlac had come out with me, and was dancing around on the lawn waving a plastic mattock (part of a set of child's gardening tools which a well-meaning friend had given him in the vain and naive hope that he would employ them for honest horticultural labour rather than whacking his sister on the kneecaps) and chanting "Working together, we get the job done! Working together, we get the job done!"

In an attempt to enter his cultural world, I asked him "Are you being Bob the Builder?"

"No, I'm a axer."

"You're an axeman?"

"Yes. I'm a axeman."

I believe one should work with one's children's enthusiasms. So I'm buying him a real axe and a fox identification guide.

The blog-life balance, and how to achieve it. Sort of. Sometimes.

Alert readers will doubtless have been wondering what I've been doing these past months. The short answer is "having a life", away from the keyboard.

"What is this 'life' of which you speak?" some of them doubtless wish to ask.

Well, today I had the following interaction with my offspring, Djangolina (12) and Guthlac (3).

"We have to eat up the leftovers that are in the fridge. There's one portion of burgers and pasta bake, one portion of rice and stir-fry, or the soup and a sandwich option. Guthlac?"

"Burger an' pasta bake, please."

"Certainly. Djangolina?"

"Hmng?"

"What would you like?"

"Same as him."

"By all the tuneless shriekings of Rkslthrlp, blind idiot god of swamp, fen and parts of Milton Keynes - what part of 'one portion' dost thou not understand, wench?" I explained, hurling my horned helmet to the rush-strewn flagstones of our semi-detached mead hall.

"Oh. Sorry. Chicken-and-leek soup and a sandwich then."

I relaxed my grip on the plaits of the visigothic handmaiden I had seized in my annoyance and lowered her back onto the mead-bench. "And would you prefer your sandwich cut into triangles or squares?"

"Triangles, please."

"Triangles it shall be. Pass the two-handed axe, there's a dear..."