Today is K Day and the place is agog. Agog and prepared. Well, as prepared as we can make it without removing all the furniture, enlarging the garden by a few acres, putting plastic sheeting down on all the carpets and taking out a second mortgage with the vet.
Yes, it's the day we get the kitten, the day the voucher gets up and walks, the day we go back to sleepless nights and worries over ickle colds and such. A truly historic day, when the clan Preene increases by one and the leg count soars. Our family leg average is due to go up from 2 to 2.4.
So far the inconvenience has been restricted to having pet sensors fitted to the burglar alarm but there is more to come, what with cat flaps, litter trays, scratching posts, water bowls and so forth. I am expecting a tidal wave of cuteness and I am braced.
Of course this is all a good thing, and might have beneficial side effects re the mice. That's good for us, not them of course.
The pace of change round here is dizzying. No time to tell about bicycles and penguins but I will get on to it as soon as kittenly possible.
I switched on my radio just now for the news, and the first thing I heard was a discussion about the success of the policy of 'busty regulation'.
I was not aware this had been introduced and it took me no time at all to decide that I am fiercely opposed. Bosoms are no part of any government's mandate. And what next, I ask myself? Maximum buttock sizes?
Then I realised they were talking about bus deregulation.
My ears, or their diction?
Just had a phone call.
From someone on the Mars-ish side of India.
"Robin? Ah. So, how long have you had your veb site, Robin?"
"Um. Three years or so. What are you selling?"
"It's not so much selling." (Laughs. A strange Martian sort of laugh.) "Ve are a search engine optimisation company vot can help you increase your traffic."
I once chased a very silly and obvious set of circular links from a blog comment to a company promising this kind of thing, selling alleged 'key' words, so I knew what was coming next.
"Ve can help you with key words..."
I cut across him at this point. What I should have said was: "What, you mean better than "pictures of veruccas", "millwall f troop", "pass the dutchie meaning" and "tunisians bitches"?"
But I didn't say that. I just said: "I don't sell anything. I don't want any more traffic. At least not your sort. Thank you and good-bye." I put the phone down, all proprietorial. Then, having beaten my caveman chest and driven the dinosaur from the cave, I began to wonder where he had got the number.
A little while after that I thought that I should have sold him a few real, proven key words of my own. Like "pictures of veruccas", "millwall f troop", "pass the dutchie meaning" and "tunisians bitches".
Anyone else had this?
A mixed weekend over here. Some examples:
Jake took over the downstairs bathroom yesterday, filling up both bath and basin, and even knocking a defunct light-bulb off a shelf where I had thought it would be safe. This was to sail little boats made of corks. We don't actually own many corks. I now have a respectable motivation to go back to wine drinking.
Zoe did not want to go swimming so went to the park with her mother instead. After about five minutes healthy exercise on a scooter she complained: "Can't we just go shopping?"
I went out to the fiftieth party of an old friend. It was the gayest gathering I had attended for some time - even gayer in percentage terms than my one on one meeting with the Diva a few months back. The party was Saturday night and I was quite happy to go out without the prospect of map-reading or dancing. On my return I was told I had missed someone winning a million on the telly. I didn't mind that as I find it distressing seeing people win even 32 cool thou' for knowing stuff I know too and earn nothing from. I also, by all accounts, missed a cracking episode of The X Factor, which is still in its 'Outpatients' phase.
On the Saturday my jaw dropped several times at the self-aggrandising coverage of the Ryder Cup. I read two incompatible claims, the first that the Ryder Cup is the third largest sporting event in the world, and the other that it is the biggest. I would have liked some kind of scale for judgement along with these mad pieces of golfocentrism. The modest wing of the Church of Golf graciously allowed that the (soccer) World Cup and the Olympics might be 'bigger' than the Ryder thing but the militant swingers seemed prepared to exclude both these tournaments, which only involve governments, last for weeks, net billions and get watched by absolute majorities of humans with tellies.
Within this parochial reckoning, then, the Tour de France, Wimbledon, the Superbowl, the 'World' Series, the FA Cup Final, the Indy 500, the Grand National etc etc are all side-shows in world television, attendance and net revenue. It seems particularly baffling to exclude the Tour de France, which lasts a solid month and which an American has won for the last eight years.
Anyway, by this strange account an event which involves twelve a side, lasts three days and gets an attendance of 40,000 per day to watch a minority sport is the greatest show on earth. Or even possibly the third? Have I missed something in all these numbers? ? ?? Have they not noticed that Murdoch has bought it and that as a consequence it cannot be seen by even the majority of people in little Britain? In a small poll of all the residents in our house who might have been able to watch some of the other events I have listed above. the total of watchers was 0 and the revenue garnered was 0. I listened to a bit of it on Radio 5. We saw the last putt on the terrestrial news. Neither Murdoch nor the R and A got a minute or a penny out of us.
I also modestly suggest that if the Americans don't start winning it again soon then the Ryder Cup will regress, in sporting terms, to a coveted spot marginally ahead of the Rhubarb Trophy at the Gilsland Show.
Yesterday I mowed the lawn. As I did so I was reminded of a comment I read here, in which someone wished their lawn was emo because then it would cut itself.
But it was time. Our garden is approx. 90 x 18. Yesterday morning our lawn was approx. 70 x 16 x 2. The patio was looking good, and the bit at the far end, the pebbly bit where the sun lasts longest, had also retained an orderly appearance. Between these two clearings all was a sea of green, nodding stately like the fields of Rohan. Apart from the bruised bit down the middle where the orcs had been running, playing games resembling football and cricket.
The day dawned clear with a beautiful cerulean sky, the sort of blue you ignore in the Dulwich Picture Gallery's boring French landscape bit. It gave me no joy, because it removed at a stroke my last plausible excuse for not mowing what a man has to mow.
Today I am prepared to reveal the Top Ten Preene-approved manly excuses for cowardice in the face of greensward:
1. It's about to rain.
2. It's raining.
3. It's just rained.
These are bankers, particularly the last one which, in skilful hands, can be made to last for days. Now for advanced students:
4. It might rain soon, I saw it/heard it on the weather report. I wouldn't want to get half way through, that would look terrible. And the two parts of the lawn would take ages to get back in sync.
The 'might rain' bit is pretty unanswerable, especially for most of the year in an English climate. However, it was a total non-starter yesterday. Unbroken blazing blue sky required further thought.
5. It's not rained for ages and mowing will create too much dust and will annoy the neighbours.
Also highly implausible given our English climate. However, a possible contender yesterday after the recent sustained dryness. But such sudden concern for our neighbours might have seemed a bit suspicious what with the way I generally grumble about the whole bunch of them with their smelly barbecues, choking bonfires and endless hammering and drilling. Not to mention nicking our garden furniture.
6. The replaceable blades need replacing and there are are no blades in the shed.
This works best if you have had the foresight to run the mower over a brick as the last act of the previous mowing, then hide the packet with the new ones in. I had forgotten to put these precautions in place and so was under-prepared for the use of this particular story. And I cannot tell a lie.
7. There are too many frogs/snails/rare orchids out there.
Actually I've never tried that one. I've only just thought of it. I may use it next time.
8. I'm expecting an important phone call and won't hear it out there with all the noise.
Quite good, but better when everyone is out, and actually not much good when people are in. And one more reason to hate mobiles.
9. There's an important sporting event on telly, which needs to be seen. Or at least in my opinion Jake needs to see it and he needs it explaining. I'll do it right away, afterwards. That is, after all the replays, the interviews and the analysis are over.
A reliable favourite in Six Nations springs, World Cup summers, Ashes series and Olympiads, during which it should be deployed whenever the opportunity arises, because it works superbly as a sneaky gambit before reverting to nos. 1, 2 and 3 above. Rotten yesterday though. The Ryder Cup came just ONE DAY too late.
10. My back hurts.
All time winner. Can't be naysaid. Only drawback is frequency of use. This is not a longbow of an excuse, it is more of a blunderbuss. It's reload time is approx. eighteen months. Sadly yesterday I was still reloading.
So one man went to mow and he hacked and scraped away. The turf seemed to come up in little lumps, almost as if I'd given the poor lawn goose-bumps. So I cut away at the front end and stamped the tufts down at the back end. Meanwhile the sweat poured out of the top end.
With any luck that'll be it till spring.
We've had a rash of parties recently. Well, perhaps not so much a rash, more of a nasty sore patch. I thought parties had lost their ability to bite years ago, but I was wrong.
One of Mel's oldest friends has just turned fifty and had a bash two weeks ago in her house. In the middle of Kent, in the dark. Net result, me reading instructions off an old envelope, bobbing around in my seat trying to catch a glimmer of streetlight for long enough to decipher the directions. These were set down in a spidery script which assumed a sufficiency of light and a familiarity with Kent, neither of which were forthcoming. So we whizzed round dozens of roundabouts somewhere near Brand's Hatch while Mel mused about which exit to try this time and whether by 'three o'clock exit at second roundabout' she had meant a choice of road or the probable time of arrival there.
After continuous mobile conversations with hostess and much describing of pitch black villages we ended up walking down a darkened country lane, with a soothing, misty rainfall to cool us down and unrumple our party clothes. These were not straight forward either. The invitation had said 'Black Tie'. I know enough to know that it didn't mean "Wear a black tie". It actually means: "Wear a black dinner jacket, WITH a black tie. They will match if you've done it properly". It also means that the tie should be a bow tie. As we careered round the umpteenth roundabout my familiarity with Kent had noticeably increased and I began to think of the directions I was reading as a model of clarity, compared to the single, misleading, over-short clothing instruction on the invite.
Of course the rebel in me had refused to conform and I was not dressed as instructed. Two reasons. One: I do not own a dinner jacket that fits. That fits me, anyway. Two: I have a limited repertoire of bow ties. I have a proper one, which I can't tie myself, and one I bought in the seventies, which clips together and is like a big velvet butterfly. I have not worn this one since I turned up at some function a long time ago and someone I barely knew took one look at me, raised his eyebrows then yelled: "One hundred and EIGHTY!!!" It was not a fancy dress do and I had not come as the fat bloke who used to shout out darts scores in the good old days of 'Crafty' Eric Bristow and 'Sweaty' Jocky Wilson. The saggy tie was retired forthwith, leaving me a bit short of a tie-able reserve. So I was wearing a normal dark suit.
Anyway, we got there, late, wet and me in the wrong clothes. This had been foreseen, at least as far as the clothes went, so we had taken the trouble to obtain a special dispensation on the dress code from our hostess. Quite how black and white the party was to prove was, though, a shock. My pinky mauve tie stood out like a raw steak in the penguin enclosure at the zoo.
The very next Saturday we were invited to the twenty-first party of one of my nieces-in-law. A marquee was up in the garden and I was dressed in an Armani suit and a pinky mauve tie. Within a trice I was serving behind the bar. Which was interesting, looking on as the young people coped with free drinks, leaning on a table which served as a physical barrier to the fun in much the same way that sobriety can.
It was a dancing party, and I am about as comfortable at a dancing party as is a penguin on a motorbike. I prefer the role of groovy spectator. But all that changed when a seventeen-year-old made it her business to Travolta me. With her bush-baby eyes and breadstick arms G insisted on dragging me out onto the floor. Despite the fact that she was having difficulty walking in a straight line she wanted to do those jive turns, which would have been ambitious for me but was certain disaster for her. However, by 10 p.m. her sense of reason was as slenderly supported as her dress. (I suggest that Police forces impose a similar quick spot of jive if reluctant motorists refuse to breathe into the bag. It would be a dead giveaway.) Anyway, like those Greek bus drivers who slalom along precipitous mountain roads, she hurled herself sideways without fear as I managed, with skill and experience, to keep her predominantly vertical. I slunk off at the earliest opportunity and hid in a dark corner.
"Aah, THERE you are," she squawked only a few minutes later, leading me out again for some more gravity-defying, wrist-snapping gymnastics. One further attempt at escape proved futile, the garden being just slightly too small and me being just slightly too pinky mauve for the night to hide me. Eventually total flight was the only answer, and we left with much ribaldry from our hostess who demanded to know if I was smuggling G home in the boot. No, thought I, not likely. I draw the line at spare tyres and suitcases. I will not give boot room to young people who are noticeably madder than an X Factor auditionee.
This Saturday we had a sedate lunch party for the same niece, a sort of Part Two to last Saturday's dancing. Phew.
Much happiness in the park yesterday evening. The thunderclouds lowered majestically over us as we walked up the hill carrying Jake's new remote-controlled aeroplane, as shiny as polystyrene can be and destined for its maiden flight. It was his birthday a few days ago, and a tricky one at that. Not because he is now eleven and therefore in the waiting room off adolescence, but because he had consistently refused to tell us what he wanted.
This refusal was part of a larger strategy, rolled out over several years, designed to net himself a kitten. This campaign dates back at least eighteen months to a visit to the Science Museum. As he stood with his hand stuck in an exhibit about the sense of touch Mel asked him what he could feel. He paused, as if trying to find the exact right words. She waited. "Well...?"
"It's furry...fluffy...warm...". He looked wistful, pausing in a way that clearly told her he had not finished. Then he delivered the blow. "It reminds me of the kitten I never had."
Come this birthday he would ask for nothing but a kitten. When pressed to nominate something else a bit less alive and not so specifically designed to poop on the carpet, bring in dead things and destroy our finer furnishings, he would not be drawn. Quite correctly he was assuming that if we were given one inch of wriggle room, one stab at fobbing him off with an alternative, that we would take it. Silence left only two possibilities, a kitten, or Lego, and he was prepared to take the risk, confident that his message would not be misunderstood.
We gave him what we could, or at least what we could think of. I asked Zoe to draw up a Kitten Voucher on the computer and she did a lovely job. This voucher he was duly given in a parcel with a scratching post, a proof of our good intentions. He did not register pleasure or excitement, but continued to open the pile of gift-wrapped surprises impassively. His little face fell further with every present, each one a non-wriggling, non-furry stake in his little pre-adolescent heart. I felt awful.
A line from a classic British film comedy, starring Joyce Grenfell and Alistair Sim came to mind. The voice of James Robertson Justice boomed in my head: "Clearest case of fobbing I've ever seen!!!"
It had not proved possible to get our hands on a kitten in the immediate run-up to the birthday. Places with kittens to give or sell are surprisingly reluctant to part with them. They want to inspect your house, they will only let you have two ect ect. I thought of just going and catching one on a local estate the night before but abandoned the idea, remembering the story of William and The Val'able and Highly Nervous Cat, possibly the bloodiest children's story this side of Titus Andronicus. So no cat, kitten or moving hairy object was awaiting release that morning. A counterpane of desolation, scattered with gaudy paper, was all that remained by 7:03 a.m.
Looking on, and trying to take some form of positive out of the gloom, I comforted myself that he might come to see from this disappointment that one-shot strategies based on manipulation are never sure-fire winners and that he needs to put more energy into forms of persuasion based on mutual advantage; that strategies oriented at variable or diverse outcomes are better than high risk all-or-nothing strategies. In other words I hope he sees that "Victory Or Death" is a bit strong. I hoped that he would not just take the lesson that his parents are uncaring, unreliable, ungenerous and untrustworthy.
Some relief arrived via his uncle, who came to the rescue and sent him a small battery-powered plane with a remote steering wheel which arrived after his joie de vivre had returned to something like its normal level. Back to yesterday evening. The little white plane flew well, picked out, gull-like, against those lowering thunderclouds. My only serious worry was that the tough eggs would show up and demand a 'go', meaning a chance to fly it straight into a tree. No eggs appeared and no footballs pinged our plucky crate out of the sky. A halt was only signalled by a flat battery, and a return trip is scheduled for soon.
Possibly sooner than the appearance of a kitten.
The growing up continues. A typical day in the lives of our fledglings has changed over the last year in a very noticeable way. My days haven't, and that probably makes the contrast even more obvious. By which I mean they are now both desperate to spend all their waking hours on this computer. I would use that as an excuse for light bloggage but it would not be strictly true. I'm still big enough to chuck them off, even during the now defunct holidays. I haven't written much for other reasons, not a lack of bullying talent.
Message boards are the big thing round here these days. Those places where children (and possibly pretend children) type out earnestly held opinions about Harry Potter and Cristiano Ronaldo. Our lot confine themselves to BBC boards so I don't have a proper worry list. I have merely tried to teach them some basic nettiquette, about not insulting people and trying not to say things you wouldn't say to someone's face. I have made it clear, under questioning, that this can include things a bit broader than "Hello moustache".
Zoe is one of a vanguard few who are convinced that Potter 7 will end with the demise of Potter, who will die a noble and selfless death having been given the knowledge that he cannot defeat Voldemort, to whom we have been repeatedly told he is umbilically linked, without also ending his own life in the process. This he will eventually do, fully aware of the consequences, in a gesture of dutiful brand destruction, ridding the world of magical baddies. And adult sequels such as "HP and the Boring Job in the Wages Office". It stands to reason.
And you read it here first. Well. most of you will have read it here first, but that's only because you are sensible people who wouldn't be detected dead reading Harry Potter threads on BBC message boards.
Jake has fallen in love with Liverpool FC. I didn't do it. Not me, guv. I would never do such a thing. Actually I have tried to pair him off with Carlisle United FC but he is having none of it, easily resisting the ruddy country lass for the urban sophisticate with the collection of hub caps.
As for myself I am now in possession of the dangerous knowledge that our nearest Oddbins is a forty minute walk away. It's funny how urban distances seem so much larger that they really are. (That is a broad point, and possibly worthy of some discussion, but let's face it, not on a blog that is striving to regain some kind of readership.)
A paltry forty minutes. I made this welcome discovery about such a principal local amenity quite by accident, and mostly as a result of the striking circumstance that the aforementioned Dulwich Oddbins is directly opposite the Dulwich Pizza Express. As a younger parent I was inclined to take this fact as one proof of the existence of God that had escaped St. Thomas Aquinas - through no fault of his own, let me add. As I have aged I have felt less theological about it.
This is, surely, ample backdrop to yesterday's big family expedition. We set out en masse a little before lunch time, intending to do a spot of swimming followed by a visit to Pizza Express, all under our own steam - no car. Mel was our armoured vanguard on her spotless bike with silver grey helmet perched jauntily on her head. The two children were in the middle on scooters, followed by me entirely on foot, walking up and running down the hills as appropriate. The idea was to get healthy exercise in the invigorating fresh air.
After about a minute it became apparent that the only serious maker of steam was going to be me. After about twenty minutes the objective of the mission seemed to have changed, and had become the killing of a minimum of one parent as we slogged away in the 80 degree heat. I have just heard on the radio that running requires ten times the energy that riding a bike does. I bet that figure goes up to ten thousand when it comes to free-wheeling down Green Dale for a quarter of a mile.
I am considering making a visit to Oddbins a regular feature of a Sunday morning, but with certain crucial differences. I will make sure that at least one child is stuck into a message board, and I will be making the trip, at my own speed, on the free scooter.