It was a mixed weekend. I worked Saturday (first time in 15 years – surely they deserve a day by now) then felt like crap on Sunday (cold mostly). [...]]]> [I'm becoming horribly aware how much this blog is becoming just a summary of my weekends. I shall try to rectify this in future. Until then ...]

It was a mixed weekend. I worked Saturday (first time in 15 years – surely they deserve a day by now) then felt like crap on Sunday (cold mostly). However, Monday took us to Chav Valley in Essex where Yoda was treated to a second attempt at riding on Thomas The Tank Engine. This proved much more successful than our previous attempt.

It was a bit of a drive mind you. More than an hour ending in beautiful countryside full of nice houses with Union Jacks on flag poles outside them (I counted 4). For my American reader(s?) this translates not as having the stars and stripes on a pole outside your house but the Southern Cross outside your trailer. Sneering? Moi? Perhaps. Google “The Daily Mail” and you’ll get the idea. In Essex Britain = Engerland.

Anyway, we eventually found our way to the Chav Valley Railway Museum where it appears Blur played their first ever gig in 1989 (according to a plaque on the wall). I vaguely remember then doing a 20th anniversary gig at the same venue last year.

Yoda was the first to spot signs of activity.

“I can see steam!!!!”

And it was.

“TOOT! TOOT!!!!”

“It’s Gorgon!” he exclaimed. Gordon being a 8 wheeled powder blue engine with separate coal tender. It is desperately sad that I know this and that he has 2 domes and a number of red stripes, but there you go. To be fair he talks non-stop about Gordon. If there was to be no Gordon then he’d be eating a disappointment sandwich all the way home.

There was no Gordon.

This fact however didn’t seem to quell his excitement as Thomas chuffed into view looking like all 5 (count them *5*) TtfTEs he has at home.

“Chuff, chuff! TOOT!! TOOT!”

Just then Percy appeared with Toby (pulling Henrietta) – both remarkable likenesses but for Percy being the same shape as Skarloey. But who is counting?

I won’t burden you further with tales of us riding up and down the 300 yards of track in various carriages or the mini railway but I will say he left with a little wooden Gordon from the shop to add to his vast and now quite valuable collection. I suspect he has about £100 worth of trains these days. £100!!

That said, we got home and he got down to playing with his new chum.

“Bust my buffers … Sodor warbler … we did it together, we did it together … I am fast, I am strong … fizzling fireboxes ….” etc.

I think we can see now that it isn’t about trains but characters. He seems to be very much into the stories and relationships between the engines. When I worked in the computer games industry we used to refer to this simply as “deep play”, when someone would get totally engrossed in another world on many, many levels. All good stuff. A simple framework for his imagination to fill the missing bits.

Wooden Gordon looks suspiciously like wooden Henry but for a little shaping here and there and a colour difference. Funny that. The term “money for old rope” comes to mind. Forget Apple shares, put your money in Hit Entertainment Inc. Kerching!! But worth every penny to see that wee face light up.

The only time I’ve really been out was when we took Yoda to Lammas Land playground for a run [...]]]> Things have been very quiet. They were also very hot and humid until yesterday’s rain storms. So I’ve not been doing much except for a lot of lounging around learning tunes for Bluegrass sessions (watch this space).

The only time I’ve really been out was when we took Yoda to Lammas Land playground for a run about. It is by any definition a HUGE playground with approximately eight million children crawling ant like over a large variety of quality playground gear. Yoda spent the first 20 minutes just inspecting it all, stunned into silent with the shear scope of choice.

We find it quite difficult to remain hands-off. Looking around at other parents it seemed we weren’t the only ones. The vast number of bespectacled middle class adults hauling their nippers around on the bicycle equivalent of MPVs spent most of their time poised over their precious offspring ensuring they would not be bullied or tumble fatally onto the treacherous soft bark play surface.

Part of me believes that my childhood was different. Aside from a good thrashing we could climb trees and poke sticks into bonfires. We dangled from plumb branches, knocking wasps off the fruit or dug trenches in the back garden deep enough to bury us all.

That said, I wasn’t allowed to play in the big woods because “bad men” went there. Ditto the toilets in the park. Clearly cottaging was in full swing in 1970s West Edinburgh. I wasn’t allowed on the street on a bike and friends had to visit me rather than vice-versa. Basically a prisoner in a beautiful one acre garden with my siblings. A bit like Napoleon on Elba or St Helena or what ever; but without the dodgy wallpaper.

Once, I was hit in the eye by an arrow from the boy across the road and then banned from playing with him – the only lad on our street my age. It had a big effect. Further isolation.

Gradually however as I got a bit older I could travel about a bit. For hours I’d explored the woods at Gogarburn with a school friend – now a vast ugly business and shopping park. Eventually I fished the River Almond with another friend using tango orange fishing lines. All very Huckleberry Finn.

But stuck on the city edge we were mostly surrounded by main roads. By comparison these days the roads were quiet but at the time they were considered death traps, and rightly so. I remember at least two separate fatalities outside our front door, one of which someone asked us for a bucket of water to wash the blood off the road.

For teenagers though it wasn’t so bad. We were on a bus route. Buses were pretty good back then. I’m not sure what they’re like now, but we could get to most places if you were prepared to wait a while in the rain.

Anyway, I digress. Yoda is too wee at the moment to get anywhere near climbing a tree but he does try. We turned our backs at the playground and then found him dangling 3 feet off the ground from monkey bars. Rescued just in time from a fall. We soon moved him to the round-about mercifully turning at 1rpm. With the teenagers turfed off it, it bulged with toddlers held by multilingual parents literally inches away.

“Rock and roll.” I said.

In some ways I was relieved to hear the screams as the odd kid fell under the spinning disc. At last some normal child behaviour. Of course, our precious little lamb was safe as houses in his buggy by then.

We were married on the hottest day of the year 8 years ago. Today it is chilly and grey. Hey ho.

Off out tonight for some nosh at Jamie Oliver’s bistro. If we can get a table. Either that or Maccy-Ds.

“Well, did we have a lovely time [...]]]>

Avec des cathédrales pour uniques montagnes
Et de noirs clochers comme mâts de cocagne
Où des diables en pierre décrochent les nuages
Avec le fil des jours pour unique voyage
Et des chemins de pluie pour unique bonsoir
Avec le vent de l’est écoutez-le vouloir
Le plat pays qui est le mien
– Jacques Brel

“Well, did we have a lovely time or what?”

“Hermm” he exclaimed looking at his feet as I lifted him down from the back of the bike.

“Was it not fun?”

“We didn’t go anywhere.” came the tactful reply.

In some sense this was true. It depends what you mean by “go” and what you mean by “anywhere”.

I had popped Yoda on the back of my old mountain bike and informed him we were “going on an adventure”. The prospect sounded quite enticing for him and initially Daddy even went fast. But at the end of the village we turned onto a byway which started in deep gravel before very soon changing to thick mud and puddles. Then Daddy went slooow and there was nothing to see but his big bum.

“Oo, flowers.” came from the back as we left the petrol clogged streets of Wheeliebin Fen behind. This could be the life. Weekend bike trips with the boy on the back, way out to The Fens. Pack lunches, fishing rods and mouth organs. Father-son bonding like before t’war.

After half an hour hacking over hedge rose, past muddy fields and bleak “hillsides” we arrived in Rampton – a staggering 4 miles from home.

“Why are we going?”

“To see.”

“Why? See wot?”

“Just to see.” I replied being suitably vague. Perhaps a distant memory of this event in the future would make a mountaineer of him. Perhaps I could break the biological link that currently means he is genetically predisposed to be a couch potato like me.

We arrived in Rampton. What to see? An advert for a coming gymkhana but little else. A rustic pub but no sign of a shop.

After a bit I turned the bike round and headed home via smoother, more major roads. Of course I neglected to acknowledge that a two and a half year old Jedi requires to arrive and see something – a park, a shop – or do something – run about and play.

Back at home as we were dismounting I hung my head in shame. My travelling wish had come true at the expense of his adventure.

“Next time.” I reassured.

He nodded tactfully and headed inside to the trains.