Saturday
26th February 2005 Yesterday I got up from my desk and noticed that my flies
were undone. As it had been several hours since I last undid them, I was a little
worried about how many people had noticed and had a silent giggle at my expense.
It was not as embarassing as my father's accident with undone zips. Being avid
skiers, my father and I used to go to Europe skiing together, taking different
friends almost every time. One year, Terry had bought himself a new ski-suit,
an all-in-one outfit. He was keen to show it off to everyone, and chose an opportunity
when a few people from the village were visiting. So Terry went off to get his
suit on whilst the other 7 people stayed for a cup of tea. Terry then appeared
in the doorway, wearing his grey and salmon suit, and did a little cat-walk
around to show it off. One person commented that there seemed to be a lot of
zips, so Terry started to show how big the pockets were. As he started unziping
his new outfit, he ended up undoing enough so that his clothes ended up falling
off him, so he was then standing there in just his underpants.
I have been getting through a bit of my home-brew beer recently,
as it's been getting warmer, so I had to start making my next batch. I dropped
in on the way home from work to get the ingredients, so this morning I started
on the cleaning and sterilising whilst Ann was looking after Thomas. I only
have to make sure that the 
wort
does not get too warm.
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After having a look at a few more houses in the area (none
of which sparked our interest), we all went to Semaphore
to have the afternoon at the beach. It's about 30 Km from our house to the beach,
and we took our garden umbrella as it was 32°C and the sun was quite harsh.
Once we got the beach, it was very easy to find a place on the white sand, as
there must have only been 30 people on 1km of the beach in the 300m between
the dunes and the warm sea. Unfortunately, our choice of seating area ended
up getting a little damp as the sea rose - it was also difficult to jam the
umbrella into the hard sand.
Thomas loved the warm sea, paddling out, and then sitting in the water to splash
around. He enjoyed the little waves, bracing himself for when the next one was
about to hit. He splashed so much that his face got coated in sea water, which
he did not like the taste of, and after a little while he got really upset -
maybe he got some of the water in his eyes.
Once relocated to softer sand, Thomas started to dig
back to England. Ann and I buried his legs - which he found most amusing.
The effort to get Thomas and all the supplies back to the car was compounded
by Thomas wanting to stay and the soft sand that was getting everywhere. I had
only vacuumed the car this morning, and now there was sand everywhere!
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Today the students returned to the University. Now there are many more people around, and it makes the place seem more alive. It was a very warm 36°C today, with not a cloud in the sky. They must all be over England, where my mother told me it was -7°C last night.
Ann took Thomas to the childcare again today, and Thomas was very happy there when Ann went to pick him up. He must have had a really good time, because he was very tired and grumpy by the time that I got home.
I have spent quite a time today putting together more pictures
and videos for you to enjoy. Have a look at yesterday's visit to the
beach at Semaphore, and watch Thomas taking his first
spoon of food by himself. Also, watch a video that I did a long time ago,
Thomas dancing
after his first birthday party. Thomas loves the camera a lot, so it is a little
strange when Thomas pulls
a face whenever he sees the camera is on him.
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This evening I went to my astronomy class at Mawson Lakes. Even though it was cloudy, I took my old telescope. During the class, the lecturer was talking about all the things to look for in a telescope, whilst demonstrating why his telescope was a good choice. Then he explained what is bad and what to avoid when buying a telescope, and pretty every point applied to my old telescope.
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Thomas is really walking well now. He is spending much more time on his feet, but he still has not really got the hang of stepping over obstacles on the floor. He is able to get his leg over for the trike, so he is able to entertain himself with that - he has even worked out the steering.
Ann took Thomas to the physiotherapist again today - not that Thomas needs any more help. There were babies there that Ann recognised from the last sessions that they went to (about 3 months ago) and those babies are still not even crawling. One little boy is 21 months old, and still stationary - whereas Thomas is up and about, picking up toys from infront of other children and generally getting up to mischief.
Thomas is also doing well at the daycare - Ann went to pick him up, and found him all happy. He must gradually be getting used to it. There will be a day that Thomas won't want to leave.
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This morning in the car, Anne and I were discussing handbags.
We were talking about how more men are carrying bags that could be categorised
as handbags. Whenever I go out with Ann for dinner (or even just shopping sometimes),
I have to give Ann my keys for her to put in her bag, or even sometimes my wallet.
Anne said that her husband also does the same thing, handing over all the items
that he should be carrying, but bulging pocket sizes will not allow. I showed
Anne the bag that I take to work, which is about A4 in size, but has a few pockets
for things like my wallet and keys, and I showed that I now have my mobile phone
on my belt. Yes, I know, I also used to think that people who had their mobile
on their belt were flash gits who just wanted to show off their latest model
of phone, but it's become a necessity for me to have the mobile there instead
of bulging embarassingly in my pockets. Mobiles are getting small enough that
they can be unobtrusive on a belt, but at the same time embarassingly ambiguous
in a trouser pocket.
I remember seeing in Europe and the UK that men were starting to carry bags
that looked like camera cases, which were just big enough to carry all the things
that the average 20-something would carry everywhere - mobile phone, wallet,
keys, handheld computer, iPod, headphones, mobile phone handsfree kit, USB thumb
drive, huge numbers of plastic cards (why is it that everything from a Blockbuster
card to a gym membership is credit-card sized, but most wallets will burst after
the 8th card?) etc, etc…
Whilst working (briefly) at EDS, I asked the guys there what they carried their
wallets in if they were not wearing a suit jacket - and they all agreed that
their laptop bags contained everything. It's a difficult situation to be a man
in a warm climate (ie no jackets), and be able to carry everything without either
looking like you have lots in your pockets or have a belt like a policeman.
I see more and more people (probably just the computer type people who I work
with) with belts that have everything - mobile, camera, leatherman - or the
horror of horrors - bunches of keys! They look (and sound) like a jailer who
is lost. What do you think?
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I once went to a stag night for a good friend of mine, where
his best man was his brother. The arrangement was that everyone was to go to
Birmingham to the best man's house - this meant that everyone had to travel.
We also had to bring our own sleeping bags, but we were assured that the best
man had everything under control.
When we all arrived, we found that the best man (let's call him James) had only
moved in a few weeks ago, and had very little furniture and most of his stuff
still in boxes. There was barely enough floorspace for people to unravel their
sleeping bags, and we were all worried about who would end up sleeping in the
bath tub - but luckily some boxes were stacked and then the fear was who was
going to sleep within falling range of the crate of video tapes.
So then the party commenced. Sort of. James had 'arranged' the evening, but
all he had done is book a mini-bus to take us home from the night club after
closing time at 4am. Unfortunately his first error was that the club closed
at 3am. His second mistake was not arranging entry to anything before the club
opened at 10pm. So we were 12 guys trying to get into pubs - and we found that
most doormen would not let us in.
We ended up going to a chinese restaurant, where we ordered drinks before, during
and after every dish was served. It was a funny time when it came to pay, as
we asked for the bill to be split 12 ways, and all but one of us put down gold
credit cards.
Eventually we managed to split up into small groups to get entry to some pubs,
where the drinking continued. I noticed that there was a yard glass on the wall
behind the bar, and so I requested to have it filled with the groom's favourite
drink - lager. Unfortunately he ended up with a foot of beer and 2 feet of foam.
The barmaid was very busy, and could not be bothered to work out how much it
would cost, so we got it for free. When the groom drank the foam/beer mixture,
and got much of it over his head, he had to dash off to the toilet to relieve
the pressure in his stomach of all the foam. We then forced him to drink the
rest of the yard of lager.
We then went to the night club - I remember that the music was so loud that
it was distorted, and that none of us enjoyed it (except James). We all decided
that we wanted to leave early. But, the bus was arranged for 4am, and it was
barely 1am. We had to wait in the cold and boring bus station - all of us dying
of a pee, but all the toilets were locked up due to vandalism. The cold and
waiting had sobered and woken us all up a bit, and so the journey home was a
bit tense.
When we were back in James' house, we just went to bed. In the morning, we woke
to find that James had no milk, no coffee, no tea, had nothing else to drink
except half a bottle of flat coke, he had no paracetamol or Lucozade - but the
worst thing was that he had no toilet paper!
The thing that I learnt from this was that you should always plan ahead, and never expect that anyone else has planned at all.
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