Time March's on - can it be the third month already? The month started with a bang for me - as in a starting gun - I have finally passed my driving test, and happily, before my son takes his own lessons now that he is old enough. He is the same age as I was - 17, when I took it upon myself to leave apartheid South Africa (obviously I was anti, I was anti everything and if you weren't anti-apartheid in 1986, your head was made of putty). I did this by sraping together my meagre modelling earnings, buying a ghetto blaster in Johannesburg and selling it on 'the black market' to a sympathetic BA pilot in Zimbabwe and getting the proverbial out to London.
I didn't look back from London, until now, 28 years later, when I look forward to Wales. Currently we are in London, but returning to Wales tomorrow. It has been a fun time: monkeying around at the local zoo, visiting friends, 'doing up' and simultaneously watching the younger kids wreck our flat here. We have been experiencing highs: elder son in flat seems to be growing through the ceiling and lows: trying to get him to work a bit harder (work/attitude/slothiness...) of being the parents of a teenager; I was stopped by the police on the notorious Old Street roundabout for apparently driving like a drunk even though I gave up the tipple back in January - oh so long ago! The copper who pulled me over was very nice considering I had veered to the left and back again (I missed my turn off to Holborn and temporarily forgetting I could just hamster it around again I had veered and reared - apparently I had "almost taken the front of his shiny beamer off.") He advised me take a 'u' turn and get back on the roundabout ("Enjoy learning to drive," he said merrily as I sheepishly got back in the car) which I eventually did after getting lost amongst the clubbcers of Shoreditch who seemed to favour partying in the road - they really were drunk - or high - or trying to annoy the rozzers or whatever.
Another of the challenges this week has been preventing baby son from taking the plug protectors out of the sockets and causing our lives to become more shocking than usual. We have failed and instead have to watch him like a hawk: between preventing him finding throat-plugging bits on the carpet to consume, and retrieving him from high places, socket covering has been adding to our listing - yes, we are practically toppling over in our general scurrying about - 6 of us again in this 2 bed place - though me and the kids have mostly been banished outdoors due to the DIY ("Did I yelp?") - Hubster has been walking the high wire of children taming and wiring in installations in Soho in between hammering his digits to the ground along with the carpet strips. The Welsh mountain air beckons like water made of diamonds.
Ow! The nipper - one this month and taking steps! - has just bitten me on the toe as I write.
