After a couple of hours taking each of the kids on a bike ride around the town this morning I was already knackered and my day had barely begun. It was an especially difficult hour with Master6, who insisted on braking every five minutes or so, completely out of the blue, right in front of me.
“Just testing the brakes, Dad,” he’d call back at me while I untangled myself from various native flora. It was like riding a bike inside Mario Kart.
We managed a hour at the library, where we said “shhh!” a lot, and borrowed so many books we needed to use two of our library cards. Master6 has nearly finished one of his already – Diary of a Whimpy Kid. Actually, Tracey was looking over his shoulder and chuckling, so I suspect she might have a read after him.
In a tip of the hat to holidays from both Tracey’s and my youth, we even took the kids to the pub and had a couple of bowls of chips and gravy, and shared some soft drink. Eating chips is exhausting, so after this we then went home for a nap before the start of mud flat toboganning.
Unfortunately we can’t afford a boat so I ended up dragging the little ones through the shallow water while Tracey took photos and sniggered at me. The kick-board-on-a-rope seemed like such a fantastic idea at the shops yesterday, and the pictures on the packaging made it look so easy – the father was laughing, for Pete’s sake. I should sue.
Banking doesn’t really prepare you for imitating a speed boat.
Tomorrow the kids have asked if we can again go riding, so I’ll need to get to bed early tonight if I’m to have any energy. And I’ve got to work out how to tell Master6 with his spontaneous road testing of his brakes he’s less likely to have an accident with them being faulty than by over testing them – otherwise his braking might cause me to be breaking a leg.
