Welcome to 2013

Dylan finds his mummy in the kitchen, washing up.

 
Dylan: What are you doing here?
Daddy: Your mummy was put on this planet to make wonderful little boys like you.
Dylan: Oh dear.
 
It has been a long time since I posted a blog update and this may well be my last. It’s not that I’ve found a job, it’s more that things feel like they are coming to an end and I need to make the most of my time at home.
 
I passed the Diploma and, incredibly, got distinctions in the exam and evidence file. The exam board said “All the judges agreed that they would wish to employ Chris. His enthusiastic personality and natural communication ability, combined with his clear speech and articulate way of presenting facts, make him stand out from the crowd. He has a vision for the future and we feel he will be an outstanding head of internal communications in a few years.” You’d think this sort of kind testimonial would go a long way towards getting me a job but I’m learning that it doesn’t work quite like that.

Every year I go to the Cropredy Music Festival with five friends. In 2011, we were all employed and pursuing careers. Right now, half of us are unemployed and another one is employed but unpaid. Holly’s brother was made redundant after Christmas. The whole of my old team was disbanded. The job market is bleak and it seems to be affecting everyone.
 
Still, we had a wonderful Christmas and Dylan loved every second of it. He’s doing okay with his letters and numbers, and he knows all the common colours. Occasionally he will tell me what two colours make purple, orange and green. He’s just passed his second badge at Tumble Tots and we have finally started swimming lessons. Unfortunately, the lessons coincide with his nap, so the first week I had to leave after ten minutes with Dylan sobbing in my arms. But we went back and he loved it. We’ve also started making weekly trips to Horseworld as Dylan has become quite obsessed with animals. He knows the names of all the horses at Horseworld and, in his animal books, can correctly identify lions, tigers, cheetahs and leopards, which I think is pretty good for a two-and-a-half year old.
 
Our house is a lot of unfinished jobs. Before Christmas, I started decorating our bedroom, and I’d like to think I would have finished by now if I hadn’t discovered a serious condensation problem in the loft when I went up to fetch the tree. We’ve emptied the contents of the loft into the spare room and my dad is helping me to improve our loft space but it is slow going. Our bedroom is on hold until the spare room is clear and I don’t know when that will be. On the plus side, the long periods of wet weather, followed by the recent cold, have highlighted problems with our cavity wall insulation, which will be fixed tomorrow. I’m looking forward to a warmer, dryer house.
 
I’ve more or less given up on writing short stories. Before Christmas, I started working on a sitcom which absorbed a lot of my free time, and then this was parked to work on a new recording. In January, one year after I recorded Americana, I went back to the studio to record four more of my songs. It was an intense weekend but I’m really pleased with the results, some of which can be heard here. My ‘Song for Christmas ep’ will be available to buy through iTunes and Amazon later this year.
 
I’m still gigging and last month I was invited to play an hour long set at the Pucklechurch Cider Festival. In May, I’ll be playing the first set after the official Page Park bandstand opening ceremony and I’m planning to write a song to mark the occasion. It’s lovely to be invited back to play these festival gigs, especially when I can see Dylan dancing and singing along.
 

He’s always singing nowadays. Loud and mostly out of tune. And he’s always coming out with new expressions like 'What are you doing here?' (meaning: what are you up to?) It seems like only yesterday, when his favourite film told the story of a 'wan' (lion) cub and the circle of life, he proudly stood at the top of the stairs and shouted 'Daddy, Wan-King!)'

Those days are gone but the entertainment never stops. Someday soon I'm going to have to go back to work and, even though I will hopefully be employed in the communications role I've been after for so long, it's going to be really hard to leave my boy.

He's magic.

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.