Hymn

Training

I really don’t know why I bother.  I made a real effort to leave in good time for my train home tonight.  Usually, it’s a breakneck charge through the rush hour throngs having left work slightly later than I need to to make all the necessary connections.   Normally I collapse panting on the carriage floor having thrown myself over the unimpressed guard and through the closing doors.  This evening I’d given myself an extra fifteen minutes on the Underground but we stalled just outside Euston.  The train in front had broken, half-in, half-out of the platform.  We waited.  The temperature climbed to levels that would have made Satan himself hop from hoof to hoof shrieking, “Hot, hot, hot!”  Except, of course, this was the London Tube during Commuter Time and any form of movement was out of the question: it’s dangerous enough to exhale because of the risk of someone squeezing into your depleted lung space.  It was too hot and we were too close.  Let’s be honest, there’s a period during physical contact when a bit of sweat can be quite a pleasant addition.  This wasn’t one of those times.  If there was a moment when we were a bit slippery, it passed as quickly as an attempt to hold a toad with wet hands.  We were quickly mired in a thoroughly disagreeable stew where our communal perspiration took the consistency of treacle and glued us together like toffee-coated sardines in suits. 

After thirty minutes, just at the point when claustrophobia and BO threatened to burst into hysterical panic, we pulled, unannounced into the station.  I missed my train by two minutes so had the station concourse to enjoy for another fifty-eight.  Still, it did give me the best part of an hour to scrape off the residue of my fellow passengers.

Spinner

It’s been years since children’s playgrounds were a familiar stomping-ground for me but I’m rediscovering them.  Admittedly, with S not even crawling yet, it’s a little premature on her account but our friend’s little girl has enough energy to power a medium-sized town during the kettle-boiling halftime break of an England game.  And it was a windy Autumn day.  I’m not sure that it’s ever been scientifically explained but windy days make children very excitable.  They make me a bit giddy too. 

We subject S to our ‘Bit of Fresh Air’ ritual every day.  Come rain or shine.  She likes watching the trees.  Today was particularly exciting with the branches bent double, leaves smacking into us like the slap of a duelling glove and the pram tossing dangerously as storm force gales lashed across the grass.  While the rest of the party roped itself together for safety, I took little Olivia by the hand and with her flying behind me like a human kite in mittens, went in search of the swings and slides.

When I was a three year old, as I trudged from my shift down the mine to the day’s first chimney, I’d sometimes peer enviously at the local park with its wondrous sliding contraption and marvellous swinging chair and dream of a better life.  Nothing could have prepared me though for the hi-tech and surprisingly fun-looking set of apparatus in this play area.  And in direct contrast to almost everything else sophisticated and modern, this stuff was robust enough for kids to actually play with it.  So I did. 

There was a wobbly thing.  A clambering climbing frame.  A wavy wheeled thing.  A device that swings.  And a spinning spinny twirling spinning spinny spinner.  That might make an adult go green and feel sick for the rest of the afternoon.  And makes the sheltering children laugh.

Privates

The neighbours went out tonight.  Moments later the Boyfriend appeared, as though he’s been skulking behind the bushes at the end of the street, just waiting, biding his time.  Looking for an opportunity to sneak in.  Why doesn’t he want to join the family as they gather around the open fire for a night of story-telling and board games?  Maybe a bit of close harmony singing?  Why doesn’t he want to chat man-to-man with her dad and explain his honourable intentions?  Seek his advice?  What’s he got to hide?  What does he want to keep private?  Eh?  I suspect I know exactly what he’s hiding and it’s not pleasant. 

Digital Code

Now, I’m not a big believer in conspiracy theories or stories of abduction (that unpleasant episode with the Darts Team and the boot of a Hillman Avenger aside).  Generally, talk of extra-terrestrial contact is the reserve of lunatics madder than a mad mongoose or consumers of mind-altering drugs. However, I fear something is afoot.  Or rather a-hand. I haven’t touched a drop of liquor and I’m as sane as the next goat but I suspect aliens are using my fingers to communicate. 

It’s subtle, I grant you, but there’s something there.  On my thumb nail.  I’m used to ridges.  Ridges I know.  We all get ridges.  The occasional white spot.  No worries.  Bang on the finger or calcium deficiency, depending on who’s talking.  Common as Wimbledon.  That’s not what I’m talking about.  I have lines.  And bumps.  Lines of regularly spaced bumps stretching away from my cuticle.  Clearly visible lumpy bumps.  In columns.  Not that the columns are the same, mind.  No, each one has it own frequency.  I have Braille on my nail.  Aliens are transmitting a code and they’re just waiting for me to visit their impregnated beauty therapist for a manicure.  It’s the only rational explanation.

If I disappear suddenly, you’ll know They have taken me.

Brass Rubbing

I’m no expert on breasts.  Naturally, I’ve seen one or two in my time.  Mostly twos, actually, but I’m not sure I’d be counted among the connoisseurs.  Not for lack of trying, mind.  Thing is, I’ve never had my own set, it’s always been second hand.  Still, I consider myself experienced enough to know when I have some rubbing against me.  Even in unexpected places.  Like on the Tube.  During Rush Hour.  Now, I defy you to say that you can’t tell the difference between an involuntary crush and a deliberate press.  One always knows.  Even stripping away the Wishful-Thinking factor, there was definitely some pressing going on.  Bold as brass.  All the way from Hyde Park Corner to Green Park.  But, what to do in such circumstances?  I could hardly strike up a conversation.  I couldn’t remonstrate.  There was nowhere to move.  I had no choice but to suffer in silence, like a true Englishman.  For six glorious minutes.

Jaundiced

We’ve won a small victory.  In our game of Chicken with our neighbours and the unwanted telephone directories, they have buckled.  Proudly, we have an increasingly mouldy not quite yellow anymore Pages sitting outside our door.  Theirs has gone.  A triumph.  T does not understand.  She thinks I am making the place look untidy and embarrassing myself (and her) in front of the whole street.  She doesn’t understand that we are Making A Statement: we will not tolerate unwanted directories and we are prepared to litter our road and make our front garden untidy to make the point.  She says no-one cares and if she trips over it one more time, she’ll shred it and put the soggy strips into my underwear drawer.  She argues convincingly.  I think I have made my stand.  I have added the foisted item to my compost bin.  Each morning I will wreak my revenge in my own unique way.

Crank

Other people dream of being shipwrecked with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders or swimming in rivers of liquid chocolate or discovering they are the long lost Earl of Bognor Regis-shire and fabulously wealthy.  Last night I dreamt, in significant detail, about the rear axle of a short wheelbase Landrover.  And, with a crankshaft that looked like it had come off a mountain bike, it wasn’t even accurate.  I don’t even know what I’m talking about.  I really, really, need to get out more.

Man, That's Sick

I’ve spent months trying to penetrate the close knit skydiving fraternity.  You’d think it’d be easy, what with the shared recklessness of throwing oneself at the ground from high altitude and all.  But, no.  It’d be easier to insert an fully grown oak tree into a pair of stockings.  It’s not just that it’s all a bit cliquey, it doesn’t help that I’m a little too old, a little too incompetent and too rarely at the airfield.  I’m also way not cool enough for these ‘Diver Dudes.  My clumsy attempts at being friendly just make me appear desperate - never an attractive look.  Let me tell you, you just can’t coax a terrified Blind Date out of a toilet cubicle by being enthusiastic.  Even if you’re really, really, enthusiastic.  It gets even harder after a Restraining Order. 

However, today I made a little progress.  I’d managed to wring a conversation out of a guy buying coffee, one thing led to another and it wasn’t long before we’d agreed to jump together.  Now, before you start thinking that I’ve stumbled onto the set of a gay porno, let me just remind you that these are guys who regularly slip into tight-fitting jumpsuits, carry oversized coloured silk handkerchiefs, are transported to what some might say are unnatural highs with other men and then fall out with them.  You don’t get more macho than that. 

Anyway, despite the fact that we’d left the plane at 13,000 feet with me clinging on to him like a limpet and spent 8,000 feet (that’s 40 seconds to you and me) failing to make any other contact, we survived to tell the tale.  And we joked about chasing each other around the sky - in a perfectly normal and manly way, of course.  In fact, it was all fine until I started to leave.  “Yo! Man, what that on your trousers?”  ‘That?  That’s dried baby sick.’  And the bubble burst and it was all over.  I wasn’t cool.  I was a dad covered in vomit.

Ooo Ahhh

It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Well, it is her first Bonfire Night.  And she likes bright lights and pretty patterns.  And she’s pretty good with noise.  Though yes, admittedly, she does tend to jump and sob uncontrollably if someone sneezes unexpectedly.  Still, she didn’t cry at any time during the display, I think I heard her coo-ing, she had her milk when we got home and went straight to sleep so she must have been exhausted by the excitement and fresh air.  That or the bangs and flashes have put her into a catatonic daze and she’s suffering from acute shock.  How many traumas can an infant remember anyway?

Home Not Alone

I pulled into our street as my neighbours were leaving.  I waved amiably to them as they drove off.  Their house wasn’t empty though.  The children were Home Alone.  The Girl Next Door was unsupervised.  It could mean only one thing.  Almost before I’d taken my coat off, the Boyfriend turned up.  He appeared from nowhere like the witch in Chorlton and the Wheelies, wearing a baseball cap and texting so fast I couldn’t see his fingers.  No doubt bragging to his mates.  I opened my door, feigning interest in my unwanted Yellow Pages, but really just sending a signal.  They were too quick for me: I was left with the flapping pages of an abandoned telephone directory as they jumped inside.