Poppa John's

Took Lukey for his first paid-for haircut today. There's a great place in the town called Poppa John's, it's like a proper old barber's shop, but a bit posher. I'm happy to report they still have those chairs they put across the arms... only posher, natch. I really like proper barbers. My brother always claimed my aim in life was to get the shortest haircut by the oldest man for the least amount of money.

Went to Poppa John's for the first time a while back as they were offering a free shave... always fancied having a proper shave, old school, but was chicken. I think that after 25 years of shaving face, it was high time someone else got to have a go. Poppa John sends his staff here for training. Looks like my sort of place.

The shave was great, nothing like I expected. Felt much relaxed after all the hot towels, I could have had a sleep in the chair. Now that would be a service - a little sideroom for shaves and after you're done they turn the light off for half and hour.

Anyway, Luke. He sat there good as gold with his best grumpy face on and got a lolly afterwards for his trouble so no complaints from him. We will be going again.

... and on your right

What a good view of Norwich you have from here. Not the team, the city. There's the cathedral on the right looking cathederally and the square thing in the middle is the castle and just to the left of that you can make out the City Hall clock tower too. If I'd have stayed awake until half-time I'd have got a nice picture of the setting sun glinting on all the buildings.

Oh no! It's the Baby Jesus!

My personal favourite. The man on the left is a baddie, it's a baddie picture, see. And he's tripped over the thing on the ground. Possibly a vacuum cleaner. The artist has, rather impressively, caught him in mid-fall.

And look who he's going to fall on. Oh no! It's the Baby Jesus!

I should perhaps point out this was originally two pictures. Two separate pictures. Needless to say, Olivia wasn't impressed with the marvels of Photoshop. Girls eh?

Olive's elephants

Elephants seem to be a popular subject matter for our daughter. Compare and contrast these two offers. Just look at this happy colourful one, albeit trunkless. And then there's this rather menacing-looking black one 'squirting water at the circus'.

Wonder if you can anything about the child's mood from just looking at their pictures?

Puddle Jumping

We got a bunch of real pictures in the post today for the photo album. There's some great ones taken in the back yard after a huge downpour a while back. As you can see, Luke is into puddle jumping. Not splashing in puddles - jumping. A proper boy.

Things that I know - No.1

As a music journalist, you need to know that it's okay not to like Radiohead on occasion, but it's hard not to be fascinated by everything that surrounds them... especially online. I've written about them a fair bit - never met them, never interviewed them. You hardly need to.

Came across this today. Radiohead have fans in Guatemala. Impressive. I ended up here.

I'll leave you to it.

The Olive Collection: No.3

The Olive Collection: No.2

The Olive Collection: No.1

Was sorting through a big pile of paper in readiness for the recycling bin and came across a few pictures by the fair hand of Olivia. She just can't stop. She's working on a frieze at the moment. No really. It's taken her days. Getting her to stop to get her to school this morning was tricky.

Anyway, here's three pictures which could have been lost classics had I not saved them. Future generations will thank me one day.

The way to travel

Look at that face, anyone would think he'd been strapped onto the back of mountain bike and was about to be bounced at double quick speed across countless potholes, occasionally mounting the pavement, on his way to nursery. What? Oh.

So the bike complete with seat and squeaky back brakes got it's first run out. Lukey took it in his stride as you can see from his 'not impressed' face. It's quite nerve-wracking having such precious cargo sat behind you on a seat attached by a single screw to a bent bit of metal. Sure we'll get used to it.

The Birthday Assembly

Went to Olivia's birthday assembly this morning, she missed out last week because her class were on a school trip. It goes like this - when you have a birthday, you take something along to show everyone and there's a cake with candles and everyone sings 'Happy Birthday'.

It was the most amazing thing. We sat at the back with Luke who was bored rigid, but amuzed himself by unpacking the boxes of PE gear behind us. The children were so well behaved - they filled into the hall in silence and sat still. Amazing. In my day they're have been a near riot with that many kids in the same room.

There was some sort of special people presentation for being good that week - a couple of girls got stickers for 'working as a team and making good spiky shapes in dancing'. Wow eh? Not quite sure what 'good work in the Post Office' means, but it seemed to merit stickers anyway - with my eBay activity this week I should have got a sticker too.

It's also Children In Need today so all the kids took a bear to school in exchange for a 50p donation. Took a sneaky snap when they were all holding their bears up - a few hundred children and their bears was a truly great sight - that said, I fully expect to be arrested later if anyone finds out I took this picture so please don't tell. Cameras and schools just don't mix in the 21st century.

Bond, James Bond

Didn't make it to the library to brush up on 'The Grumpy King'. It had to wait because I've had some proper real work to do. Been up to my eyes in the new Oasis album (a 'Best Of...' that isn't really a 'Best Of...'. Don't get me started... oh all right then. It's their last album as part of the Sony deal - usual practice is to cough up a 'Best Of...' and have done with it because by the time you're on the last album of an option you're probably throughly sick of the label nagging and just want to be left alone so you let them put out all your singles and that counts as an album you don't have to do any work for... apart from press, but that's another story entirely. So this album is called 'Stop The Clocks', not 'The Best Of Oasis' because Oasis are very smart, see. They know by holding back on a the real 'Best Of...' they've got on big old bargaining chip when it comes to a new deal should they want one.) and the new James Bond film.

Funny old day.

Check out the trailer for the new Bond film though, looks blooming marvellous.

The Grumpy King

Olivia is appearing in her very first school play in December... and she's being very secretive about it. We think her class have been told not to tell us anything in case it spoils the surprise. Tell Olive something is a secret and a secret it will remain.

All we know is it's called 'The Grumpy King'. Obviously I've googled it and, well, not very much actually. It appears to be an old fairy tale because I've found a picture of the Ladybird book and then after sifting through five pages of search results, the following popped up, which claims to have been published in 1972.

'In the old fairy tale, the grumpy king runs a contest to find a jester who can make him laugh. Unsuccessful contestants go to the block. The winner gets a new suit of motley and the next-to-impossible job of making the king laugh again.'

No pressure then - make The King laugh or it's off with your head. If it's not this time, it'll be next time. Can't quite see five-year-olds re-enacting the dragging unsuccessful jesters to the block really. Mini Pops do Hammer House Of Horror anyone?

At tea-time I had a bit of a breakthrough. Seems the parts haven't been handed out yet - despite her telling us she was going to be The Grumpy King - and there's no sign of costumes yet. They have however been practicing songs. Olive claims there's 12... or 11... or [holds up all her fingers] that many.

Can she sing one of the songs I asked hopefully. And she did! HA! Something along the lines of 'Fetch me a coat of green and white, hurry up, don't take all night'. Seems The King sends five 'people' off to get him stuff...

I'm going to the library tomorrow. I really do have too much time on my hands.

Gardening leave

I've always liked the sound of gardening leave - it conjours up an image of Harry Redknapp pottering around in his greenhouse for some reason. It sounds fantastic. The best bit is, obviously, anyone on gardening leave is still getting paid.

No idea why I'm telling you this other than it popped into my head as I've just bought this very fetching bike off of eBay. It's an early Xmas present from my mum and dad, thank you!

And I guess the connection is it's going to live in the new bike shed we built last week.

Which is in our garden.

The plan is to get a bike seat for Lukey so we can get him to nursery chop chop and then be home double chop chop. The second Olive see it though she's going to want to ride in the seat and she is, in all likelihood, too big to be riding in bike seats. Back on eBay I guess for one of those stupid looking one-wheeler extensions that you fix on the back... and a 'Danger! Long vehicle' sign. Sigh.

Cloth Ears No.2

iTunes served this up this morning. A friend sent me it last year and I think he put it out as a seven. As I recall, his idea was I should pop it up for sale on War Child Music... needless to say I didn't. That John Lennon was a foul-mouthed young man wasn't he? Anyway...

Wax Audio 'Imagine'

Speak Norfolk

My sister, like most sisters I suspect, flings endless joke emails in the direction of my inbox. They all seem to originate from her friend who clearly has far too much time on her hands. Occasionally though, as is the way with these things, a little gem pops up.

Yesterday I got the following Norfolk dictionary. Very fine it is too. If you're planning on a visit in the near future, you might need to brush up. Altogether now..

• Narridge Yoonyun = major Norfolk employer.
• How're yer gettin arn buh = Norfolk greeting.
• Hair = here.
• Shicagooo's = nightspot on Prince of Wales Road.
• Bare = sold by the pint in Shicagooo's.
• Is that roight? = comment to show attention being paid to speaker.
• Ass a jouk = I'm just kidding.
• Windam = small town south of 'Narridge' (sensible abbreviation of its proper name = Wymundimundimundum).
• Loose-tarfed = east coast fishing port.
• Card = eaten battered, with chips, might well have been caught off 'Loose-tarfed'.
• Koodee = discount store.
• Hum base = DIY shop.
• Fooze = electrical component on sale at 'hum base'.
• Fool = petrol or diesel.
• Gatoo = sticky chocolate cake.
• Foo too = developed at local photo outlets.
• Jargon = like running, only slower.

Today's art offering

Wow, eh? Our little girl is becoming quite prolific on the old drawing front. Colouring was her bag for ages, but school really seems to have given her the confidence to strike out on her own. As you can see, hearts are favourite at the moment, she's been drawing them all weekend.

Lukey was special helper today at nursery. It's a real honour let me tell you. You get a certificate and everything. He came home quite excited at the fact he announced storytime and tidy up time. We even got a demonstration. Fantastic stuff.

He loves going to nursery, it must seem like the most fun ever being left in a room full of toys without mum or dad moaning at you the whole time. Anyway, we asked him what his favourite bit of the day was... 'Coming home,' he said without even a pause.

The party really is over

It was Olivia's party, yesterday. The wife's deadly organisational skills made sure 12 children, one magic show, a raft of hot dogs and a bucket of jelly and ice cream all went without a hitch. Marvellous. Here she is wearing, frankly, the coolest pair of baseball we've ever seen with her bestest pal Peggy.

Interestingly, we seem to have established that the average spend per parent on a present for a child they don't know is about £10. I guess part of it the relief that your child is popular enough to actually get invited to parties. When we moved here Olivia didn't get invited to a single party in the first year. Come year two and we'd obviously passed some sort of test and, bingo, parties galore. Anyway, back to the £10. There's clearly some sort of gift etiquette and if your purchase isn't up to scratch you get dissed in the playground (parents rather than the children thankfully). Caryn's convinced that one parent who threw a party to put the Beckhams to shame recently is still showing her displeasure at the two books we gave her little darling. Two. Books. Anyway, you should see the stuff we came home with - more My Little Pony than is strictly necessary, a ton of drawing/colouring in/sticking stuff which is always a winner and the best present of all? Two breakfast bowls and a cereal selection pack. Genuis.

One of the many joys of life is watching your children with other children. It makes me feel so proud watching Olive hold her own, it's especially lovely to see her forming her own little gang of mates. Lukey had a good time too - happiness really is jelly and ice cream for that boy. And he got a party bag with a car in it. Life just doesn't get much better when you're two.

DIY SOS... Day Two

The thing about building stuff, as the father-in-law so rightly points out, is that people often look at what you've done and say things like, 'It took you all day to make THAT?' Before anyone gets that chance, it took us most - but importantly not all - of the day to build this.

What is it? It's going to be the monkey enclosure when the illegally imported chimps arrive from China. We've got some chicken wire and bananas to buy, but it's almost ready. Tomorrow we're going to start on the penguin pool at the bottom of the garden and if we've got time we might lay the foundations for the lizard house.

It's basically a bike shed.

One small step...

Bought one of these today. It's a solar-powered shed light. No, really. I have a shed, it needs a light.

While spending most of the day waiting for the woodman who didn't cometh, Oupa decided best use of time was to build a whole bunch of shelves for the shed and we can now actually get in it without having to climb over a lawnmover and fall over over a plastic orange sledge. Once you've liberated a shed in this manner, surely it deserves a light of its own.

Actually quite pleased that it's solar. It's a start isn't it? One small step and all that. Would like to get into wind turbines swooping majestically on the lawn, rows of solar panels on the roof lighting our house, heating our water... actually looked into it and discovered that being envoirmentally friendly comes at a cost - an empty bank account.

By my maths it'd be 25 years before you started to reap the benefit of any kind of solar/wind energy source you might choose to install. 25 years? The official line is that it's more like 17 years... oh, well, that's okay then. Think I'll stick with my £20 shed light and perhaps I'll look for a small wind turbine to fit to the shed roof to power a kettle.

Can you see what it is yet?

Caryn's folks are in town for Olive's birthday and I've collared Oupa (the South African name for Grandad) for some garden DIY. Hopefully this bit of our garden will look quite different soon.

This morning we've mainly been waiting for the wood man to deliver some fresh supplies. We used to use him for logs for the woodburner in our old place - this being Norfolk he is a law unto himself and when he says he'll deliver 'middle of next week' it could mean absolutely anything. Different pace of life, see.

In the meantime, Oupa is keeping himself busy making shelves for the shed. He is the handiest of all handy men, very reasonable rates too... accepts payment in beer and marmalade made by the W.I.

The party's over

Another year, another birthday. We hope she enjoys being five.

When tractors attack...

Here's what happens when there's no girls in the house. The boys stand and gawp at the big tractor that rocks up and starts thrashing the oak tree over the road to within an inch of its stump. Fantastic stuff. Probably not the best way to deal with foliage though. If this was 'Lord Of The Rings' there'd be trouble after this.

Happy birthday to you...

Olivia is five today. Unbelievable really. How did she get to be five? She was born at Guy's on the stroke of 7.07am on a wet and windy Thursday - a horrible day made quite beautiful by her arrival. Time seems to have flashed by.

This is what she got from us, among other things. A Pixel Chick. She loves her Tamagotchi, but can rarely be bothered to look after it and only remembers when it's too late. Apparently this chick gives you attitude if you don't pay her enough attention. Sounds familiar, eh? Should be interesting.

This is Ebenezer Terrace

We are pretty useless it does have to be said. A five-year-old and a two-year-old tend to make you useless at most things other than looking after a five-year-old and a two-year-old. So we're trying again. Thanks Bob for the kick up the backside.

Cloth Ears No.1

Bobby Fuller Four - 'I Fought The Law'

Look what she did today

Since she started school in September, Olivia can't get enough of drawing. She always used to prefer colouring in - which she was pretty accomplished at - but now she just wants to draw. There's piles of pictures around the house and we've given over the hall wall to display the best of them. Today's offering then. She's not very forthcoming about it, but what we do know is that the stripy legs are trousers and not tights.