Growing up

How come one day I feel far too much like a grown-up and other days wonder if I will ever feel like a Real Grown Up.
I am pretty sure that I don't like the grown-up business full-time.
This last week away at the coast with Reg and the kids was the exact prescription I needed - and it barely involved pinot grio... though did a bit...
My recent experience of insomnia altered into that other condition, who's name I can't remember cos it's too tiring, but involves falling asleep a lot.

I had so much fresh air my lungs were cold turkeying for some traffic fumes.
I was such an outdoor-girl-type I found myself lingering outside establishments that sell walking clothing - even admiring the particular design of a fleecy zip up....
A FLEECY ZIP UP.

I even gave Reg one of the best presents he says he's ever received - and no, it wasn't that one....
it was a hiking stick.
I'm pretty certain it's appealing to his theatrical eccentricity - this is the man who designed, and had made, his very own blue plastic shirt.
And looks good in it. Honestly.
Being 6'6" and mixed race allows for all kinds of exceptions from rules.
Even our own son asked me, at the age of 4, why black people are so cool.
To which I answered: "Hey whaddya mean, I'm white and I'm cool? Aren't I? Just a bit then? I am!"
Clearly making my point.

At the coast we all went cycling! Cycling... stop laughing....
cycling like a proper outdoors type family.
We nodded at other passing cyclists and I wanted to laugh cos they didn't spot that I was only pretending to be a grown up with her family allowed out on bikes together...

And I enjoyed it and it made me feel about 12. And I did it one-handed and everything.

Only wore trainers or wellies for a whole week, didn't miss my shoe collection - though did stroke a pair on the stairs when we got home, just as I was passing... nothing too weird.

I spent the whole week in practically one pair of the 25 different style of jeans I took.
Cole spent each day changing into the least wet/stained/muddy pair of trousers in rotation.... he has spectacular talent for looking grubby even freshly laundered.

(Tho, he does have other talents... Ro and I discovered that if you put his front hair in a pony tail, with pink bobble, he looks like a - sorry stop reading if dedicated to PC correct literature - he looked like a rather pretty but rough girl... we called him "Our Sharon". He played "Our Sharon" for a whole morning, complete with "Our Sharon" conversations. Just so you know we not prejudiced, he can also play old man Yorkshire and of course his beloved Caribbean-man complete with dance routine.)

The sea-gulls in Staithes and Whitby are the hugest hardest toughest meanest you have ever seen in your life. Honestly, you would not mess with that foot long beak and DO NOT make eye-contact with that beady eye that leaves you transfixed.... before you know it, you're ignoring the signs telling you not to and throwing your fish and chips at them cos it's too scary to not.

Romany continues to prove her lack of fear and love of the "buzz".
At 8 years old it's manifesting in wanting to spin the tea-cup ride far faster than is necessary, nagging continually to take the Tour through the Dracula Museum
(I gave in, I nearly fainted)...
she waded up streams and rivers while Cole stood aside - he even sees the difference himself now and says in his best Yorkshire Old Man voice: "I'm just doing health and safety"
She managed to blag herself two free tokens to go on the playhouse funhouse twice and another go on the tea-cups... she found a crab so big it wouldn't fit in our bucket and managed to co-ordinate her outfit every day making full use of her leg-warmers that she bought for 50p with her own money.

Ro also lost a tooth whilst in Staithes, though to be honest the frisbee in the mouth helped it along its journey a bit - it had been wobbly for ages and spent an impressive final 24 hours sticking at right-angle out of her gum.

when it finally came out and we discussed current Tooth Fairy rates - apparently immune from the credit crunch - the little monkey then laughed her head off whilst confessing to the last time the Tooth Fairy visited...
Hmmmm.... I bloody knew it...

A few months ago I woke at 2am to go to the loo and realised I'd forgotten to do the Tooth Fairy thing...
so went into her room, blithered around trying to find the goddamn milk tooth under her pillow, then froze like a statue as she stirred in her sleep.
I remained crouched and still in the dark - reminding myself I was keeping her magical dream alive...
Something about the expression on her "sleeping" face made me suspicious at the time, but I could hardly question her... finally, I made the switch.

After her confession, I swore her to secrecy for Cole's benefit. Despite cole being freakishly big has no sign of any wobbly teeth and is the type to believe in the Tooth Fairy til he is 42. He has a very active imagination,
(he made it through the door of the Dracula Museum before falling apart and being carried out to the safety of outside...)

So, Monday morning is looming and I have made my list of things I need to tackle - strangely the boiler fairies didn't come whilst we were away and we still have no hot water/heat.
It's top of the list in the morning.

Amazingly, cainer.com survived without me - and I survived without my laptop for 7 whole days.
I am like some weird addict now reunited...
my Inbox is bursting at the seams and I'm looking forward to my routine of coding horoscopes, my cutting and pasting skills functioning in many languages and I can spot a birth data input error from 20 paces.

I missed our amazing, fantastic, readers who come each day and read Jonathan's scopes from all around the world - and write to us with such open-ness and honesty (sometimes a bit too honest... ok, ok... so very occasionally "technical" problems happen and the site is 10 minutes late updating... couldn't possibly be my mistake... must be mercury retrograde)

When I grow up I want to be like www.cainer.com