The Mum-Panel

A Friday night is the Wee One's dance classes.

I usually just wait outside in the car for her to finish. While I'm waiting, it gives me the opportunity to observe the 'street' kids go about their business of bullying civilised folk into buying them alcohol. That's why I wait in the car, you see!

So the class finishes and the Wee One opens the car door to tell me that the teacher wants a word with me. My ass cheeks clench as this normally means that my wallet is going to suffer a loss.

"What does she want?"

"I've to be the Christmas fairy for the nursery kids tomorrow!", she excitedly tells me.

"Oh right, brilliant!"

My cheeks unclench.

I nervously crept into the changing room. I hate going in there after being politely chucked out the year before. The teacher explained to me that she has chosen her to help give out the gifts to the nursery children and would need to wear her blue ballet costume.

"She'll need to have her hair done!" the teacher told me as I edged towards the door.

"Um, really? As in a french plait and stuff?!" I stammered.

"Yeah, but you're good at that!"

Flattery. It gets you everywhere.

"This is my downtime though! It's only the summer that I can do these things - I'm kinda like a reverse Santa except with hair rather than presents!"

She laughed. I didn't. I was serious.

The dancing display is held in the summer and as we get plenty of notice for it, I can practice doing french plaits over a long period of time. There's no need for me to do it in the winter, so I don't bother practising. You see the Santa connection?! He only does his thing once a year.

Still, flattery gets you everywhere. Challenge accepted.

Driving home, I had a realisation. All the parents of the nursery class were going to be there watching. I would be there too and there would be plenty of smiling, complimenting, chatting - it would be a jolly old time. However, underneath all that I would be getting scrutinised, assessed and judged! My hands were clammy as I gripped the steering wheel tightly. Still, I was confident that my Kung Fu was strong. I was going straight home to practise!

Thinking about it rationally, I don't think that the teacher purposely chose my daughter specifically to challenge my parenting skills in front of a panel of mothers. Even reading that sentence back, it sounds ridiculous. It's a five minute appearance where the Christmas fairy will simply help give out gifts to the kids. I'll be standing on the sidelines, no one will even notice me!

When we got home, I set to work. It took a couple of attempts to get my Kung Fu in line, but the magic was not gone! The french plaits were done and I was triumphant.

"I'll show these mums, I'll fucking show them all!", I silently exclaimed whilst waving a fist in the air!

There was nothing to worry about.


The next morning, we were up bright and early; well, I don't know about bright, but it was certainly early. After breakfast, it was time to call upon my hair crafting skills. There was plenty of time. We had just under two hours so there was plenty of time to get in a few test runs.

Unfortunately, as it was 'off season' I think I used up all my 'french plait energy' the previous night. I just couldn't fucking do it. I must have tried it about thirty times and it didn't work. My fingers didn't go where they were supposed to, there was hair sticking out everywhere - it was a fucking nightmare situation. The Wee One was getting grouchy as her head was hurting due to all my frantic plaiting attempts.

I've always considered myself to be able to work well under pressure. I realise now that was just bullshit. I was in meltdown mode. We had to leave in thirty minutes and her hair was a riot. I said the eff word a lot. I stormed into the kitchen and stared out the window a lot. I gave the Wee One into trouble for moving a lot. I fucking done everything but a fucking french plait. The Wee One was getting stressed. The pressure was mounting.

"Fuck this fucking thing! I can't fucking do it!"

I surrendered. I was beat. I had failed.

There was a contingency though, albeit a weak one. A bun could be put in her hair, but it's frowned upon in the dancing world. There is this foam donut thing that forms the bun from a ponytail. Through gritted teeth, I told the Wee One to go and get it this foam donut. She scurried upstairs. I went into the kitchen and looked out the window.

Time was ticking.

The rummaging sound coming from her room was less than encouraging. She had no idea where it was.

FFfffuucckkkkkkkkk!

This was a disaster. A real fucking disaster.

It probably doesn't sound like a big deal, but for me these things are huge! The responsibility for how she looks, how she acts, near enough everything, lies squarely with me. It's the parent's job to make sure all these things are in check.

Think about it...

Who gets the blame if the child is untidy?
Who gets the blame if the child is wild?
Who gets the blame if the child can't respect anything or anyone?

Really if there is anything negative about the child then the blame is laid directly on the mother. Yes, it's the mother. However, as I'm like some sort of mother/father super hybrid, the blame will be aimed at me along with the brand of useless parent. Fuck that.

We had to leave in ten minutes. Plan C came next. Plan C wasn't even a fucking plan. I picked up my phone and thumbed through the phone book to see if there was anyone I could call to bail me out.

Not with five minutes to go. No chance.

Thoroughly deflated, I made her hair into a bog standard plait. It was better than nothing, but it wasn't how it was supposed to be.

Perhaps I was overreacting, but I actually wanted to call the teacher and tell her she wasn't coming and make up some excuse. I couldn't do that though.

We got into the car and drove to the studio. I felt like I was driving to the gallows. The atmosphere was obviously pretty bad in the car, so I told myself that I had to suck it up and get things back on track. We can't have a Christmas fairy with her face tripping her! I was dreading going in. Really dreading it. I took a deep breathe, pulled open the door and into the lion's den we went.

Thankfully, the changing room was pretty much empty. There was another dad sitting in the corner. Dads always sit in the corner. The teacher came up and I immediately apologised. I didn't want her to think I hadn't made any effort, so I explained the troubles I had.

The other dad laughed. I was secretly relieved that he was there - it wasn't just me against all the man-hating mums. Although for his laughing, I contemplated biting his face.

"Don't worry about it, her hair looks lovely!" said the teacher and I think she meant it. Still, I have the mums to deal with. They won't be so forgiving.

We were led into a different room so that she could get changed. The teacher would come and get us when she was ready.

I could hear the changing room fill up with people as the Wee One talked about what she was supposed to do. The door opened. It was time.

We walked into the changing room and naturally, everyone turned and looked. All the kids squealed with excitement and the mums were all smiles. The other dad from before was gone. I was definitely going to bite his face now.

We had to stand and wait until the nursery kids, who were in the dance studio, sung Jingle Bells. It was awkward conversation time. The weather was top of my list - you can't go wrong with the weather.


After what seemed like an eternity, I could hear Jingle Bells and she was to go in. I stood at the door, but could see the mum-panel sitting at the other side of the room. After a mere five minutes, we were done. As we were leaving, some of the mums told her how lovely she looked and that she done great. No-one told me I looked lovely and that I done great though, but it didn't matter. I was proud of her.

Seeing the Wee One do her thing was brilliant. It made everything seem trivial and unnecessary. It was a really, really stressful morning though. After having thought about it, I was too hard on myself. I can't do everything! I may be a superhero parent hybrid, but even Superman has his kryptonite.

Hairstyles may well be mine.

Wild Camping

My two mates and I went camping during the summer. Scotland is beautiful, there's no doubt about that. It's just the piss poor weather that ruins it!

I had been told about a little 'unofficial' site which was on the banks of a loch. It sounded excellent, so that was where our home was going to be for a whole two nights.

With this being an unofficial campsite, it was camping at it's finest - wild camping! No facilities, no rules, no hassle! In parts of Scotland you are allowed to camp anywhere you want but there are obviously still some rules - common sense ones which can really come under the blanket rule of: 'don't be a dick'.

There was obviously some planning and preparation required, so we each had jobs to do. I was dealing with sheltering us, another was dealing with getting us drunk and another was dealing with keeping us warm. We were like a well oiled machine!

When it came to food though, I thought it would be wise to have a backup plan. I was thinking about nuclear bunkers and the like - tinned food keeps for ages! Ideal!

Everything was sorted and the weekend finally arrived - warm, sunny weather was forecast with rain on the last day! Brilliant!

Before we left, we popped into Tesco to pick up some final bits and pieces. After about 30 mins, we were standing at the check out with a trolley full of stuff, with the most essentials being a frisbee and tomato sauce.

On the way up, I let the lads know that I had a food back up plan - just in case we ended up in a nuclear hocaust with nothing to eat!

"Just in case we end up with no food left, I've brought emergency provisions!"

"What did you bring?!", they asked.

"Six tins of ravioli!", I replied, proudly showing my survival instinct.

I didn't understand what was so funny! However, after having a think, I couldn't ever recall tinned ravioli being mentioned on any survival television show!

"I don't like ravioli!" said my mate, who was in charge of the booze.

"Fine then, more for me!" I snorted as I sat back in the seat, deflated!

We'll see who's laughing when we're all out of food, starving! Well, I wont; I'll be stuffed with ravioli!

We arrived in the local village before finding our site. After another quick visit to Tesco, we made our way to the final destination!

It was beautiful, truly picturesque!

We were basically camping along the bank which had formed various little smaller camps over the years and most were empty. Before offloading all our gear though, we wandered down to find where we were actually going to pitch our tents.

After walking the full length of the bank, we settled on the final little alcove. It was at the point where the loch funnelled into a little river and was furthest away from everyone else - we were unsociable bastards! However, being furthest away didn't mean we weren't bothered!

We noticed a bunch of flowers propped up against a tree. The card mentioned a guy who had died, obviously in some sort of accident! Although we were camping in the wilderness (sorta), the wonders of technology allowed us to consult the internet oracle! Google told us that the guy had drowned after swimming in the loch almost a year to the day! Not exactly encouraging!

Following several trips to and from the car, everything was now on-site. Before cracking open the celebratory beers, the tents would have to go up. Tents these days go up in no time so it wasn't a hard task. What was hard though, was the ground - and stoney - and bumpy! It wasn't a surprise though which is why we had sleeping mats - we were like the fucking scouts: 'Be Prepared'!

We had two tents - one for sleeping in and another to put all our stuff in and also to stop some arsehole pitching their tent next to us! The campsite was done! Camping is great!

Two of us sat down in triumph as the campfire guy went about building a campfire. It was two o'clock in the afternoon. Hindsight tells us though that campfires aren't really required during the day though!

After our top class campfire was made, Fireguy went into his bag to get something to light it with. He produced a hand held blow-torch and blasted the fire to life!

This was great; three mates sitting next to a beautiful loch in the sunshine getting drunk in front of a campfire at half two in the afternoon!

At the beginning of the day, the camp was shielded from the blazing sun but as it touched 4pm it had crept round giving us the full blast! The fire had, of course, went out so we just sat there getting fried with nothing but beer and buckfast to drink!

"Right, we going in the water then?!" asks Boozeguy.

"Aye, let's go for it" says Fireguy.

I was dubious as my mind wandered back to the bunch of flowers sitting- by the tree as tribute to the guy who drowned!

"Hmm, I dunno... could be dangerous" I meekly offered, sipping my warm beer.

"Na fuck it, it'll be fine" counters Boozeguy, standing up.

We were at the river mouth that fed into the loch which was still so, to be fair, it didn't look too menacing so in we went!

Being as prepared as I was though, I only had one pair of trainers. I really needed something to wear in the water to give me grip on the rocks and to allow me to kick sharks in the face!

"Fuck it, they'll dry in the sun - it's scorching after all!", I exclaim as I creep into the water.

Once we were in though, it was excellent! The frisbee was getting chucked about like no-one's business and it wasn't dangerous at all - most of the time it was only waist deep.

We werent in for very long though - it's not like we could jump in for a quick shower and get into freshly ironed clothes - we were wild camping!

I put my shoes on a rock next the fire which was restarted thanks to the blow torch - they'd be dry in no time! Unfortunately I couldn't have been more wrong!

Despite us being the camp furthest away, there was certainly a lot of people wandering up for no apparent reason. They would wander up, realise we were there and engage in awkward small talk before shuffling off back the way they came - although some would carry on further down the river for a few minutes before going back.

Remember though, this was wild camping - no rules and... no toilets! These people were coming up to our camp to have a shit only to find three guys, one with no shoes on, sitting getting drunk! That was a major downside - most of the little camps were the same. You'd be scared to look behind a tree or move a rock for fear of being confronted with a pile of human excrement weakly covered in soiled toilet paper! Camping is great!

So as we were the last camp, it meant that we had to walk along a dirt track adjacent to the river to take care of business. My shoes were dripping wet with no sign of drying - there's no fucking way I'm going down that track in my socks! I'd just have to wait till wild camping was over.

The sun was setting behind the facing mountain so it was time for dinner - a portable BBQ was blasted to life with the blowtorch and we cooked burgers. Now that I think back, despite us spending all that cash in Tesco beforehand, we seemed to have very little real food - we
had to ration the burgers and it was only day one!

Darkness fell and we could see the little orange lights flickers all along the sides of the loch, it was a fantastic sight to see!

However, the darkness brought a problem - mosquitoes, fucking millions of them! Our campfire was done - no amount of torching it would help and we had used our firewood ration for the day!

Without a fire though, it was impossible to bare. We retired to the tent.

The sleeping bags came out and I produced, what I thought was a stroke of genius - a travel pillow (one of those pillows that wrap around your neck when you sleep on a plane).

"Look at this! This'll be fucking ideal - my neck won't be stiff or anything!"

They both bring out camping pillows whilst laughing at my piss poor pillow effort.

"Aww fuck sake, I didn't know you could get camping pillows!"

I stuck it around my neck and lay on my mat - the back of my sodding head pressed firmly against the ground! Serious error in judgement - this was fucking awful! I looked at their camping pillows which was perfect for the job - I was mega jealous, not that I admitted!

It was perhaps one of the worst sleeps ever endured! I was in a strange drunken state of exhaustion but couldn't actually sleep because the ground was so fucking awful. Even forcing my arm, which was numb with cramp, under my face felt like luxury! I basically lay face down the entire night, forcefully overriding my hatred for every second of it because that's what wild camping is all about! Most of the time we were all slumped at the mouth of the tent as the banks of the loch were sloped which caused us to slide down the fucking hill!

The next morning, I woke up to find the tent bathed in sunlight and around 125 billion mosquitoes buzzing around between the tent and the mosquito net. I moved gingerly outside with every muscle, bone and organ aching like I had been beaten with sticks throughout the night! The loch was still as glass again as I watched a herd of cows on the other side of the river drink from it. I looked at the time - it was 6am. Fuck.

I sat down, still barefoot and prepared my breakfast - a Pot Noodle and a beer. It felt brilliant to eat some food though - bacon and eggs would have went down a treat however!

My shoes were still sat on the rock next to the campfire - they were drenched. I still had hope nonetheless, that they would somehow dry out but fully accepted that there would need to be some sort of divine intervention for that to happen!

I sat on my chair for what seemed like hours before the other lads roused themselves from their torture-fest of a slumber. Pot Noodles all round! We dined like kings!

With it being a Saturday, there was much more activity around the loch and campsite - sunbathers and the like. There was a problem though - my bladder was at capacity and with there being more people around I would have to tackle the shitty dirt track - with no shoes!

Fortunately, Boozeguy had a brilliant brain wave!

"Why don't you put plastic bags in your shoes - that'll keep your feet dry!"

So I did. Wasn't the most comfortable, but it would do the trick!

I squelched along the dirt track to get far down enough to ensure I didn't get charged with indecent exposure. It was the worst journey of my life - there were loads of flys buzzing about and every indent in the ground was peppered with shit, but still, I had to go deeper. Indiana Jones would never had made it! Eventually, I could bare no more and quickly dealt with the full bladder and squelched back to camp, looking like a I had nicked some fucking hobo's shoes.

"I don't give a fuck who's there next time, there's no fucking way I'm going down there again!"

The hours ticked by as we sat doing the same thing we had done since arriving - nothing! It was like being stuck in a time vortex! Although it wasn't as warm as the day before, we still had another dip in the water to enjoy some frisbee action!

When the sun went down we were better prepared this time in terms of our campfire - it had been built up throughout the day and lit at the perfect time! It went up in a fantastic blaze of flames along with all the other campfires around the loch.

Yeah.... look at us... we're experts at this wild camping lark!

So there we were, doing as we had done since we had arrived except with a cracking campfire going. The bag-shoes had long been discarded though - they weren't the most comfortable things in the world.

With the campfire going, the gigantic mosquitoes were kept slightly at bay so we didn't have to endure the torture of sleep quite yet! We dined on various exotic new flavours of Pot Noodle!

The tranquil calm of the night was suddenly interrupted with an explosion from across the loch! Our eyes were drawn to the origin of the noise as a huge fireball came through the trees!

"Holy fuck, was that a car crash?!?"

We could hear movement from the far end of our side of the loch; people probably trying to workout what just happened! Next came the shouting...

"IS EVERYONE ALRIGHT?!" shouted some guys from our side. We listened intently for a response, I think we may even have put down our beer! We heard nothing however.

"DO YOU NEED AN AMBULANCE?! HAS ANYONE GOT A FIRST AID BOX?!"

Through our drunken daze, we came to the conclusion that someone's gas canister had exploded. A few minutes later, there were more shouts....

"THE AMBULANCE ARE ON THEIR WAY!"

At the mouth of the river where we had camped, you could cross the water using stepping stones so there were teams of people running down to get across. This wasn't good - we would maybe have to interact with people here - I didn't even have any shoes for fuck sake!

The police arrived first followed by the ambulance and fire service. All in all, around 10 emergency service vehicles were on the scene, yet there was only one ambulance. We had no idea whether someone was actually hurt or perhaps worse!

People started returning from the other side whilst we continued to stay within our own camp - we surmised that there would be no point us getting involved because there were plenty of people scurrying across the water. We were drunk and in no condition to be getting into the water at that time of night!

We also noticed that there were kids crossing over with their frantic parents after having been over previously - this could perhaps have suggested that it wasn't as serious as first thought and that the adults were just nosey bastards - along with their kids!

Fireguy, who is also a bit of a pyromaniac decided it was time to light one of those flying lantern things... with his blowtorch! He stood at the edge of the bank, holding the lantern up while blasting it with blue fire. I'm sure that the various emergency services would be too busy dealing with the gas explosion to notice a guy lighting a flying lantern with a blowtorch!

"That's probably not a good idea with all the cops over there!", we advised.

"Na, it'll be fine!", he continues to fill the lantern.

A minute or so later, deciding that it was ready to fly, he let it go! It went straight into the water and was ruined! I was actually really looking forward to seeing it fly up into the air - talk about an anti-climax!

Eventually everything returned to normal - all was quiet again - no thanks to us!

It was time to endure another night of pain induced sleep! The mixture of doing nothing for two days and drunkness put me in a state somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness - sorta like the standby function on a television. Throughout the night I could hear people moving about outside the tent and throwing stones in the water which under normal circumstances, we'd be out there like a shot to find what the fucking score was, but on standby mode I just heard it happen, but didn't give a monkeys. I also heard Fireguy suddenly pronounce that he wasn't feeling well and dive to the tent door and be violently sick.

I heard it all, but just lay there, face down on the floor like some sort of vegetable.

Well, in saying that, I thought I heard it all, but it wasn't until morning I discovered that the 'spare-rib' Pot Noodle had done more than make him violently sick! It had caused a problem at both ends. The urgency of the situation and time of night meant that the riverside dirt track wasn't an option.

Abandon camp!

All the stuff was packed up and we went into town for a proper breakfast and a proper toilet. I couldn't suffer the embarrassment of wearing the bags in my shoes again so I squeezed into Fireguy's wet trainers which done the job nicely despite being too small!

So, we spend the weekend wild camping, surround by nature and shit from countless arses. It was summed up pretty nicely by Boozeguy:

'The best thing about camping is the worst thing about camping.'

Never a truer word was said, however, it was fucking excellent! Experiencing these kinda things with good friends is what life is all about!

The Wind Chimes of Justice

The Wee One and I were going into the car the other evening when I heard a noise.

This sort of noise is billed as something that's relaxing, tranquil - a must for any Zen garden!

I looked over and spotted the source of this tranquil noise.

A fucking wind chime!

Despite being billed as this new age, peaceful crap, I rate them with nails down a chalk board.

It's like having a civilised neighbour from hell.

However, if I closed my door then I couldn't really hear it so it didn't particularly bother me other than causing me to grimace every time I stepped outside! The next morning though was a different story...

What's worse than a wind chime?!

A wind chime at night!!

The Wee One wasn't long in telling me that this stupid, inconsiderate contraption had constantly woken her up. I daresay I wasn't the only one pissed off at the latest garden addition. Action had to be taken!

The Wee One was going to be staying at my parents for the next couple of nights, so she wouldn't be an issue. When she came back though, I was intending on having a quick word. I'm a reasonable sort of chap though, it's all about compromise - I was only going to ask them to kindly take it down in the evening to allow my child to sleep! That's not unreasonable, right?!

This morning, I left for work. I stepped out of the door and into the howling wind; cue the grimace! That fucking wind chime was chiming it's little heart out!

'God, I fucking hate that thing!!', I uttered aloud! Action would have to be taken.

This evening, I came around the corner in the car to my house. The first thing I had a look for was the wind chime. It was gone.

"Looks like she's taken it down. Thank God for that!" I cheered.

However, all is not what it seems - apparently some unknown vigilante ripped it clean out of the attachment and smashed it on the ground!

I'm not really one for condoning people's things being broken, but as far as I'm concerned, if I knew who dealt with this menace to society, I would shake their hand!

You sir, are a hero!

Of course, it could have been the strong winds that knocked it from the bracket, but I enjoy dramatics.......... and protecting people's identity!

Directions

I hate people asking me for directions!

It doesn't matter where I am, I could be standing outside my own house and it wouldn't make any difference.

If someone asks me for directions, the same thing happens...

I forget where I am, where I'm going and where anything is!

I can safely say that I've never, ever been able to give someone accurate directions.

I was walking to work one morning when a girl stopped me and asked me where a particular street was. This was pretty fortunate as this was the same street that I was going to, thus there was no requirement for me to give directions that I would probably fuck up.

"Actually, I'm heading there myself!", I tell her whilst dodging a begger who was sprawled across the ground clutching a half eaten paper cup!

"Great!" she replies as we continue along the road.

Obviously I felt the need to fill the silence so I thought we could talk about the one thing we most certainly had in common, so I started to give her directions.

She looked confused.

It didn't matter though, I was personally taking her to her destination so my cryptic directions wouldn't cause any problems. What I didn't realise though is that by giving her directions, she thought I was basically telling her where to go - as in, go there yourself bitch!

She thanked me and walked a little bit in front.

Realising I had fucked up the directions, I had two options:

1. Catch up with her and tell her I'd just walk with her as my directions are shit.
2. Slow down so that she'd go off in the wrong direction and wouldn't be able to call me a dick.

It was obviously a no-brainer, so I slowed down as she came to the first junction. She looked left, then looked right and turned around to look at me and gestured left.

My cheesy grin and my two thumbs up confirmed to her that she should go left. Yes, two thumbs up, I know!

I continued on with my snail's pace whilst she marched up the street. She was a fair bit in front of me as she came to a set of traffic lights.

"Go right, go right!" I prayed, somehow salvaging my sense of direction-giving.

She carried on ahead - full speed ahead, no less. I reached the traffic lights and saw her disappear into the sea of people.

I went right.