My Hero

 On Friday 6th February, Lorraine was (unofficially) notified that she had been accepted onto a Masters course in education, at one of the leading universities in Canada.

This is no mean feat. Every year, about 150 applicants compete for less than 30 places.

I won’t give details of the course or the university here, the notification was unofficial so I don’t think that’s really fair.

Anyway, that’s not what this about. Throughout her application, Lorraine was the only one who ever doubted her abilities. Throughout her Business Studies degree – in which she was awarded a First Class Honours – she was the only one who ever doubted herself.

But has that doubt ever surfaced beyond the late night conversations with her husband? Has it Hell.

I don’t think I know a more single-minded, focused and determined individual than my wife, and this just gives her what she deserves.

I don’t need to say “well done” here do I? Anyway, I’ve already said it to her face and she may not read this for months.

She’s MY HERO, in pretty much everything she does (we’ll ignore the trips to the Swedish, flat-pack furniture store, I don’t want to publicise).

Of course, this means Canadian immigration is imminent for 2009 and the dreams of an entire family, for the last four years, are that much closer to being realised.

Well done my beautiful.

You’re My Hero.

Always.

Return of the Two Foot Monster, aka. Channel Swimmers and Sudocrem

This episode finds our luckless hero sitting in the dining room, ploughing his way through the first forty or so National Certificate IT reports he has to mark this weekend. It’s a beautiful Sunday and his wife has just gone out, to pick up the fifteen year-old from his friends’ place after they’ve been to the beach all morning.

The three-year-old and the twelve year-old girls have just come in from the paddling pool in the back garden. The toddler has been bathed and all is peaceful as he reaches for his coffee…

“Oh No. Noooooo. Ameeeeliiiiaaaaaa!!! Mum! Mum!!!! MUM!!!!!!!” wails Abigail.

At two years of age, Abigail was used to replace the siren on the village fire engine whenever it broke down. As a twelve year-old, we hire her out to the American military to make sample recordings – for use as chemical warfare warning sirens in Iraq.

Mum is out.

“B0!!0cks!” Thinks our hero.

Nevertheless, our hero is on his feet and making his way, with a resigned and depressed air, up the stairs. He doesn’t know what the problem is, but is fairly certain it can’t be nail polish this time.

The sight which greets him does however, take even him by surprise.

The fifteen year-old’s bedroom is white. It isn’t normally. Normally it’s beige and brown, with some nice, stained wooden furniture. But now, the carpeted floor is white – and glistening. The bedside drawers are white. The wardrobe is white. The door handles are white, as are the TV remote control, a large, (previously red) drinking bottle and most of the bed linen.

Our hero moves along the corridor… there are white hand prints along the cream coloured wall. The bathroom door is open and this too is covered in white, greasy muck.

“She’s had the Sudocrem.” Ventures Abigail nervously. Our hero turns a murderous glance on the almost-teenager.

“Good thing you were watching her Abigail. I’d hate to think what she’d have got up to if you weren’t!” Our hero would like to continue, but settles for a monumental sense of humour failure instead.

The bathroom sink is covered in the white cream, the radiator, the walls, the bath, the toilet bowl, the cistern and the seat, they too are all greasy white. As are the posh, fluffy brown towels from Debenhams (Lorraine will NOT be happy, she has a “thing” about her fluffy towels).

In the midst of the bathroom, is The Thing From The White Lagoon (close relative of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, only smaller). It stands about two foot tall and is white from head to foot (with the exception of two nervous eyes, peering out from a sea of white goo, and a quivering, pink bottom lip).

Like a sort of stunted, cross-channel swimmer, who has forgotten to take her clothes off, the two-foot tall, white monster, is covering itself in white grease.

It’s doing a bl@@dy good job of it too… both feet, both legs, bum and knickers, belly, most of it’s back, all of a green t-shirt (now white), both arms, neck, face and hair, all covered in a generous layer of the stuff.

It is surprising how far a 250g tub of Sudocrem will go when spread about 2cm thick (that’s an inch – for my mum & dad), over everything within reach of a two-foot tall, albino demon.

The front door opens.

“Lorraine!!!!! Lorraine!!!! Get up here and save your daughters!!!”

Any successful recipes for getting white grease out of beige carpet will be gratefully received.

Lazy Sundays

Sunday morning, and our beautiful, fair-haired, little, three-year-old angel wakes up at 06:00.
 
“What does the “Oh” stand for? Oh my God it’s early!” Robin Williams – Good Morning Vietnam, 1987.

“I want to watch my programmes daddy.” Okay, our hero staggers, half-blind, into the living room. The electronic baby-sitter is switched on and the satellite-delivered, scientific miracle of Wonder Pets keeps the little angel quiet for five minutes… “I want milk daddy.”

Our hero half-falls (the half that’s still blind), downstairs to warm a beaker of milk.

Milk, Wonder Pets and a bit of help from Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Tigger and the rest of the Disney Channel, put her to sleep on the sofa by 06:30.

A little later daddy secures the living room floor with a pair of baby gates (keep kids behind bars should be a national motto), and locks the bathroom door (keep her away from Lorraine’s make-up bag at all costs – what is there about lipstick that tastes so great anyway?), and treads wearily back upstairs to the welcoming warmth of the duvet.

07:20 – “Daddy!”

07:21 – “Daddy!!!”

07:21:30 – “DADDY!!!!!“

“What darling?”

“I have something to tell you.”

“What’s that Amelia?”

“Come downstairs.”

With a sense of impending doom, our hero drags himself from under the duvet and pulls a pair of jogging bottoms on. Half way down the stairs, it was the smell that first suggested something was wrong. A sort of sickly, cloying smell, chemical, a bit like… yes, oh sh!t, like a lot of nail polish…

It’s surprising just how far one, small bottle of bright, red, nail-polish go’s – it spreads evenly over polished, hardwood furniture, Laura Ashley seat fabric, sofas, beige carpet and expensive rugs.

Also, when poured over the feet, fingers and face of a three-year old, it can cover most of them.

And takes a lot of cleaning.

Lorraine gives a thumbnail (un-polished of course, there’s no polish left), estimate of the damage at about £2000.00.

It appears the nail-polish was on the top of a seven-foot tall bookcase. This is, of course, where every family keeps nail-polish and it behoves our hero to remember that.

Our hero considers the seven-foot tall bookcase and the two-foot tall monster with red teeth and claws.

It appears she was bitten by a radioactive spider back in Colchester General.

Anybody that’s seen Colchester General Hospital, will have no problem believing that there are radioactive spiders wandering around the wards.
 
09:30 – “Daddy!”

A quicker response this time, our hero is learning, “What darling?”

“I have something to tell you.”

Our hero is in the kitchen, making a much needed cup of coffee… and hunting through the cupboards for those migraine tablets he had the other day. He feels a cold chill run up his spine, crawl over his shoulders, scuttle across his scalp, slap him on both cheeks, constrict his throat and eventually settle as a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Toilet-training a toddler, as our hero has discovered, frequently entails one or two patches of damp carpet. The toddler however, gets to the point when they know they’ve had an accident and they want to clear it up. All they need are the appropriate tools.

It’s surprising just how far the water in the average toilet will spread, when a toddler gets hold of a sponge and, soaking up the water in the toilet, trails it through the house to the “scene of the accident” and begins to mop and scrub.

The “scene of the accident” can rapidly become the entire first floor of a three-floor town-house.

It is at this precise moment, that any sensible parent s@ds off down to the supermarket for a bumper pack of kitchen towels and the biggest bottles of nail-polish remover and single malt scotch whisky they have on the shelves.

Ladies and gentlemen, our hero has left the building.

Bats and Beer Trays

When last we left our hero, he was looking at a personal entry on List 99, on the grounds of a knicker elastic fetish and a collection of gynaecological information leaflets.

If you really need to ask, read the last post.

This episode opens with our luckless individual enjoying a much-earned whiskey, in the sitting room of The Stone Cottage bed and breakfast, Westport, Ontario. Ensconced in a comfortable armchair, with a good book and surrounded by, pretty much, his entire family, he is at peace with The Universe.

Something is not quite right however, for some little while he has noticed a strange fluttering from the chimney behind his chair. He looks up and catches Joyce’s eye. He and his mother-in-law have both heard the noise and look quizzically at each other. It doesn’t seem like anything is about to leap out at them, so they both return to their books.

22:00(ish)
One by one, everybody drifts off to bed and they leave our hero alone in the deepening gloom of the night. This is a beautiful place and the nights are warm and cosy. He pours another Gentleman Jack and turns a page.

22:15
Fwwwiippp!! Something passes over his head with a light flapping sound, skimming his hair.

The light buzz of the alcohol is dispelled instantly and our hero is on his feet thinking, “What the f@<k was that?”

Fwwwiipp!!!! The bat swoops clumsily over his head and flaps its’ way to the far side of the room.

“B@!!@cks.” Thinks our hero. The situation is clear, the doors to his parents’ room are closed, as are the doors to the kids’ room, John and Joyce’s and his and Lorraine’s, therefore leave the thing fluttering around down here, finish his Jack Daniels and get to bed.

Deal with the flapping nuisance in the morning.

The whiskey disappears quickly and our hero wends his way up the stairs.

03:00(ish)
A jarring sensation in the ribs and a panicked, “Paul! Paul! There’s something in the room!”

“B@!!@cks.” Thinks our hero. “That would be the bat.” He murmurs and rolls over.

“The bat??? The BAT????!!!!” Comes the muffled shriek from under the bed sheets.

“This isn’t going to end well,” thinks our hero, “or soon.” He reaches for the bedside light and illuminates the dark shape swooping about overhead, and the frantically jerking, ghost-like shape under the white sheets next to him. “Yep,” he continues, “the bat from downstairs. He, or she, came out of the chimney after you all went to bed.”

“Why don’t you go downstairs and sit in the living room while I sort it out?” Suggests our calm, collected hero.

“No! No! I can’t get out!” Shrieks the ghost.

“I can’t sort it out with you here, so go downstairs and get yourself a cup of hot chocolate or something. Now would be good.”

“What about Amelia?”

The three-year old is curled, blissfully unaware, in her own bed at the foot of ours. “She’ll be fine.” Reassures our hero, thinking, “So long as she stays asleep.”

Lorraine leaps from the bed and dives for the door, with a speed and agility usually seen only in top athletes and performing dolphins.

The door closes and our hero rises to do battle. Scanning the room, he empties a large beach bag, within which he intends to capture the miscreant (hopefully) alive.

He then opts for a small, round metal tray on a nearby dresser. He hopes to use this to “encourage” the fluttering mammal into the bag… or at least “stun” it and throw it out of a window.

Our hero has a plan and is armed. He does however, cut a strange figure, standing stark naked in the middle of the room, beach-bag hanging gaping from one hand and beer tray at the ready in the other.

03:10(ish)
Our hero has lost patience with the gentle, “encouragement” idea, as the stupid, bl@@dy, flapping thing keeps throwing itself, kamikaze-like at his head. He is now flailing with more determination and not a little bit of frustrated anger. Several times, he has only narrowly missed the expensive looking glasses, standing on the nearby dresser, with the destructive curve of his beer tray. He wonders idly if anybody on the street below can see the naked man, lunging around the room, swinging his tray and brightly-coloured bag, like some sort of deranged, nudist, butterfly collector.

Fwwwiipp-thud!! At last, the tray has made solid contact. But even as our hero moves across the room to examine his fallen foe, he knows that the blow he landed was a little too solid. He prods the small furry bundle with the edge of the tray and nothing stirs. With honest regret, our hero collects the little creature and slips it into the beach bag.

Dragging a pair of shorts on, he makes his way downstairs to his anxious spouse.

“You can go back to bed now… Dracula’s in the bag.” He announces, as he opens the front door. “I’ll probably let another dozen of the bl@@dy things in now.” He muses as he heads over to the end of the garden and drops the little corpse into the bushes. “Poor little b@gger.” Our hero thinks. “He probably told the wife he was only nipping out for a quick moth with the lads.”

Down the Pan

Okay, when last we left our hero he was using the hasty withdrawal method from Ann Summers in Colchester on the eve of last Valentine’s Day.

The withdrawal method being, stumbling, in a somewhat pathetic manner away from a chorus of “Hello Sir!”, from a gaggle of grinning year 10 girls straight out of his GCSE ICT class.

With haste.

In this episode, we meet our hero at his wife’s award evening for her L20 Assessor’s Award – for assessing the training of cover supervisors (yes for those of you doing the job out there, you can get training for that kind of self-abuse). Disappearing after the photo’s & speeches, he leaves his glasses on the table and go’s in search of relief from all that coffee & ice water left on the tables to keep everyone awake.

Wandering into the small room at the end of the corridor, he notices, with only mild interest, that there appears to be nowhere to stand against the wall, so he enters the first cubicle on the right and go’s about his errand.

Alarm bells begin to sound as the next person enters the room, and the loud “clack, clack, clack, clack” of hard, pointed heels, sounds across the tiled floor. The new person enters the cubicle next to our hapless individual. There ensues the sound of a zip and the sort of slapping of elastic that is not usually heard from male underwear. Followed by the sort of softer vocalisations you would not imagine coming from a man. Well, not many men anyway.

Maybe a few hairdressers and the sort of music teacher that isn’t six foot six, with a lot of tattoos.

“B@!!@cks.” Thinks our hero. He slides up to the far wall of his cubicle, hiding his shoes so as not to be casually observed under the doors, which now seem to have a two foot gap between them and floor. A gap which is growing every second our hero remains in his predicament.

There now ensues a constant bl@@dy flow of clacking on tiles and the slap of knicker elastic, as our hero tries to figure out if the area outside the cubicles is clear. Concentrating and counting the number of times he hears the doors and the clacking of the heels past his own cubicle, he seizes his chance, whips open the cubicle door and lunges for the exit. Hoping against hope that he doesn’t meet anybody on their way in.

Clearing the exit, he turns nonchalantly to a row of leaflets on the wall and studies them with great focus as two women file past him in search of their own relief, free from perverts listening to the slap of their knickers. Once they’re past, our hero realises he has been studying various leaflets on such subjects as the availability of the morning after pill, general female contraception, female hygiene, pregnancy advice for teenage mothers and women-only STD clinics.

“B@!!@cks.” Thinks our hero.