36min 45sec

Nothing but questions

Having had the next generation of the family with us has been awesome. It was so great to spend time with the boys and be part of their lives as much as possible. Watching them play in a way I remember from when I was their age is a great reminder of how my generation of family were. However it also raises questions in my own life that I had long considered resolved.

I distinctly remember when I was growing up that my great Aunt Hilda, whom I've written about before didn't have kids. I wondered about that in the way that children do without malice purely seeking the information. I was told by my parents that it was rude to ask such questions of other grown ups,  so i didn't. I just got back to whatever ever other shiny thing had distracted me

And now I regret it.

If I could I'd ask if she and her husband Bill wanted to have children but never did or if they had had the conversation Em and I had many many years ago. Kids were not part of either of our plans and like responsible people we talked about it when we started to get serious about each other.

I can think of nothing worse than not having that conversation until its forced on you by marriage or a broken prophlactic.

Anyway having spent time with the generation that our kids would be if we had taken a different path it put me in mind of how Hilda and Bill would have been when we were growing up.

The things I have of Hilda now are photos and keepsakes but they hold no answers for me. They can't tell me if she regretted her choice not to have children as one day I might.

Beach

Theres something primordial about being at the beach.

Caffeinated infusion confusion

It was mums birthday recently. In lieu of buying her another present that may or may not serve soley as a dust collector we collaberated and bought her a giftbox of coffees

Let me back up a second.

About six months ago mum bought herself a posh coffee maker one of the type with pods of coffee that you insert one end and in an ideal world a barrista style coffee comes out the other end fresh and foamy enough to make a Starbucks employee weep gomme tears. The idea was to make having a decent cup of coffee as easy as inserting a 'pod' and pressing a button.

It was not the coffee pod brand that I would have suggested had I been consulted. Let me put it this way, George Clooney would have been dissapointed with her choice but probably would have mentioned it in the suavest way possible.

However when the machine is activated what actually happens is it creates a noise like reality being torn asunder and spews forth a thick treacly liquid like the caffeine rich blood of the devil. Mum had persisted with the device rendering it suitable for consumption by humans via homeopathic principles but I was rapidly getting tired of warm beverages with the memory of coffee.

To this end we bought a sample of EVERY single type of 'pod' this machine could accomodate with the hope that one would provide a coffee that was neither too strong or too weak and just like goldilocks we could settle in with a decent beverage.

Mum was stoked to say the least and bustled to the kitchen to try it out. I headed in five minutes later to find her huddled over a retort flask applying the same logic to this pod as to her super strength ones.

It was then I realised that it wasn't about having the best coffee possible, it was about having agency in the coffee making process. Pressing a button lacks the human input of coffee creation and the pursuit of the perfect cup of coffee is about the journey not the end result. Although I have had a lot of caffine today so I could be talking gibberish. ...

Football in the Garden.

Now I might be paraphrasing Richard Curtis here, but I think you lose an essential part of yourself when you travel by airplane. You surrender to a Kafkaesque nightmare of bureaucracy and procedure.

Stand there.
Be Here at this time.
Don't talk about these things.
Don't carry these things.
Carry liquid containers smaller than those you would ever normally purchase if the government weren't afraid you were going to become some kind of Heisenberg-like genius and concoct an explosive device out of Right Guard and factor thirty Ambre Solaire.

Breaking any of these seemingly arbitrary rules could find you forced to remove your clothes in front of a stranger who is wearing a rubber glove and a purposeful look. And not in a good way.

So when you emerge out of this area of strangeness and fear into, say, the arrivals hall of a major international airport, your face seems to contort in a certain way. The fear is replaced by relief and a sense that things have at least started to shift back towards normalcy after the Borstal-like nightmare of the last hours (minus the shankings of course).

Phil had previously stated that no one had ever met him from the plane at Manchester Airport so I advanced there with a sign saying "Welcome Taylors!". Em and I had a plan that if the both of use went we would stand five feet apart deliberately not looking at each other holding signs saying "The Judean peoples front" and "The peoples front of Judea".

I'd stood there for half an hour or so whilst the Airport machinery did its thing and my Brother, Amanda and the three boys emerged blinking into the light. Jack waved at me and Hugh just started laughing (he does that a lot, I'm trying not to take it personally). On their last visit Owen, the youngest, wasn't walking so its great to see him developing into a little guy wandering around and trying to get involved in everything.

So far a lot of people have made the comparison between my Brother and I and Jack and Hugh, I was the second child and smiled a lot. Phil was a bit more serious about his fun.

Speaking of Phil it was great to spend some time with him as he and I went to pick up a rather nice rented Passat with lots of room for the kids. now I'm not saying we got lost from the rental car place back to the terminal to pick up Amanda and the kids but the route we took was certainly scenic and Phil and I had time to vociferously curse the airport road layout and all designers thereof.

We got to "Grannys" and she was waiting with big smiles and hugs for all the kids as is the want of Granny's everywhere. They lost no time at all in getting a football and having a kick-about in the garden. It's great playing football with six and four year olds as my ability with a football consists of being just about able to boot it in the roughly the intended direction. No one's expecting me to go on a mazy run on the right and swing a big cross into the box. If i can boot it to them they're happy which makes me happy. Phil and I used to play a lot of football in the garden, which was big enough to hold our footballing dreams of glory even if our skill-sets didn't quite match up.

Amanda looks really well considering her fourth is due in October, it's been great seeing how amazing she and Phil are as parents and for that matter Jane and Wez as well. I think maybe it's just Em and I that never developed that parenting gene.

It's sobering if I'm honest. I lead a very selfish life compared to nearly all the parents I know. It's not that I feel guilty about my life choices, alright I do feel slightly guilty, but it's more that I see the sacrifices that the people that I love have made and I see the development of these tiny people as their reward and it seems like a lovely way to spend your short existence. However I've never been puked on at three in the morning whilst trying to change a nappy so I know it isn't all sunshine and roses.

They headed over to the cottage and I headed home first to meet up with Em. Due to confusion over lifts and details too dull to go into now, Llions Mum and her greyhound Sandy came over to pick Llion and ended up staying for an hour or so. Sandy was a rescue dog and is one of the sweetest natured Dogs I know but having been a racing greyhound is trained to chase anything small and furry so we have to be super careful regarding bringing him into any proximity with cats.

Carter seemed most upset that I was booting him out and gave me a look as he slunk away that said "That's the last time you'll find a mouse on the doorstep, Buddy!". Sandy came in and spent the next twenty minutes try to find where the scent of cat was coming from but eventually wound himself down and collapsed onto the rug. Have you ever seen an old greyhound trying to lie down? It's like a controlled demolition as bits of the leg lever against each other and seem to crumple in sequence until he's lying on the comfy rug.

We discussed the house and various and sundry until Em and Llion arrived and we went out separate ways.

We took the back road over to Betws-y-coed across the Denbigh moors and saw the usual level of complete disregard for personal safety on those ridiculous roads. What is it about an open twisty road that brings out the inner Clarkson in people?

Anyway we found the cottage and it's a perfect match for them with a large front room for the boys to congregate with a garden that's entirely fenced in. We had supper whilst the boys set up a slate processing factory(?) which we helped with until it was time for bed for us all! We headed home over the moors and eargly waited for the next day when Wez, Xander and Jane would arrive and we'd have the whole family together again.