Paul Davidson
Weeknotes 028: What do giraffes say in your house?
My legs are sore and hair damp. The Chef was at work this weekend and I spent the day switching between keeping Piglet alive, grouting the bathroom and cooking. My reward was a hot shower while she settled the tiny tyrant.
I’d farmed Piglet out to her grandparents yesterday to free me to crack on with odd jobs; tiling, painting, mowing. Today was completing the loose ends. A textbook middle-aged Dad weekend.
Getting a few jobs done has been a tonic for general angst. I feel I’m falling behind on work again (I should maybe have done some catch up this weekend) and it’s nagging at me.
I’ve instigated a morning walk round the block without my phone, which is helping start the day right. And this week I had some virtual meetings with folks I’ve not spoken to for a while and it was good to catch up on the attenuated gossip of locked-down lives.
While the weather is playing ball, we’re a free range family in the evening. It started on Tuesday with a trip to Elgy green and Piglet living her best life. And ended up with me meeting the girls in the park after nursery, eating al fresco between sessions on the swings or roundabout.
I got to the park first one time and was sent a picture of them heading over. The lack of knee bend gives toddlers the most bombastic walking style. Even a static photo is dynamic.
In further outdoor life, we were treated to the simple pleasure of a hedgehog in the garden. Is there anything to refill your spirit with childish wonder than a hedgehog rustling round the leaves? (We were only in the garden at night to hang laundry. That should freak the neighbours out.)
We had to hang in the dark because I’d been at class that night and Piglet was truculent with her bedtime. It all started so sweetly with her happily chatting in Chinese to the class on Zoom. Bilingual show-off. I barely manage one.
Reading a tweet from a different family with young kids that, because they didn’t know what noise a giraffe made, it says beep-boop. We had the same panic when teaching Piglet and our giraffes have a high-pitched giggle. (For similar reasons, hippos say, “BIRD!”) Surely no-one knows what they sound like and has had to improv. What do giraffes say in your house?
Instead of a music binge this week, a lovely mobile game instead. Florence is a narrative game from a few years back that I’d missed. The ending is kind of sad, but the limited gameplay is perfect for the stroytelling. It reminded me a bit of Old Man’s Journey.
18 April 2021