It felt like the first day of summer. No rain, sun out and BBQ all day with old friends, perfect Saturday fayre,
Started off with an exceptionally early rise. 6am. For no reason just woke up. BING! Awake. Hate that don't you? I was wide awake and alert. I thought i could write, read a book, go for a run. Anything. I had a chair to do at 9.30am, so i acres lots of time.
So what did i end up doing? Faffing. In fact i did so much faffing i had to rush to get to the chair in Holland Park. How the hell does that work? I had 3 hours to prepare and i ended up late and panicking. Unmanageable.
Faffing eats up large chunks of time without remembering anything specific you did. It's like a form of amnesia. Usually faffing is reserved for Women, blokes just arse about. A little like girls eat quiche and blokes flan. Same thing really just dressed differently. A little like transvestism, but without the meat and 2 veg.
It ended up being a lovely little meeting and set me up for a decent day. I nipped to the gym for a cycle, catch up on the papers for the sporting orgy for the weekend (loving the Tour De France by the way, awesome) and a short hard ass circuit session with weights.
I saw the dude who i snapped at the other week, i felt in a chilled mood so i shook his hand and apologized. He looked genuinely made up and happy, responding with a counter apology and a warm 'thanks'. It made me feel good.
Making amends clears the guilty head and you can go about your business with a clear conscience. Having said that, he started doing free weights next to me, with his Ipod and was grunting at lifting and strolling around rapping between sets. Fucks sake, is this the worlds biggest knob head or what? Please god let him get tendonitis of the arm, and tongue. Ggggrrr.
Then it was to my old school pal, Dan's 40th birthday at Caversham Lakes. A wakeboarding lake in Berkshire, near his home, with all my circle of pals, all of which are married and have kids. Except me of course.
I have known these guys since i was at school and the group is a wide one and just so cool when we all get together. It really is a pleasure. They are my friends. True friends. Friends you grow up with through the ages. We are all pretty much similar age and it is interesting to see how everyone has got on.
You go through the teenage phase, then the getting fucked up phase, the girlfriends phase, then for most, the getting married phase, the buying house and doing up the kitchen phase, the career or starting up your own business phase, then the having children phase, the young family phase, the not having enough time for anything phase and now the 40th birthday phase.
I of course got some of those phases wrong and mixed up and have yet to do some of them. The teenage phase i still appear to be in, the fucked up phase really went on too long, the married phase i have avoided and the kids, settle down, mortgage phase has largely sent me into mild revulsion's of fear and panic so much so that i seem to have permanently postponed them until further notice.
Despite not being in the same boat as ALL of my pals. I am now the only one left not to be married or have kids. I am the last man standing. The last biscuit on the plate. Or medically speaking 'commitment phobe'.
It was a great location, a private wakeboarding club, with a huge pig being spit roasted (just my scene). Big old area for hoards of screaming kids to run around (not so much my scene) and a trampoline, which i loved. Grabbing 3 year old's (thats a statement that could well get me in trouble) and saying 'come on you want to go on the trampoline don't you', in the vain hope it looked like i was actually doing it for their benefit, not the fact i just love bouncing up and down (see Spit roast on previous line)
All the gang were there, Big Dan (wakeboarder, drummer, father, husband, business dude and an excellent story teller) Elliot & Sue (Ranked number 1 couple in the world, excellently funny and truly good people in every sense of the word) Karl ( funny and always looks a total shambles even though he has 2 kids, wife, job and runs nearly every day & was responsible for getting me into marathons and triathlons), The Big C and missus (Proper old pal who we've been through the wars together and come through) Cobs and missus (oldest pal who insists scored against me at football when we were 10 but I'm having none of it. Sports buff., Good man to have for pub quiz. Not just because he's ace at facts but he always stands a round) Stu and Kate (Stu is 6ft 6 and the loveliest man you could meet. It's comforting to be around someone like that. I should imagine it's how kids feel when watching Hagrid. Puts you at ease)
There were some faces missing, but it was a fine gathering and we just wound the day away, eating pig, fresh crackling (all the Paleo people would have been cumming in their pants) talking shit, wake boarding, going on the speedboat, trampolining, laughing, joking and mostly minding kids who were running around like small mad people.
To be a parent requires super human effort. I would be talking, but you know they are 40% concentrating on what you are saying, the rest is spent scanning the area for their kids, Like eagle eye action man, eyes darting. You cannot rest if you have kids (Particularly under 8), as you have to be permanently 'on'.
If they are not lifting up shovels, running too close to the lake, crying, screaming, falling over and banging their head, eating small toys or just being a small toy. They are needing food, water, something. My god it is exhausting just watching.
Of course i do my bit and muck in. Grabbing one of the small people to throw them in the air, or on the trampoline, making them laugh. Giving their parents a well earned break for 5 maybe even 6 minutes before getting exhausted and handing them back. How on earth they do that for 24 hours a day god only knows. Respect. Still, it makes me look good though. Yes, i'm that shallow folks.
The interesting part, was watching the negotiations in which parent got to look after them. 'you're turn', 'go and see mummy' seemed to be the sort of 'parent waltz' played out. Fascinating. Like the Mastrich treaty but with more Nappies. It seems that blokes have a 30 minute time period for duty, whereas mothers get 2 hours. Seemed to be slight inbalance but i kept my mouth shut on this observation.
Then of course, you saw the parents with the older kids, who didn't have to be permanently on the look out, They seemed far more chilled and relaxed. Like they have been through that harsh early days and can now have some kind of life. God being a parent seems torrid. Like facing the new ball as a nightwatchman in cricket. See that off and maybe it will get easier.
It didn't give me the urge though. I'm definitely carving out the niche as Uncle Fun. If i became a parent where would all my time go on self obsession? On gym, running, marathons, iron mans. Where would i get all the time to go to meetings, work? To please myself, to have my own 'space'. It just wouldn't work. I'm sure my pals wouldn't mind me saying that all the boys are packing a few pounds above their fighting weight. It seems that parenthood expands the waistline by about 6 inches and recedes the hairline by 2. Or maybe we are getting old?
It made me appreciate my pals. I don't keep in touch as often as i should. But last thing people with kids want is their single pals ringing them up saying 'lets go and play snooker', or even calling at 7pm. Christ i show my inexperience there. Last thing they want when having to bath 2 kids, feed a 3rd, deal with a work call is have their single pal on the blower complaining of being 'overworked', 'stressed' and wondering if they wanted to go out to a new play by Kevin Spacey.
The words 'fuck' and 'off' spring to mind.
My pals are my pals. I don't need to be in their ear every week. We see each other at intervals. Of course the ones with kids will see others with kids because that's the way it should and needs to be, but when i see them after a period of time, its the same as when we were 20, just with less weed and LSD.
I loved it today, laughed my arse off, ate lots of crackling and had lots of fun. It made me grateful to have such friends. Good non ego, real, open, friendly, funny, top people.
But above all else it made me super grateful not to have a young family as i can sit here in peace, in my pants, with a cup of tea, superjugs.com on the other screen and knock out this blog before knocki.........see i must stop being so base, so one dimensional. So dirty. Keep it clean Evans. There could be kids reading, though to be fair, they are too busy trying to eat a small plastic object or putting sand in their sisters mouth. Feeling for you parents. You are my new heroes
x
Moving stuff buddy. x
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