Hello all! A bite-sized update with no photos today - but wanted to share this with the gang!
I mentioned in a previous post that sometimes I catch myself in a situation and really feel like a dad. Well, last night I had one of those moments.
Ceri booked up for us to go to Bexhill-on-Sea for the weekend (of which more - and pictures - in a future blog). The weather, as those of you in the south of England will know, was amazing - the hottest October weekend ever! You won't be surprised to hear that we were not the only ones who left London to go to the coast!
The dad moment?
Last night I find myself driving home in a car that is crammed to the rafters with stuff. Literally, sagging, bulging and groaning at the seams, A boot that only shuts by sitting on it. Plastic bags full of baby clothes and Alice's dirty milk bottles in every corner I could possibly find. The bottle of water that I want to drink somewhere in the car - but goodness only knows where.
There is sand everywhere from our visit to the beach the day before. One of those little plastic windmills that you put on top of a sandcastle is lying on the floor behind my seat. Ceri, is no longer sitting next to me (she never does in the car these days); but is sitting on the back seat instead because a) the buggy only fits in the car if it sits on the front seat and b) Alice hates her car seat so needs mummy to distract her on the journey.
Alice is screaming her little head off having not had enough sleep, having got too hot by the sea and (as we found out later) having done a whole weekend's worth of poo in one volcanic eyjafjallajokull-style explosion that has not just filled her nappy, but has come out of the edges, top and sides and has worked its way up her back and almost up to her neck on her front as well as down the legs of her baby-grow. It smells. Bad.
We are sitting in traffic that has not moved for 30 minutes and shows no signs of moving. Another dad has driven his car straight over the grass on the island of the roundabout in an attempt to escape. We are sitting in this queue because I tried to take a short-cut on a road that was clearly signed as closed but that I decided in my dad-wisdom, must really be open. Nope. It was closed, just as the clue in the initial (and subsequent) Road Closed signs suggested, and I now have to join the busiest road in the south east as everyone heads back from the coast. Nice one Matt!
I have Classic FM gently caressing my ears at a sensible volume on the radio. I've told Ceri that it is the only radio station that I can find but am secretly listening because I am enjoying it and it helps to block out the sound of screaming blasting from the back seat.
I remember when I was in my early twenties driving past cars just like the one I am sitting in now and thinking - you poor sod! Well, now I am the dad in the car with the wife and crying baby on the back seat - and the twenty-somethings are staring at me instead.
The big question is, would I want to swap cars and be the 20 year old again? Not for the world. I'm the cliche dad driving his family back from a day by the seaside and I LOVE it!
