one johnny neptune
post midnight mercy shopping
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something, teeth almost certainly, is upsetting the boy. we are, of course, out of bonjela and gripe water (the old ‘knees up and cry’ routine suggests a touch of wind too) so it’s jump in the car and scoot on down to the local 24 hour supermarket for supplies.
remarkably, given the hour, and the fact i don’t live in a bustling metropolis, it’s very busy. 5 mins of queuing once i have a basket full of goodies is just daft. even more daft is the man in front of me, in his 60s, has nothing but a packet of raw beetroot. at 12.30 in the morning his pressing need for red root vegetables had clearly got the better of him.
there was a touch of the surreal about the whole experience. especially as i barely saw another car in the 15 miles from here to there. and back.
Three cheers for Dr Beeching
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Ok, I may have to travel over 16 miles to get to my nearest train station thanks to the good Doctor’s work in the 60s, but if it wasn’t for him my house wouldn’t exist (set as it is where the sidings to where the local station on the Salisbury & Dorset Junc. line was) and we wouldn’t have quite so many fantastic walks around here.
One such walk is the Castleman Trailway, originally a trainline from Southampton to Dorchester, so called because of the way it meandered to take in previously unserved towns.
A section of the old line from Ringwood down to Upton is walkable, we often park just outside of Ringwood and walk in on it, taking in the views of the River Avon and the church spire. The only thing that spoils the walk is the noise from the A31 which runs alongside it.
Today, the sun was shining and I decided to take Tom for a walk in the other direction, from Ashley Twinning to Ashley Heath. It’s the first time I’ve walked that way and it was really nice. You don’t get the view of the river, but as it isn’t so close to the main road, you don’t get the noise either. It’s a gentle 1.5 mile stroll through views of gorse bushes, pine trees and grazing meadows with nothing but birdsong and squirrels for company. Apart from a succession of pensioners on mountain bikes, all of whom said ‘hello’.
There’s virtually nothing of the railway left, just two perpendicular gravel paths. On the way in to Ringwood there are still a few sleepers visible, but on the walk I took today there was a small concrete step by the side of the path and a pre-fabbed hut, in a state of poor repair.
Now the weather’s getting better I think I’ll try and walk the whole 17 miles (in easy small chunks) and see what I can see. The map at the top of this blog shows all the other old lines, some of which can be walked. The section of line our house is on is a less well maintained path and tricky with a buggy but can still be done. Maybe if I time it all right, I might meet the delightful Julia Bradbury.
Tags: castleman trailway, julia bradbury, old train lines, ringwood
five into three won’t go
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So daughter#1 will have to share with Tom, once he finally starts sleeping through the night. Boy/boy would be preferable, but son#1 turns 13 next month and it’s really not fair to subject Tom to that! S#1 is more bedroomly active than D#1: dvds, later nights, intense study of the norwegian leather industry, that sort of thing.
So there’s been a necessity to get some new bedroom furniture for the kids, and think about moving them about. Issue #1 – S#1 has blue room, D#1 has pink room. To swop over requires re-decoration, at least of one of the rooms. We picked up a bargain Ikea bed on ebay, which lead to a most exciting road-trip to the outskirts of Swindon on Monday (note to self: check seller’s whereabouts *before* bidding) – Taking advantage of a day off to look after D#1 while Tom is in nursery, I’ve just finished putting it together, it looks great, but it doesn’t really fit where I’ve put it – that said, it’s too bloody big to turn round (and oh, have I tried), so it’ll have to do. Of course, once we swop the kids to their respective new rooms it’ll have to come apart again. Gah!
Issue #2 is the return leg of the French exchange in June. How much do we get sorted before then and how much do we leave? For some god-forsaken reason we are putting up two girls. It’s all changed since I did French exchange – one English kid, one French kid, they stay at each other’s houses. Now it’s they have to go in pairs and you don’t necessarily get the kid you stayed with before. At least it’s only for 3 days.
Eventually of course, we’ll get the garage turned into a kitchen and turn the kitchen into a bedroom. And then five will go into four perfectly.
Look at the size of that thing!
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We got the car seat and ended up doing a total tour of Dorset in the process. I shunned Shaftebury on the way home in favour of the Cerne Abbas Giant. You can’t beat seeing a gigantic chalk wanger if you ask me, it’s even better than a hill. Beneath the giant were lots and lots of baby lambs frolicking about in the meadow, so I guess he’s doing his job properly.
After taking in the beauty of a 30ft phallus I decided to further engage the 12 year old inside of me and snigger my way home along the River Piddle and the towns of Piddletrenthide and Piddlehinton.
Road Trip
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No music bugs today due to Tom’s eyes, so we’re off to Sherborne to buy a 2nd hand car seat. We’ve had our jabs and i’ve prepared Tom for a gene pool the size of a bath, webbed hands and women with Adam’s apples.
West and North Dorset is a whole different world, I had to drop #1 son to a friend’s house in Sixpenny Handley on Saturday. We stopped to ask directions and while the road we were looking for was unknown, the profferance of his surname led to directions so exact it’d put a sat-nav to shame.
We might stop in Shaftesbury on the way back to see the Hovis Hill, I shall hum Dvorak while doing so.
A trip to the doctor
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Tom woke up with an eye the size of Greenland this morning, all stuck together with a green gunk that i’m thinking of marketing as a new superglue. It’s left him with the sort of look that would make him a shoe-in to play Ernst Blofeld when they re-cast Bond films with babies.
After redialling the doctors for 15 (fifteen) minutes, I finally got through and was allocated a spot with a nurse practitioner. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a doctor down there, maybe there aren’t any.
Initial thoughts of conjunctivitis were confirmed, although the precise sort of conjunctivitis is still under debate – most likely it’s hay-fever related – his little tear-ducts can’t cope with the pollen and ‘stuff’ in the air reckoned the nurse, here have some eye drops, 4 times a day, come back on Friday if it’s no better.
Now, have you ever tried to give a baby eye-drops? On your own? You need a hand for the bottle, a hand to hold him still and a hand to open his eye. That’s three hands: one more than is usual, even for rural Dorsetshire. It was interesting to say the least, he didn’t seem to mind though. We’ll see what he’s like next time, when he knows what he’s in for.
No music bugs tomorrow though. It was going to be Easter Bunny week too. Bah.
We’ll see what he’s like next time edit: Not happy.
And the time after that: Wouldn’t open his eyes. He’s a bit smart.
Where are the wottingers?
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On the ninky nonk of course, you silly pontipines.
In the night garden: Cheaper than acid with easier comedowns.
How exciting is this?
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The local independent cinema is showing an hour of BIG SCREEN “in the night garden” next week.
I think it’s exciting. I’ve not actually sat through an episode of it from start to finish, but Tom loves it, so who am I to argue.
Being a part-time stay at home dad…
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is not easy.
I appear to have turned into the BIGBADISAIDNO
for instance: you put the boy in front of the telly for 5 mins while you get the sheets in, you look round and he’s trying to eat the record player
TOM, NO
and then he’s trying to eat the playstation
TOM, NO
pulling everything off the coffee table? cd racks? eat the cat?
NO, NO, NO
Wait, you need some background information. Tom is just coming up to 9 months. He already has the attitude of a teenager. Myself, I am approaching 36. Barely old enough to look after myself, let alone a baby.. so how has this all come about?
Simply put, we didn’t want to put Tom into nursery full-time at 6 months old and, god bless feminism, I earn less than my partner. An ameniable arrangement was struck with my employer and now on Monday & Tuesday I’m at home with the boy and Wednesday-Friday I’m in the office.
Let me say, however, I’m not *that* sort of stay at home dad. I do not have children called Troilus and Cressida & I do not knit yoghurt sandals.
When I say it’s not easy, the looking after Tom part is rewarding, challenging and no matter how much he cries or is grumpy, or does what he shouldn’t be doing, he will stop crying, he will cheer up and he will, when offered a rice cake, stop being wilful. He will also SMILE the best smile in the world.
No, the ‘not easy’ bit has nothing to do with Tom and more to do with me. Or people’s attitudes toward me when they see me out, when I should be at work, with him. You can see the thought forming before they’ve even thought it. It has to do with joining baby groups and being the only person there with a beard (obviously, the woman with the really *ugly* baby has a beard but that’s unfortunate, not a choice). You do not belong. You are on the outside looking in and for as much as you will be smiled at and asked how old Tom is, you won’t really feel accepted. When the group leader says about hoping all the mums have a good weekend you will want to say ‘and dads’ but you don’t want to seem churlish.
In short, it seems that being a man looking after a baby is just a short cut to an existential crisis. And I thought it would be a few chores and an afternoon film if I was lucky.
