Art slouch

So, last weekend then.

You do kind of reach a point where the children just can't be in the house any longer. Or perhaps that's just our children. Anyway, we were up at 7am on Sunday and by 10.30am cabin fever had arrived.

So we were out of the house like a shot.

If you nip under the railway bridge by the station and follow the higgle piggle of 19th century weavers cottages, you'll find The Lizard, a whacking great meadow. It's owned by a trust for the benefit of the people of the town. Basically, it's a big bit of land that no-one can build a housing estate on. Which is fine by me.

So, as I've mentioned before, the town is celebrating the Abbey being 900 years old and art is very much on the agenda. As such, a plan was hatched to built three towers on The Lizard, the first of which opened in May. So we went to have a look...

I'm no art slouch - I have qualifications and everything, although I am very much lapsed - but this is a conceptutual piece, right? A wooden observation tower from which you can't see anything. Profound stuff. Actually, it's quite nice, it was built be Jony Easterby, whose work you can find here...

Anyway, the local freesheet had a great story last week about this boy, who along with his friends who had built a massive tree house in mum's back garden. It was a bolthole, a sleepover type place. Can't find the picture online, might have to dig it out of the bin, but here's the story.

They say it's cost them £30, with most of the materials being scavenged from various places.

Made me wonder how much the tower cost. I had a poke around and it's surprisingly difficult to find out... I did find the brief which has it at £200 a day x 31 days + £800 to 'facilitate community liaison' for 30 hours, ish, (ie, talk to school children, meet the mayor, etc) and £3,000 for fabrication, delivery and installation. Blimey eh?

That seems like a lot of cash doesn't it? Nice as it is, I'm not sure it's worth that sort of spend. I wonder if they got a quote from a local chippy? Personally, I'd like to have seen the tree house boys commissioned to build some in The Lizard.

This is astonishing

I love listening to the radio, it's on most of the time burbling away in the background. This morning on Five Live, Victoria Derbyshire has been getting over excited about a 999 tape of a home birth.

It's just been on and, flipping heck, she wasn't kidding. It's amazing.

If you do one thing today, make eight minutes to listen to it. You'll find it here.

There's a fabulous moment, with his wife howling like she's, well, having a baby, and the guy says to here, 'Wait there...'

Brilliant.

Anyone for tennis? Anyone?

The wife was in London this weekend visiting her sister so I was on duty, which is never anything less than an enlightening experience. Sorry about the unrelated picture. It's nice though isn't it? That's us up an expensive wooden tower in the middle of field...

Anyway, Olivia had her first tennis class (I hesitate to call it a lesson because I'm not entirely sure how much one man can teach 21 five-year-olds in an hour) and I have no idea if she liked it or not. As the wife points out, we'll only know next week by her reaction when we tell her it's tennis.

She's good like that - show no emotion, give nothing at all away. Don't know why. Lukey will literally jiggle up and down on the spot if he's excited by something. With Olivia it's so hard to tell. What chance do we stand, really.

I did learn that she is calling herself Olive, which should have been her real name had we not met with some parental resistance - not sure whose parents as both deny it now, but resistance there was otherwise we'd have done it.

So anyway, me and Luke were sat upstairs in this sports hall and we could hear the coach bellowing 'Olive' now and again. There could only be one person he was talking to. Quite why she's suddenly chosen to do this is anyone's guess.

She is a remarkable little girl, our daughter - very lovely, utterly infuriating, inspiring and a total pain in the bum, all in equal measures. What's she going to be like at 15?

Football after school

In a strange moment, Olive asked if she could play football after school. It's strange because she doesn't strike us as the sporty type. She's the one in the yellow top, staring intently at the ball. Not sure if she'll stick at it, but she seemed to really enjoy it and actually scored a goal too.

It was a real poacher's goal, the way she tucked it away with a split second to think as it bobbled in front of her was Michael Owen in his prime. Well, you know.

There's loads of girls playing which is impressive, but it seems to make it much easier for the boys. Olive's pal William just spent the whole time ball-hogging and scoring goal after goal. His celebrations were impressive for a five-year-old.

... And because we don't think Olive seems all that sporty we've booked her in for tennis starting on Saturday morning. Parents eh?

Summer's gone

On Sunday we headed to the coast in the hope of blowing away some cobwebs. Turns out it was August at the seaside - baking hot, glorious blue sky and us with a flask of coffee.

Funny old business weather. We've got a digital barometer in the kitchen - it's got a little man on it and he dresses for the appropriate weather. This morning he had his hat and scarf on. Day before yesterday the children were stripped off paddling in the sea, today it was scarfs on for the walk to school.

And now the sun's out and the sky is blue, but I'm not sure I'd have it any other way. It's part of being British isn't it? Interesting weather.

I have two words... over and excited

Other people might have two different words in mind after the goings-on of the last week. Very and drunk, hungover and extremely, four and tea. You know. So anyway, I've finally turned 40. Don't know how I've made it, but I have and as a few have pointed out, relatively unscathed too.

There was the party last weekend which was a success I think. Lots of children in the afternoon and early evening, me and Mr Knowles the last ones standing, or sitting down at least, at around 3am. Ish. I think I might have had a snooze in the hammock after Ben stumbled indoors, but was too drunk and can't quite remember.

Anyway, yesterday was the big day. 10 years since Diana's funeral and 10 years since I was 30. Heck eh? The wife served up a cracking present for a 40-year-old in the shape of Nintendo Wii. Top notch pressie. And you know what? 40 isn't that bad. It's like being 39, only you're 40.

I appreciate that I'm rambling now, but soak it up, it doesn't happen that often these days. To cut a long story short, I've been wanting to make some sort of homebrew for a while. We've had apple trees in the last three places we've lived so cider seems a good choice.

Thing is, I've always thought it's probably as hard to make cider as it is to make decent beer. So, after Cuz filled up a carrier bag from the trees last weekend and commented that we should make cider, I had a look online and it seems quite easy. Or at least straightforward.

So, I've invested my birthday cash in a small apple press and some other stuff required for making cider. It arrives on Tuesday. Excited. Overly.