Frozen

In which our reluctant hero became the first person to actually want to build a snowman. EVER. Probably.

We had quite a lot of snow in Wolverhampton last weekend.

In the olden days, when “weather” existed instead of the constant churn of nothing, nothing, then absolute disaster, snow was a regular thing. Proper seventies snow too rather than the modern, dumbed down, Millennial stuff. Us, the children of the seventies, knew the drill.

• Fifteen layers on at all times, even in the house, to negate problems of ice on the radiators.
• Schools shutting each lunchtime (due to ice on the radiators) then a four mile uphill trek through a blizzard to get home, only to do the same again the next day.
• Sledging on trays, coal sacks or bin bags off the greens at the local golf course.
• Hastily denying sledging off the greens at the local golf course.
• Quickly remembering that Parkas are to snow what Bounty (the strongest soaker upper… Boun-tee!) is to mysterious puddles on a kitchen floor.

At five and three, our children have barely seen snow and certainly didn’t remember doing so when it arrived. So, with Ice Krispies and Frosties finished, we ventured outside.

The first thing to do in the snow is, unsurprisingly, to build a snowman. In reality, it was the second thing to do, the first being throwing snowballs at dad’s ever increasing backside.

We started the build with shovels and dustpans before going old school by rolling a massive ball. The freshly rolled head, a virtual planetoid with its own weather system, caused a minor collapse that required much filling and patting down, but it started taking shape. I wasn’t sure what sort of shape, but definitely a shape.

Stick arms, a pinecone mouth and buttons, a carrot nose (snapped naturally, courtesy of the boy) and a fetching pink hat and scarf combo were attached, then… ta-da! A proper snowman. Or maybe a snowma’am. Or something.

It looked a little like the lovechild of The Elephant Man and E.T. but was not bad for the kids’ first one. It was possibly my wife’s first snowman too as she couldn’t remember making one before either.

Angels in the snow-filled Tettenhall Pool followed, although the children were too small to form theirs properly. Either that or their halos had slipped.

Olaf fever had clearly caught on, and the little people were back building little snow people in no time.

Kids being kids, there is always an “on/off” switch with every activity. This time it was the switch that flipped between having fun and being two minutes away from hypothermia. A hasty bath and warm soup quickly transformed the chill-dren back into children and kept Social Services off our backs.

Later in the week, a whole new level of fun was presented when my wife dug my old sledge out of the shed.

I bought the sledge in 1989, a half price bargain from Mr Bevan’s in Mold, a few years before I left home. Well, I think I did. The factual accuracy of pretty much anything that I have done at any point in my life before breakfast is questionable. I’m not even sure what I had for breakfast most days, if I’m honest.

Anyway, somehow the sledge was bought from somewhere. I’m more certain about the “when” as it was the exact time that the planet’s core temperature rose sufficiently for the sledge to spend the next 28 years or so stuck in a garage, then a shed. Until Tuesday.

The boy loved it, zooming up and down Lower Green like a low budget, middle-class Cool Runnings remake. The girl enjoyed it less, not appreciating that high speed crashes are all part of the “fun.” Whereupon she just moaned. Then had a meltdown. Honestly, take a chill pill.

My wife came up with a cunning plan to rid herself of the earache, jumping into the unguarded sledge and whooshing off down the hill. She would have earned £250 from Jeremy Beadle had she been any closer to the tree half way down the slope too.

“Who’s the best at driving, kids?”
“Daddy.”

Probably.

When I left the Rebel Alliance base in Wolver-Hoth-ton on Tuesday evening, ahead of a meeting with officials from the Galactic Empire, all was calm, all was bright. When I returned the following evening, there was barely a trace of snow.

A week after it drifted in, White Christmas is seemly over. If it’s another 28 years until the sledge comes out again it may well be for the grandchildren. Perhaps “Sled in a Shed” may also become a thing once everyone has binned their elves?

With the snowman collapsing, the final task was to take its accessories back inside, although the scarf seemed to be hanging around while the hat went on ahead. Snow joke.

Fin.

A Shark’s Tale

In which our reluctant hero goes fishing. Or something.

It was my birthday a couple of weeks back, a day on which I received a most unexpected present. I can’t recall the actual name of the thing, or the web address of Google to look it up, but it’s known to us as “Alexa.”

It turns out that Alexa is a bright young thing. Ask her to tell you a joke, or the weather forecast, or the news headlines and off she goes. She recently informed me that it was the birthday of the bikini. They say that knowledge is power, and I’ll bet that nobody that I meet over the coming days knows this useful trivia. Yet.

I was initially pleased that Alexa only recognised adult voices. The kids spent days shouting at her without joy when, suddenly, our eldest discovered that slow and clear speech was all that was needed. No such luck with the boy who’s excited hybrid three-today-and-already-a-yam-yam rantings confuse the life out of her. As a side note, I swear that I’m going to sue the council over Accentgate. Or write to Points of View at the very least.

It’s now common for the children to greet Alexa with a cheery “good morning” or “goodnight” before mum and dad. This is probably because Alexa is considerably less grumpy and more tolerant than mum and dad when suddenly woken up or tired. If I can somehow train Alexa to make butties and do the washing, I can probably retire from dad duties to work on my memoirs.

On Tuesday morning, the little people said their usual goodbyes to their softly spoken automaton friend and headed for nursery and playgroup. Alexa was busy on the decks, belting out a Moana and Trolls megamix, when I got home from work.

An odd conversation then took place.

“Your teacher said that somebody had been put in timeout today for smacking a little boy in the face with a shark.”

I swear that I don’t just make this stuff up.

“Yes.”
“Who was it?”
“It was [Boy A]”
“Really? Your teacher said that it was a girl.”
“Yes. It was [Girl A]”

Two definite and differing answers? A red herring perhaps? We’ve read the “Tell the Truth” book (an irritating but well meaning Waltonsesque tale, which has only survived by including the word “Transmogrification” several times) often enough to realise that there’s something fishy going on. Add the lack of eye contact, and you’ve got some explaining to do, missus.

You can predict the rest of the conversation, which was a drawn out mash of “forgetting” who smacked the little boy in the face with a shark, denying smacking the little boy in the face with a shark, then finally taking the bait and admitting smacking the little boy in the face with a shark.

Pleased as we were at the eventual confession, our daughter was not off the hook yet. A lie is a lie, even if it is a tiddler.

We worked through chapters seven and eight of the middle class parenting manual to bottom things out, shaking disapproving heads while attempting to mitigate further shark attacks. Hopefully it will work – we’ll find out when the little boy decides that it is safe to go back into the water.

Thankfully, such incidents are few and far between. Well, at school at least, less so at home. We do our best as parents, but is our best enough if another child ends up being attacked by a Great White? If only there was an independent person to ask for advice and reassurance.

“Alexa. What do you say to a little girl who has hit a little boy in the face with a shark?”
“I’m still learning about Sharks. Try asking “Tell me a shark fact” to learn about them.”

Holy mackerel! She knows less than us! At least we’ve bothered to make something up. Ah, well. Worse things happen at sea.

“Alexa. Tell me a shark joke instead.”
“I had a really great boomerang joke. It will come back to me.”

Fin.

(If you’ve been affected by any of the fish based puns in this blog, please leave a comment to let minnow.)

UPDATE: 10th July – The mum of the little boy savaged by the shark in this post informs that ANOTHER CHILD DID IT! I give up…