If the 'Shoo' fits

Dylan has always been fond of animals—it’s something we’ve encouraged since he was born. A few weeks ago, we were walking home from the railway path and we saw a dog with its owner. I take Dylan over to say ‘hello’ but, instead, he says ‘Shoo!’ This is what I hear. ‘Shoo dog!’ Over the next few days and weeks this same message is shared with the cats and birds that visit our garden, the fish at the aquarium and the horses at Horseworld. We blame his grandmother.

 
I’ve finished my diploma. Towards the end the workload was intense and I even spent a few days gaining work experience with the lovely guys at efex Ltd creative design agency near Basingstoke. The results are due early in the New Year but I must say a big thank you to Holly’s mum for her support with Dylan in the run up to the exam—I don’t know how I would have coped otherwise.
 
In the week before my exam, I made roasted pheasant with apples and cider (Nigel Slater’s Tender vol. II), served it with a creamy fennel bake (Jamie’s Great Britain); and honey glazed partridge with bashed neeps and cabbage (Gordon Ramsey’s Healthy Appetite). I also made walnut and apricot slices (Green & Black’s Ultimate Chocolate recipes – the new collection), which everyone seemed to like more than me.  Last week we had roasted Spatchcock Poussin, which was beautiful, and I’ve made several bottles of Irish Whisky Cream, which probably won’t last until Christmas.
 
Since the diploma, I’ve tidied up the garden; given blood for the first time; helped out with Christmas in Downend; replaced all the light fittings in the hall, stairs and landing; and I’m currently decorating the master bedroom. This weekend I shall be representing the Friends of Page Park as an elf in the Christmas on the Hill parade.
 
I didn’t win the InkTears flash fiction competition but I haven’t given up. Not long ago I was interviewed about my writing and you can read the interview here. And I’m finally ready for another trip to the recording studio—I shall be recording more of my songs in January 2013.

Dylan’s doing really well at the moment. He’s eating and sleeping better than he normally does, and, thanks to his weekly visits to Tumble Tots, he’s always climbing and jumping. Before he goes to bed, he helps me to read ‘Maisy’s Bath Time and Maisy’s Bus’ – he recognises words like ‘hooray’, ‘brmm-brmm’, ‘ding-dong,’ ‘splash splash’, and all the numbers. Potty training has been mostly successful although he’s lost interest a little and now says ‘no’ every time we ask him if he needs the toilet (Holly gives him a choice: ‘toilet or potty?’ which works quite well). Last week he had an accident while sitting in his high chair—it ran off the chair an into the canvas basket where we keep Dylan’s thirty or so bibs. These days the washing machine is always on.
 
Between rain showers, I take Dylan on a rare trip to the park. He plays on the swings and chases the other children, splashing through puddles in his Wellingtons. He’s always been a sociable little boy. He climbs up the steps of the climbing frame and a young girl, slightly older than Dylan, is blocking his path. ‘Move over and let the boy past,’ says her father but there’s no need, Dylan has it covered.

‘Shoo!’ he says, waving his hands at the girl. ‘Shoo!’ He’s such a charmer.

Little Accidents

We’ve been in Norfolk for a week, staying at my family’s bungalow on the coast. The plan was to potty train Dylan while we were here because he’s been so good at home recently. For the first couple of days there were a lot of accidents and Holly’s washing around four pairs of trousers a day, but he’s getting the hang of it. On Wednesday, Holly takes Dylan into Stalham so I can do some studying. She takes a change of clothes, just in case, but Dylan knows the routine and he uses the café toilet. Holly’s feeling pretty happy until she comes home and sees my trousers hanging out to dry in the late afternoon sun. They’re sodden.

She came home from hospital on the Thursday night, after four days of treatment. It was a challenging time for all of us but especially Dylan. He’d spent the weekend with his aunt while we were at the wedding; went to nursery on the Monday when Holly was admitted; went straight from nursery to his grandma’s for a couple of nights and visited his mum in a strange place full of scary people. When he eventually returned home, his daddy disappeared at bath and bedtimes because they clashed with visiting hours. He wasn’t reunited with Holly until Thursday night and this was when he finally went to pieces. He lost his appetite, refused to clean his teeth and didn't want to go to bed. He started coming into our room, in tears, about every hour during the night, worried that his mum might have left him again. Holly was signed off for a week and it took Dylan the same length of time to recover.

 

My diploma isn't going well. I need to provide three pieces of evidence to demonstrate each of eighteen competencies and I don’t think I can do it. My problem is that the diploma is aimed at people working in internal communication roles but I’m unemployed and I’ve never worked in an internal communications role. Life would be simpler if I had my old work laptop but I don’t and, without it, I’m in trouble. I need more examples, which means one thing: work experience. I’ve emailed the local councils and The Evening Post but it turns out that their communications departments are too busy and understaffed to reply to emails from people offering to work for free. It looks like it’s not going to be a question of passing or failing the diploma—at the moment, I can’t complete enough of the evidence file to stand a chance.

The Wednesday before we go to Norfolk was a good day for Dylan. His granddad and nanny took him to Bristol Zoo and, while the animals failed to capture his imagination, the dinosaur display was his idea of heaven. They bought him a box set of dinosaurs and it’s all he would talk about. I’ve added palaeontologist to his list of prospective careers.

The Friday before we go away was a good day for me. The upstairs windows were replaced, I learned that I'd been shortlisted for the InkTears Flash Fiction competition and one of my friends from the Bath Company of Writers, who happens to be an editor (as well as a prize-winning poet), has kindly agreed to arrange some work experience for me. It may or may not be enough, but I have hope again, which is a great way to start a holiday.

While Bristol sinks once more beneath the rain, Norfolk is a bucket full of sunshine. The Wednesday Holly takes Dylan into Stalham, I stay behind to work on my Diploma. Once I've finished for the day, I head over to the seafront for a ten minute stroll. To the north is Happisburgh, with its iconic, candy-striped lighthouse. To the south is Sea Palling. The tide is in and the waves are bigger towards Happisburgh, so this is the way I walk. About a minute later, I'm standing on the top step of the sea defences when a large wave hits the rocks in front of me, soaking me from head to foot. I would like to say that it was an accident but, rather than heading home, I remain in place through two more, huge waves. I'm drenched. This, for me, has always been what the seaside is all about.

We have a wonderful holiday. It doesn’t matter that I have to study while we’re here because I’m with my family and, together, we fly kites, build sandcastles and watch the seals on Horsey beach. Norfolk holidays have always been about enjoying good food and drink and, while we're there, I roast a shoulder of lamb from Stalham's excellent butchers, bake fresh sea trout from the fish kiosk in Happisburgh and we pick the last of the season’s blackberries in Hickling Nature Reserve. On previous visits to Hickling, I’ve seen swallowtail butterflies and marsh harriers, but the main attractions on this visit are the diggers and tractors. Dylan couldn't be happier. He sleeps well, eats plenty and opens the last of his birthday presents, which we held over for the holiday. Most of all, and like his daddy, he loves the sea. Every opportunity he gets he charges towards the retreating waves, then turns around and runs screaming up the beach as a new wave comes in. I'm pretty sure he's having a good time. And his favourite word while we're away?

"Again."

 

 

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Taking the Biscuit

We’re driving home from Mum’s and Dylan is pointing out all the things he sees. ‘Tractor,’ he says. ‘Lorry. Bus.’ When he runs out of interesting vehicles he resorts to: ‘House. House. House. House. House.’ I’m amazed at how quickly his vocabulary is growing and he’s even managing a few sentences. ‘See you soon,’ he says, and ‘There it is!’ Last week, he came out with his first, self-composed sentence: ‘Daddy ate the biscuit.’ It’s becoming clear to me now that the more he can say, the more trouble I’m going to be in.

No Dodo

It’s my fault really. I’m the person who robbed him of his dummy. Nursery was closed for the Bank Holiday and his Grandma was in Tenerife, so Dylan was mine for ten days straight and I wasn't going to get a better opportunity. We came home from swimming and, while he put the towels and trunks in the wash, I snipped the teat off his dummy. Yes I did. He came to me for his routine cake bar and I showed him that his dummy was in two pieces. He looked forlorn and tried to stick the teat in his mouth. I explained it was broken, took him outside and asked him to put it in the bin. I gave him his cake bar and then, instead of searching the house for his dummy (as had been our naptime routine), we searched for his ducks. He asked for his dodo and I reminded him that it was broken. I put him in his cot bed and he rolled over, and it’s just as well because I had tears in my eyes. I went next door and listened to him grizzle for a minute and a half...and that was it. Job done. He asked for his dummy a few times during the following weeks but a shake of the head was enough to pacify him. And now it's gone he’s sleeping better.

Syrup of Figs

The other thing I’ve cracked in the last month is his constipation. Rather than taking action when it becomes a problem, I’ve started supplementing his diet with a daily dose of Califig. In many ways this has been an even bigger breakthrough than cracking his dummy dependency. He’s happier. He’s discovered food and the joy of having an appetite. And this, too, is helping him sleep. I feel like I’m finally making a difference as a stay-at-home dad and it feels pretty good.

Festival Fever

That said, I’ve hardly been at home recently. In August, I spent four days with friends at the Cropredy folk festival; two weeks later I spent three days at the NAWG Festival of Writing and two weeks after that Holly and I went to her cousin's wedding near London. The 45th annual Cropredy festival was excellent. It stayed dry all weekend and the music, which included Richard Thompson, Big Country, Squeeze, Dead Flamingoes, Dennis Locorriere and fantastic newcomers Brother & Bones (above) and Larkin Poe (below) was spot on. 

 

The weekend between the writing festival and the wedding, I played the headlining slot at the Page Park Bandstand Marathon, with Ant Noel joining me on acoustic guitar, piano, harmonica and vocals, and Howard Sinclair on bass guitar, acoustic guitar and vocals. We had one rehearsal together on the morning of the gig and played a forty-five minute set including three new songs: Chris Cagle’s My Life’s been a Country Song, Ant’s Hurricane Rising, and The Band’s The Weight. It was the first paid gig I've done for a decade and I promised to take Holly out for a meal with my £60 share. After the gig, a member of the audience said I played the best Springsteen covers she had ever heard, which was pretty great.

 

Small Potatoes

Summer’s over and so, for the most part, so is the vegetable garden. Was it a success? I suppose it was in the sense that Dylan ate the strawberries and apples, and understood where they came from, which was my main intention.

In the last month, I’ve harvested a good load of Maris Pipers—probably the equivalent of a couple of supermarket bags worth, which we've eaten as roasters or chips. Believe it or not I’m still picking courgette flowers, and we’ve had some good courgettes, too. For three or four weekends on the trot we had salad with mixed leaves picked from the garden, and last night I had a few radishes and tomatoes too. However, the cost and effort of growing plants has vastly exceeded the benefits, probably because of the weather. The tomatoes are rotting on the vines; the cabbages have all been eaten; the grapes are sun starved; the spring onions never grew and the radishes and rocket produced such a small yield it really wasn’t worth it.

So what will I grow next year? Courgettes: yes. Potatoes: probably. Strawberries, grapes and apples: yes, but only because the plants will still be there. Lettuces: yes. Herbs: maybe sage and basil but I’ll keep them indoors. Tomatoes: possibly, in the hope that the weather is better. Rocket, radishes, spring onions, cabbage: definitely not.

Apples, Apples

Our little apple tree didn’t produce a bumper crop but we didn’t do too badly and I found a couple of great recipes in Nigel Slater’s Tender: Volume II. Apple crisp is like a cheats apple crumble—cheap, quick and dead easy to make. It's also delicious. The sausage and apple casserole was also a treat. Last week I found a roast duck and white bean puree recipe in Rachel Allen's Entertaining at Home, which gave me the oppeortunity to roast some of our home-grown potatoes and try steamed romanesco. I’ll definitely be cooking this one again.

Taking the Biscuit

Holly took last Friday off work because she was suffering with colitis. On Saturday we left Dylan with my sister and went to London for Holly's cousin's wedding. It was a lovely day but we didn't stay for the evening reception because Holly was still poorly. We spent the night at a friend's house and left the following morning. We were about half way home when I was pulled me over for speeding, and I was lucky to get away with three points and a fine. The Police officer asked if there was any reason for me to break the speed limit and I said no, I just wanted to see my son. As I'm sure Dylan would say, 'If you eat the biscuit, Daddy, you have to pay the price.' The price on this occasion was £60. How about that for a coincidence?

On Monday morning, Holly is admitted to hospital. It's Wednesday as I write this and I've just taken clothes in to see her through to the weekend.

 

8 Hand Boy

Dylan points at the television and says ‘DeeDaa.’ This used to mean ‘Wall-E’, which we watched a few thousand times before we switched to Monsters Inc. and The Incredibles. None of these make him happy anymore but we've recently discovered that we don’t need to put the television on to keep him amused. If we give Dylan permission to look through the DVD cabinet, he will happily spend hours sorting through his DVDs, switching them between cases and then switching them back. Life is simple until it's time to tidy up.

Between Mickey’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Wheels on the Bus, Dylan has been enjoying the Olympics. He thinks the gymnastics is the funniest thing he has ever seen but it’s the horse riding that really captures his imagination. ‘’Orse,’ he says, over and over, pointing to the television in the hope that we’ll phone the organisers or the BBC and ask them  to put on a bit of unscheduled show jumping to keep him happy. Then Holly has a brainwave.

HorseWorld. What a great idea. It’s a retirement home for aging horses but it also caters for ponies, donkeys, rabbits, goats, pigs, ferrets and small boys. Throw in a few slides, a soft play area, an adventure playground and a café where short people can reach the controls on the microwave, and it’s Dylan’s idea of heaven.

This week, as well as grooming horses, riding toy tractors and climbing into pig pens, we’ve been swimming, had lessons on the harmonica, counted the ducks in Vassells Park, chased a local kitty around Page Park and made kites in playgroup. I’ve sent the second part of my Diploma off to the printers, made potato rostis, eaten the first of the cherry tomatoes from our garden and gone to the cinema for the first time in two years (to see The Dark Knight Rises). Last time I went to the movies, I was on paternity leave. How time flies.

I’m washing up in the kitchen when Dylan rushes out and says ‘Poo!’ For some reason, he isn’t wearing nappy. I ask him to show me and he leads me into the lounge, where his nappy is scrunched up on the sofa. Then he takes me to the downstairs toilet, where his potty is on the toilet with an inch of liquid in it. He took his nappy off, peed in his potty, took his potty to the toilet and then came to get me. This sort of thing has been happening a lot recently. Our boy is telling us that he is ready to be potty trained and we’re the proudest parents on the planet right up until the point where he urinates in one of our kitchen cupboards.

Oh well. Accidents will happen. Again and again and again.
 

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An Edible Garden

Playgroup starts fifteen minutes before Dylan wakes up from his morning nap. We’re always a little late but this week is worse than usual. I take Dylan to Vassell’s Park in the morning and when he’s so tired he’s sleeping on his feet, I take him home for food and bed. An hour and a half later and it's time to leave. We have one foot out of the door when the phone rings: it’s my mother-in-law and she’s phoned us by mistake. I hang up and discover that Dylan has adopted his code brown emergency* pose. I change his nappy in the hall (without removing his trousers or shoes) and ask him to climb into his pushchair. Still half asleep, he refuses to leave the house, so I have to manoeuvre him outside. I close the door behind us, but not before Dylan’s managed to squeeze his fingers between the door and the frame. His wail is enough to let me know we’re going to be very late.

Dylan hasn’t slept through the night since I left work and it’s beginning to take its toll. He’s up most mornings around 5am because it’s too light or too hot or because the birds are too noisy; and we could probably cope with this if he wasn’t waking up through the night as well. We have a blue, floor-level nightlight on the landing, which shines through our bedroom door against the wall opposite our bed. A few nights ago, around 2am, I opened my eyes and in front of me was the shadow of an eight foot humanoid with a disproportionately large head. And it was moving. In the middle of the night, when I’m half asleep, this is not the sort of thing I want to have to deal with. Then Dylan says ‘Mummy?’

He's talking more and using new words every day. He's singing nursery rhymes. He has an idea of the alphabet and can count from one to ten in his own, unique style. He won't always chew his food but he does tidy up, sometimes on request and sometimes who knows why? And he's building good relationships with his family and friends. The speed at which he's growing up is incredible. But he's still testing boundaries and I guess he will be until he leaves home. He sticks his tongue out to announce forthcoming naughtiness and waits to see what we're going to do.

The sunny weather changes everything. It starts with the Harbourside Festival, where I’m part of Ant Noel’s Peabody Choir. Nearly everyone in the choir is a local singer-songwriter and this event has a wonderful sense of community and friendship. And Ant's such a great songwriter, it seems everyone knows the words to his songs. It’s my third year of singing at the festival and, as I vaguely recall explaining on BBC Radio Bristol afterwards, it’s also Dylan’s third year in the audience, even though he’s only two. This year, he’s amongst the first to dance, he joins me in the choir and he manages to persuade around twenty members of the audience to part with their helium balloons so he can set them free and wave as they disappear. There are times when he's the main attraction.

(Photo by Holly)

The garden has come alive. We don’t see the foxes anymore but a family of frogs have moved in to help us keep the snails at bay. Dylan’s sunflower has done its thing and everything else is growing with conviction. The tomatoes and potatoes look healthy; and we’ve eaten rocket and various other lettuce leaves, as well as cabbage and a single new potato (I forget the variety but there are more on their way), but the highlight must be the courgettes. Or rather the courgette flowers.

I mention the courgette flowers to my mum and she tells me they’re edible. A few days later, Holly’s dad arrives with a belated birthday present for me: Hugh Fearnley-Wittingstall’s fantastic River Cottage Veg, and the first page I turn to is a recipe for deep-fried courgette flowers stuffed with ricotta and herbs. I vary the recipe slightly; using mascarpone mixed with grated goat’s cheese and home grown chives and apple mint; but the end result is still delicious. My efforts are finally paying off. Thank you for the book, Vince & Jacqui.

When we eventually make it to playgroup, it's time to take the kids to Page Park. It’s me and an army of mothers pushing buggies along the high street. Dylan knows Page Park well, including the water feature, and he’s drenched from head to toe within minutes. He’s the only one—the other children are content to stay dry—but he’s having so much fun I haven’t the heart to stop him. Several minutes later, I look up and Ellie’s son, Lucas, is jumping up and down in a muddy puddle. I smile at Ellie and say ‘You have no idea how happy that makes me.’

A few days later I have a gig in town and there’s a four year old girl watching her father sing with one of the other acts. She’s quite rightly mesmerised by her dad’s performance. Her mum says she’s mostly lovely but occasionally she’s a “little madam”. I tell her I could say exactly the same thing about Dylan.

And, in sentiment at least, it would be true.

*Holly's words



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Trainspotting for Boys

Me: Grrrr.
Dylan: Mum?

The night before Dylan’s birthday party I get a call from an old school friend. Last year he brought a gazebo to Dylan's party but this year his wife suggested they bring their bouncy castle. Naturally I assume I've misheard; nobody actually owns a bouncy castle. Nick explains that a few months ago, they were looking to part with an old fridge and someone offered them the castle in exchange. Everyone should have friends like Nick and Abigail.

The week of Dylan’s birthday starts with a trip to see a stream train, Tangmere, on its way from Bristol to Bath. All boys love locomotives at some stage of their development and Dylan's granddad still does, so three generations of Stanley boys head out to a field near the railway line. The train steams through on time and Dylan is delighted. Afterwards, Dad comes back to ours for egg on toast but Holly’s been making meringues while we were out, so Dad has breakfast while Dylan and I have something much sweeter.

On Monday I walk Dylan to nursery, expecting the worst, but he knocks on the door, waves to the kids through the window, says ‘Hello’ to the girl who lets us in and then disappears off to play with the toys. He hardly even says goodbye. How things change.

Tuesday is Dylan’s birthday and there’s no shortage of presents, including his own table and chairs, a trampoline and a police car buggy. He also gets a kitchen set and his own toy vacuum cleaner, so he can be more like his daddy. Perhaps his most useful present is a Gro-Clock; it's a bedside clock that glows blue when he’s supposed to be in bed and yellow when it’s time to get up. Dylan works it out all in a matter of minutes and he hasn’t been into our room since. Fantastic.

On Wednesday we go swimming, although these days I’m a spectator. I’m sitting on the  steps watching Dylan make his way to the deep end to crash a swimming lesson. I’m not sure about this. All the other kids are staying close to their parents but Dylan’s so confident in his armbands, having me around just slows him down. At one point, he actually swims properly, with his bum in the air and his heels breaking the surface as he kicks. I’m so proud I want to cheer. After swimming, it’s home for a good long sleep, followed by an afternoon of playing in the garden with his cousin Logan. It’s a near-perfect day.

On Thursday, Dylan is treated to a rare visit from his Grandpa, who has brought him a toy train set for his birthday. Health issues have prevented Dylan from seeing his Grandpa anywhere near as much as either of them would have liked, so it’s an afternoon to be savoured, and the best place for that is soft play, where Dylan insists we all join in.

On Friday, Dylan spends the day with his Grandma while I tidy up, vacuum and mop the floors, dust the surfaces, clean the kitchen and bathrooms, wash the bath mats, iron the clothes, buy the rest of the groceries for Dylan’s party, rearrange the furniture, tidy up the garden, bake a cake (for Holly to ice) and cook homemade burgers and chips for tea. It’s a long day but the phone call about the bouncy castle makes it all worthwhile.

On Saturday it rains. I’m in the kitchen, heating the pizzas and pasties, bhajis and samosas, and I’ve completely lost track of when I put things in the oven. I’m winging it, judging everything by its appearance and taste and hoping I don't poison everyone at the party. Nick is helping, as is my sister Felicity (Auntie ‘Flea’ according to Dylan), who chops vegetables for the dips. Holly’s turned the front room into a playroom for older kids and the back room into the main party area, and both rooms have been overrun with toddlers. I'm trying not to think about it. Then I notice that Nick and Flick are missing, and I’m about to complain when I see the castle in the garden. It’s perfect. The kids are lined up along our patio windows, staring in wonder. Seizing the opportunity, I say ‘nobody’s allowed outside until this room is tidy’ but it’s already too late. The doors are open and the kids are gone.

Everyone’s tired the following morning but Tangmere is coming through again and Nick and his son Joshua want to see it so we're off. Joshua and Dylan keep each other entertained in the back of the car, the train is dead on time and there’s bacon and eggs to go around when we get home.

Finally, my boy is two years old. Somehow we survived.


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Rock & Roll Heart

(Photo by Holly)



The last time I saw Springsteen in Manchester, I ended up proposing to my future wife and spending my salary on a ring. This time I go with my sister in the hope that it will be cheaper. It should be a three hour drive but it takes nearly twice as long because of heavy traffic and torrential rain. It doesn’t matter because it’s a brilliant gig with numerous highlights: The E Street Shuffle, Save My Love, the ’78 tour version of Prove it All Night and a lovely solo performance of The Promise. I finally make it home at two o’clock on Saturday morning, conscious that I have two gigs of my own later that day. Dylan doesn’t know this. He wanders into our room at quarter past two and won’t go down again until five.

Rain. There’s not much I can say on the weather front that hasn’t said already. In what is likely to be the only summer I spend at home before retirement, June has had the highest rainfall on record and July won’t be outdone—we’re due a month’s worth of rain in the next 24 hours. If it’s okay, I’d like to shout at somebody now.

Rain. The garden is doing its best. We’ve been getting up to half a dozen strawberries a day and Dylan likes them enough to steal them off my plate. The courgettes have beautiful ochre flowers and some of my tomato plants are beginning to bear fruit. The best part of the garden is watching Dylan: every time we go out he checks the strawberry plants and apple tree, and then he transfers the pots from the Grow Rack to the table, just like he’s seen his daddy do. Last weekend, while Holly was mowing the lawn, he followed her around with his toy lawn mower. The lawn looks great and it was a real team effort.

Rain. I haven’t been as adventurous with my cooking as I’d like although I did make red-cooked chicken thighs in the slow cooker last week and they were pretty good. I’m making one of my all-time favourites tonight: Toad in the Hole with three types of sausage, roast potatoes and salad (including homegrown radishes). Bad weather demands good food.

Rain. I played a few gigs in the week following the Springsteen gig, including a headlining set in a rain soaked marquee at the Pucklechurch Revel. The lovely Pucklechurch crowd of maybe five hundred or so were there for the beer more than the music, but we won them over and I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed a gig so much.

Rain. It’s hard to feel inspired when the weather’s so bad but I guess it makes it easier to stay indoors. I’ve submitted the first draft of my Communications project and the feedback has been pretty encouraging. Sadly, I wasn’t one of the winners of the Nottingham Short Story competition but I’m not giving up just yet: I’ve entered His & Hers into the Sean O’Faolain Short Story competition and six tiny stories into the Earlyworks Press Flash Fiction competition. I’d cross my fingers but it makes it harder to type.

Rain. The last time I went to Paris for a couple of days was twenty years ago. It was grey and uninspiring then and it doesn’t seem to have changed, despite the pre-recorded tour guide’s assurance that it is a deeply romantic city. We’re in Paris to catch Springsteen’s 4^th July show at Bercy Arena. It’s the gig of my dreams but we leave the venue at the start of the encores so I can be sick in the hotel next door. I’m dehydrated—without air conditioning it was about forty degrees in the arena—and I’ve drunk too much water. It was a great gig though, and the highlights before we left were 4^th July Asbury Park (Sandy), Darkness on the Edge of Town, Because the Night and a moving solo performance of Independence Day—one of the great father and son songs. Unlike me, the Boss shows no signs of slowing down.

Rain. The following day, Holly and I head to the Eiffel Tower and take a drizzly boat trip along the Seine. Holly buys a chocolate éclair; I buy something called a gland and a meringue the size of Dylan’s head. That night, with Christina Aguilera providing the soundtrack to our evening meal, I tell Holly that she is beautiful, no matter what they say, and she hits me on the head with a spoon. Paris is, indeed, the city of romance, but I miss my boy and I’m ready to go home.

Dylan’s changing all the time. He’s more appreciative of his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins; his vocabulary is growing; he’s been jumping in muddy puddles and last week he swam* across the diagonal of the pool without any help. He’s giving more kisses, more cuddles, and when I ask him if he wants to be tickled he says ‘I do’ and lies down in preparation. I have a feeling this is the calm before the storm. After all, he’s going to be two on Tuesday.

And I’m in charge of his party.


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*Imagine someone riding a unicycle, then take away the unicycle and put them in the water.

The Dodo's Demise

Holly: Daddy or chips?

Dylan: Chips!

I’m washing up while Dylan watches Peppa Pig in the study. He runs through kitchen, waving my wallet and grinning mischievously. A few seconds later he runs back, only this time he’s waving my joint account card. I call after him, telling him to put it back. Later, when I go to the study, the wallet is on the desk and the card is in the wallet. My little boy is learning to put things away. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for our joint account statement to see what he bought.

We’ve removed the stair gate from the bottom of the stairs and I’ve taken the side off Dylan’s cot. He’s growing up and I couldn’t be prouder. Unfortunately, the cot thing unsettles him and it’s like he’s regressed eighteen months. Night after night, he cries for half an hour when we put him down and he’s started waking (us) up every hour from 3am onwards. A week later I’m walking around like a zombie. This is when I conceive The Dummy Plan.

Dylan calls dummies ‘dodos’, which seems oddly fitting as their medium term future is extinction. Different families approach the challenge in a number of ways: dummies sent to less fortunate children in third world countries; dummies collected by the Dummy Fairy; dummies literally handed to the bin men. When the time comes, Dylan’s dummies are going to be abducted by aliens. In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about how to make the separation easier. It shouldn’t be difficult: the only time he has a dummy is when he’s settling down for bed and while he’s in bed. My plan is to remove the dummy from the settling down stage. If he grows accustomed to mummy or daddy fetching it for him after he’s in bed then hopefully he’ll fall asleep without it. It looks pretty reasonable on paper but it isn’t working yet. Every night we put Dylan to bed with him chanting ‘Dodo, dodo, dodo,’ as we carry him up the stairs. Then there’s the crying, then there’s the cheering, then there’s the not sleeping.

We’ve been enjoying the strawberries from the garden whenever I can pick the ripe ones before the slugs eat them. They aren’t the largest strawberries in the world, and there aren’t many of them, but I’d rather have one of mine than a crate from the supermarket. I just wish Dylan had tasted mine first, he might like strawberries.

The garden is full of dead slugs and new corpses keep arriving every day. I think we’re winning when Mother Nature shows her hand. I come down in the morning and the grow rack has disappeared behind the shed. Dylan’s sunflower has been flattened, as have my seedlings, and one of my courgettes has been uprooted. High winds and hard rain prove devastating for a working garden.

It’s been another busy month. I’ve recorded solo acoustic demos of three of my songs and I’m hoping to take a band into the studio later this summer to follow up on Americana. I’ve played a gig at The Bristol Fringe, accompanied by the wonderfully talented Ant Noel on piano, vocals and harmonica. By the end of the month I hope to have finished the project part of my diploma as well as submitting entries for the 50 Kisses script-writing competition, the Flash 500 flash fiction competition and the V. S. Pritchett Prize. Sadly I don’t have tickets for Carrie Underwood’s concert at the Royal Albert Hall tomorrow, but I’m going to see Springsteen in Manchester on Friday and I’m playing two gigs on Saturday with another talented friend, Howard Sinclair, on guitar and vocals. I’ve also had the fire brigade around to check our smoke alarms, a tree surgeon friend around to give our garden a much-needed haircut, and I’m trying to get someone out to look at our double glazing. Oh, and I’m organising Dylan’s second birthday party.

Dylan’s vocabulary is expanding all the time. He says ‘tick tock’ for clock, ‘choo choo’ for trains, and ‘tweet tweet’ for birds. One day he’s going to ask us why we didn’t teach him the right names for things and I don’t have a good answer yet. Hopefully he’ll ask the question about babies first.

This morning, Dylan was looking at my fox photos on Holly's iPad. He was so excited, I thought I'd show him the real thing, so we snuck up to his bedroom and watched two cubs enjoying the early morning sunshine. Dylan stuck his head out of the window and shouted 'Fox!' at the top of his voice. It's great he knows the word for fox, it's just a shame it sounds so rude the way he says it. In some places, the sight of fox cubs playing might be considered a novelty. Here, the main attraction is a twenty-three month old shouting obscenities from his bedroom window.

'Fox!'

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Three Weeks In

At the aquarium, I ask Dylan what noise sharks make and he says 'Meow.' I tell him I think it's more 'Grrr' and the attendant looks at me as if I'm barking. Maybe she's right.

So this is it, the honeymoon period is over. We're back from the cruise and Holly has started her new job, which means I'm in charge at home. It's you and me baby, and one of us is having his nappy changed.

Not everything is going according to plan. Dylan is supposed to be in nursery one day a week and with his grandma two days a week, so I have time to do housework, shopping, studying and writing. In three weeks I should have had nine days without him but, for a number of reasons, it's actually been six, and the average is going to worsen over the next fortnight. It's not enough.

We've been busy. We've been to the Brighton Sea Life Centre for a friend's wedding and to Weybridge for a birthday party in a gym; we've had friends to stay and Holly's been to Manchester for a three day induction course; I've played a gig, entered the Bridport Prize short story competition and passed the first part of my Diploma; and last Saturday I spent the day wearing a high-vis jacket in our local park, helping out with the Jubilee celebrations. I don't think I've ever been so tired.

We've been ill. Dylan shook off his cruise fever with no sign of chicken pox, but a week later I had a similar fever and Dylan cared for me by hitting me in the face with his toys. A week later he had a temperature again, followed by three days of acute diarrhoea (at one point he napalmed the bathroom and I had to wash everything I was wearing) and a mild cold that might have been hay fever.

And the slugs are still eating my garden. For a time, back in sunny spring, everything was growing beautifully and pests were few and far between. As the strawberries turned red and we ate the first slender pickings of rocket and radish, I honestly thought we were through the worst of it, so I planted more seeds and transplanted the tomatoes, courgettes and cabbages. Some mornings I was out early enough to see the fox clubs playing in our neighbour's garden. Then rain announced the arrival of summer and it's all gone to hell. Slugs and snails have eaten my rocket and cabbages, two of my courgette plants and all the ripe strawberries. Everything else has been nibbled or slimed. It's time to use pellets.

But we're eating well. I've discovered slow cooking, which means I can put the food on while Dylan's having his nap and it's ready to eat by the time he goes to bed at night. Throw in some crunchy salad and crusty bread and it's a meal. We've had chicken and lentil curry, Irish carbonade, and a chicken and barley supper, and on each occasion I've made enough so I can freeze a couple of portions. It's not quite as cost effective as roasting a chicken but it's pretty reasonable.

Dylan's growing up in all kinds of ways. He rarely drops stuff on the floor anymore, he cooperates when I need to change his nappy and last week he didn't cry when I took him to nursery. Every week we go to playgroup, soft play and the library, and when we're at home he helps me tend to the garden. We also go swimming regularly and since the cruise he can more or less make his way around the pool on his own. In the next few days I'm going to take the side off his cot and he'll have his first sleep in a bed. It's a big deal for a little boy.

I've been invited to play a short set at a beer festival later this month and I've been looking for some new songs to cover. On the way home from the swimming pool I sing along with Chris Cagle's What Kinda Gone and think yes! This is the one! Then I turn around to reverse park on my drive and Dylan's in the baby seat with his fingers in his ears.

He loves his daddy, I'm sure, but it doesn't mean he's a fan.

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All At Sea

Lisbon hums. That scene in Independence Day when the alien spaceships arrive above the skyscrapers? Sailing under Lisbon’s Tagus Bridge on an nineteen-deck luxury cruise liner is like that: very loud and uncomfortably close. Trains and cars rumble overhead; their underbellies visible through the metal grid roadway of the second longest suspension bridge in Europe. After Lisbon, it’s going to take us two days to sail home and I can’t wait

We arranged the cruise last year, before anyone mentioned redundancy, and from the moment it was booked I started to lose sleep, worrying about Dylan falling overboard or going missing in a foreign country. One of the first things that happens after we sail out of Southampton is Holly loses her security pass. This is not a good start. Our evening meal arrangements mean we have to leave Dylan in his cot while we go to the restaurant, and I'm not prepared to do this if there's a chance someone else has access to our cabin. My paranoia grows exponentially when I realise that Dylan's security pass is also missing. We search every corner of the room and then Holly has an idea. She hands Dylan one of those mock credit cards that come with new purses to see what happens, and he does exactly what he's seen us do: he runs to the door and sticks it in the slot. Unfortunately, he can't reach the slot beneath the doorhandle, so he sticks it in the metal grate at the bottom of the door. Pass-posting: from the look on Dylan's face, you'd think it's the best game ever.

The following morning, after a rough night in the Bay of Biscay, he throws up all over me.

We have a few days at sea before we reach Spain, so I teach Dylan how to blow raspberries on peoples’ arms and sing ‘woo-hoo’ in the style of KT Tunstall. He loves the boat and everyone onboard seems to love him. Unlike the other toddlers, who are mostly carried or kept in buggies, Dylan runs everywhere and is always at least five feet in front of us. He calls the lifts, climbs the stairs, greets the other passengers and high fives the waiters. In the afternoons he flits between the many swimming pools and dives head first into a jacuzzi. Even the captain knows his name.

It's raining in Malaga and we give our umbrella to the mums so their hair doesn't get wet. Then we give our map to an old guy who's lost not far from the ship. Dylan sleeps under the waterproof canopy of his buggy while Holly and I splash through puddles and soak up the scenery.

Corfu is ridiculously hot and the kerbs are a foot-high nightmare for pushchairs. We march across the town to the old fort where there is space for Dylan to run around, before finding a café and sharing an ice cream. This, we realise, is going to be the template for the rest of our stops.

The Croatian island of Korcula is picturesque and unspoiled, with fantastic views across the Adriatic Sea. It’s also one big, stepped hill. Venice is lots of little, stepped bridges with thousands of tourists competing for every inch of land. We find a deserted café, which opens up into a deserted hotel, which leads to a beautiful and secluded Venetian garden, where we drink prosecco while Dylan rearranges the chairs

In Dubrovnik’s old town, a girl photographs Dylan’s smile for an art project. In Messina there’s very little to do on a Sunday afternoon. In Cádiz, we entrust Dylan to the mums and go sherry tasting in Jerez. We end up sharing a table with a lovely couple who tell us all about their precocious nine year old grandson. When we mention our two year old, they say ‘Oh we know Dylan…'

Which brings us back to Lisbon. We leave the boat and a guy tries to sell me sunglasses. Another guy tries to sell me an eight ball of drugs. I’m an unemployed, thirty-six year old father pushing his sleeping son in a buggy—I have to wonder how good his customer segmentation is. Maybe it's spot on.

On the boat, Dylan urinates all over my Bruce Springsteen t-shirt (while I’m wearing it) so I teach him to wash his hair with baked bean juice. Every night, after he goes to bed, Holly and I hide in the bathroom until he falls asleep. Then we go to the Metropolis bar where I drink White Russians, vodka martinis or dry sherry, depending on whether I’m the Big Lebowski, James Bond or Frasier. After our evening meal, we creep back into our room and listen to Dylan talking in his sleep.

Finally, it’s time to sail home for the start of my term as the stay-at-home parent. The sea is calm like silk, and dolphins jump in pairs while the sun drowns in the horizon. The service on the cruise has been impeccable and we’ve had a lot of fun, but we've never stopped being parents. Parenting, I'm learning, is a job as much as it is a privilege, and you're always on duty. I’ve literally aged a year.

On our second to last night Dylan comes down with the fever. We leave the restaurant early and find him crying in his cot. And there's a note outside our door warning us that one of Dylan's friends from the Toy Box has been diagnosed with Chicken Pox.

Baby Steps

Dylan cries when I take him to nursery and it kills me. Every week it’s the same. He’s affectionate before we leave, cautious in the car and crying by the time we pull up outside. I hand him over and he stops crying long enough to flash me a look that says ‘How could you do this, Daddy? I thought we were friends…’ The sense of betrayal is overwhelming.

This week was worse than usual. Dylan's sneezing candles* again and we don't know if it's hay fever, teething or if he's catching a cold. Either way, he's more subdued than usual and I think maybe he takes after me. I cried when my parents took me for trampolining lessons and I was painfully homesick when they left me at boarding school. I guess fear of abandonment is in his genes.

The truth is Dylan's fine five minutes after I've left but I’m a mess for the rest of the day. I don't know how Holly's managed all this time but my coping mechanism isn’t very sophisticated—so far it involves listening to country music (for the pain) and staying busy (for the distraction). Holly says it’s okay to phone the nursery and make sure he’s all right, but I can’t do that. I want the nursery to be responsible for the children, not the worried fathers.

The funny thing is that Dylan enjoys his time at nursery, so why is he so upset when I drop him off? The obvious answer is separation anxiety—he's still grappling with object permanence (the idea that Holly and I still exist even though he can't see us). So what do I do? My chocolate bribe didn't pacify him and country music only makes him worse. He did get better for a while when Holly was taking him, but then I took over and it was the end of the world again. I guess the truth is that Dylan's gone from having one primary caregiver (Holly), to two (Holly and me) and will shortly be going back to one (me). Children like routine and we've dropped a bomb on his.

When I take him to nursery, I try to treat the morning like any other. I tell him where he’s going before we leave so there are no secrets or surprises (although I don't think he has the word nursery in his vocabulary yet—I'm working on it). I talk to him in the car and try to sound upbeat. I hold his hand and walk him to the door because the walk is distracting. I encourage him to say hello when we arrive, hand him to someone he knows, and leave promptly after saying goodbye. Of all these points, I think saying goodbye is the most important. My hope is that if I always say goodbye when I leave, he’ll get used to the fact that I always come back.

Is all this grief really worth it? Is nursery a good idea? Parents and grandparents seem to have wildly conflicting opinions on this. What I know is this: it would have been easy for my parents to give up on sending me to trampolining and boarding school, but I'm glad they didn't. I represented three counties in the trampolining and won team gold in the regional trials up in Scotland. And after my first term at boarding school, I didn't want to go home again. I felt like I owned the place.

I want Dylan to be confident, sociable and, to a degree, independent. I'm sure it's possible to instill all these qualities in a child without sending them to nursery but I also think that nursery helps. And just because it's difficult for me doesn't mean it's not the best thing for Dylan. My hope is that one day he’ll stop crying and start looking forward to to spending the day with his friends.

Until then, I'm going to have to learn to live with the tears.

*Holly's description



Bedtime Stories

(Photo by Clifton Photographic)

Dylan is sleeping face down on top of his duvet, rotated a hundred and eighty degrees from where I left him. The following night, I find him sleeping sideways across his cot with his pillow under one arm and his duvet under the other. This is how he sleeps until we rearrange him. A few nights ago, after I’d tucked him back in, he rolled over and whispered ‘Daddy’ quite contentedly. Forget all that continuity of the human race crap; this is the real reason we have kids. It’s for those perfect, priceless and unforgettable moments. I just hope he was having a good dream.

It takes a dummy and two ducks to settle Dylan down after his bath. Sometimes he’ll have some milk and we usually watch a few episodes of Ben & Holly, but it’s the dummy and ducks that do the trick. Our dentist wants the dummy gone by the time Dylan’s two and I'm thinking we're going to need a third duck—one for each hand and one to chew.

Last night, after lights out, he decided to have some fun at our expense. He was calling for me, so I went up to check on him and found he'd thrown his ducks and water bottle on the floor. Five minutes later, Holly went up and the ducks were on the floor again. He’s realised that if he throws his toys out of the cot, someone will come and put them back. We’ll see how long that lasts.

I’ve been home a month already and it’s flown past. As well as housework, DIY and gardening, I’ve written three short stories (The Baby, Fallen Angels & Perfect Cadence), spent time on my diploma, and managed to find new recipes to try every week. This week’s highlights were tuna with courgettes and cannellini beans (from Jamie Oliver’s 20-Minute Meals Vol. 4), and cod with sweet and sour shallots (from Gordon Ramsay’s Healthy Appetite). Both were excellent recipes but I can’t believe how expensive tuna steaks are.

My DIY challenge this week is to squeeze a H870mm x W600mm x D570mm base unit into the H840mm x W598mm x D570mm space left by the built-in washing machine we gave to Holly’s cousin. I may need some help with this one.

The garden isn’t looking bad. The rhubarb didn’t make it and the rocket patch has been decimated; but the radishes look okay, the apple tree is in blossom and new buds have appeared on the grapevine (my Father’s Day present from last year). In the Grow Rack, we have Gardener’s Delight tomatoes, cabbage, basil, coriander, courgettes and two types of lettuce growing from seed; and the young strawberry and tomato plants are coming along nicely. I just hope I get to eat some of it.

I usually wake up between five and six am, earlier than I did when there was an alarm. I like to be downstairs an hour before Dylan (two hours before Holly), so I can have a cup of tea and do some writing before we start our morning routines. Dylan used to surface around eight but recently he’s been waking up earlier too. Maybe it’s the light spring mornings, or the woodpigeon I can hear over the monitor, but probably it’s just that he knows I’m home. Some mornings he chats to himself, some mornings he cries, but for the last week or so he’s been shouting ‘Daddy!’ And laughing.

Not this morning though. I don't know what that squawk is supposed to be but I'd better go and check.

post scriptum

Ten minutes ago, Holly put Dylan down for his lunchtime nap, and he’s been making thumping noises ever since. I’ve just been up to see what all the fuss is about and he’s emptied his cot. Toys everywhere. When I give him back his ducks and dummy, he lies down and pretends to go back to sleep. Five minutes later, he's banging again and it's the same thing. Trouble? Nope—just a little boy growing up. And he's beautiful when he's asleep.