Sometimes someone captures the moment more succinctly in a cartoon than any amount of twittering, news breaking, or radio obituaries.
Genius cartoon by John Campbell over at Pictures for sad children
Although it does seem that nowadays kids are wrapped tightly in a blanket straight-jacket of Health & Safety rules that stops them from experiencing anything that even looks like being a little edgy; like putting up posters without goggles *gasp*!
So whenever the opportunity presents itself, we chuck our sprogs into whatever adventures come their way, like boating on the local reservoir. It’s especially at times like these that I remember my own yoof.
…and yes, this does mean that if the kids drop any food on the floor our first response is to pick it up, blow away any floor based additions and place it back on the plate for them to eat. If you raise kids in a sterile bubble, don’t be surprised at what happens when that bubble bursts.
Anyways, here’s our smallest enjoying his day out on the Reservoir.
Whilst the Sun is out and I am away from the Gym, to allow my wrist to recover from its recent battering at a Karate Tournament, I thought it would be remiss of me not to go for a pleasant stroll around the back of the Industrial Estate where I work.
Through an Industrial version of the wardrobe in the Narnia stories and you go from Industrial Estate, and all its pre-fabricated buildings, to nature at its wildest… or at least a British version of wildest where the most that will harm you are stinging nettles and thistles.
Listened to Alicia’s Attic as I casually strolled and put the iPhones camera through its paces, as can be seen below.
Number 1 son has spent his first week away from home, in an adventure residential camp, is now taller than both his Aunt and Grandmother, has bigger feet than his mum, has a mobile phone and we are now going through the joy of purchasing his uniform for Secondary School.
What happened to the strawberry blonde curly haired child that used to sit in my lap, just before bedtime, and want to hear the Gruffalo yet again?
Of the course the rush to teenage’dom almost inevitably leads to the descent into Kevin’dom! The mantra “must not throttle firstborn, must not throttle firstborn” seems to be the order of the day at the moment… The joys of parenthood!
Another weekend completed and another GKR karate tournament competed. Very soon, if I keep this sort of thing up, I’ll become an old hand at this malarky … which is more than my hand will become as I have managed to damage it once more whilst laying it, with forceful intent, upon somebody else’s person. Enough of that story though.
I, also, didn’t do very well at the individual level and was somewhat relieved that Sensei wasn’t around to see the woeful effort that was my kata… who swapped my feet with a 7 year olds when I wasn’t looking?!
This did give me the opportunity to go around and “ra-ra” from the sidelines as a fair number of my fellow Sensei’s did get their medals. We were competing for Silver and Gold in both the male and female instructor levels! What a dilemma; Who do you cheer for when you want both of them to win?!
(I have just noticed the judicious use of “we” in that last paragraph. I think Sarah, Katie, Shaun and Daz actually probably managed their collective bling amassing without my aid)
However, what personally what made my tournament the more enjoyable was being involved in the Team Kumite. It wasn’t the fact that we came away with a Bronze medal, it was the sheer look of joy and excitement in Ed’s voice when he realised we had gotten past the first round. The exclaimed “We’ve never gotten this far before!” and huge grin were worth far more than any lump of metal draped around the neck.
Title Disclaimer:
When asking your son to remember the word “YAKP”, as you concentrate on something else, remember to tell him that it stands for “Yet Another Karate Post” and not get into a conversation about the colour, texture, smell and relevance of “Yak Pee”.
The 10 minutes of confused cross-talking that went on, and combined “you what?!” looks, is not something to be reproduced.
Twas a wee bit of a rush in all honesty, as my Saturday class in Irthlingborough didn’t finish until just after 12noon and we had to be in Nottingham by 1.30pm to sign in! If anyone asks how we managed to do 80 miles in less than an hour and a half, just tell them we stuck to the speed limit of 70mph; admittedly the fast version of 70mph rather than the slow version… Officer!
It’s always a thrill to be in a hall with so many people all moving in unison to the count and being taught by the founder of our particular brand of karate. It’s also somewhat cool to see Kancho, who’s in his 60’s, manage to beat a various age range of 2nd Dan Black Belts in Kumite one after the other. “VERY cool” as my youngest crowed after the Seminar.. I just hope I can be that nimble at that age!
Next up is another tournament in Birmingham, on 6th June, complete with the boys (their first) which should be fun. Pics and postings will be forthcoming.
Songs have a powerful influence on all of us and we choose our own soundtrack to reflect that which we feel important, highlighting defining periods in our lives. Revisiting those audible monuments does sometimes give you pause to reflect and wonder at what was, could have been, will be..
Listening to “Again”, by Archive, and appreciating the lyrics as well as the mood generated by the music. I am an absolute sucker for guitar and drum heavy music, and as blogged about not so long ago, this one still has the ability to give pause.
“..now you get me down” to complete the lyrics began in this posts title.
Good times, bad times, shameful times, and those times where you shone beyond yours, and others, expectations; all are, or should be, encapsulated within their own musical punctuation, usually via an artist or group that seemed to talk to you specifically during that period of your life.
I can’t change those times, I can only revisit them and reflect on the person that they helped develop for better or worse.
I now find myself in the position where I am seeing the seeds of this process starting to develop in my two young boys. Both of them, and more so the youngest, are beginning to develop their own musical tastes and creating their own ‘audible monuments’ as they grow ever upwards physically and emotionally.
I do wonder how their own internal playlist will sound, and also whether my own musical tastes will influence them as they grow. We can only watch… and listen…
“Lie on your back and stick your feet in the air”
As I sat on the floor of the dojo, feeling a little confused as to why I was down there, I did wonder if this would have any negative impact on my ‘hard man’ image. Of course the ‘hard man’ image is just a delusion I have unto myself, but still… sticking your feet in the air, however good a suggestion under the circumstances, seemed faintly embarrassing.
Although, if objectively looked at, actually being sprawled out *on* the dojo floor in the first place could also be considered slightly embarrassing too. Being too stupid to admit that a stomach injury and karate training never make good bedfellows, and then seeing stars and fainting when knocking your own arm against aforementioned stomach, could also be categorised as embarrassing.
It would seem that Sensei’s lesson that personal pride doesn’t have a place in Karate may actually be true… who knew?!
Ah well, thankfully my little swooning episode wasn’t witnessed by many of my colleagues and I still get the giggles when remembering the slightly surreal “Do you like nuts?” question that floated from nowhere in a dark car park.
Mitigation: That particular question was asked by a female colleague, and she just wanted to make sure I had some food in my stomach before I started the drive home. Emminently sensible, but it did make me and the other Sensei I was with laugh at the unexpectedness of it.
I managed to win a new iPod Shuffle! The thing is truly tiny and now takes pride of place as I pursue my increasingly fruitless task of developing a physique….
…although pear-shaped is a physique, it’s not the one I’m really striving for, rather get away from!
So I can now be found bouncing around the gym, with diddy wee iPod attached to jogging trousers, desperately trying to pump iron to the tunes of Marilyn Mansun, Iron Maiden, Hoobastank, Guns n’ Roses, Nickelback, Rammstein, and many other devils music practitioners.
Now if I could just get rid of this damn cold! Although on the positive side, going around the gym equipment sneezing, coughing and sniffing and telling the other gym users “I haven’t felt right since Mexico” is getting me on the equipment far quicker than previous outings.
Karate tonight, although I’m sure the same ‘Mexico’ reference will not work quite as well on Sensei!
If the week was on a sliding scale, measuring how well it had gone, it would definitely be pointing to the middle ’neutral’ ground.
From swings deep into the negative at the beginning of the week with the loss of a friend, not in the bereaved sense of the word, to swings in the other direction with the re-discovery of old friends.
From work and injury managing to stop me attending senior karate classes this week, although the positive is that work is finally starting to get interesting, to finally getting the spark back when presented with a pencil and a blank canvas; Although for some reason when presented with a blank photoshop canvas and a mouse I only seem able to doodle little cartoons… What’s going on there?
I have even started baking thanks to the ever helpful Mr Evans (@phevans).
However, I still can’t shake the feeling that the negatives will be deeper felt than the positives. Methinks it’s time to go-a-visiting next week, and finally fulfill some long outstanding beer promises, to play catch up and revisit simpler times.
…of course the scales can also extend to the “Oh shit, noooooo!” end of the spectrum, especially when you learn of ‘Jade Goody the musical‘!
Its either time to emigrate or await the four horses of the apathetic apocalypse with open arms.
