Kids Say the Funniest Things (part 89)

A snapshot of a choice encounter whilst taking my eldest (10 years old) to cubs one evening with one of his friends:

My eldest: “You’ll never guess what I found in my Shreddies this morning – a big, thick, curly hair!  Eurghh!”

Eldest’s friend: [without a hint of irony or sarcasm] “Yeah, that’ll be from one of the nanas that knitted them.”

My eldest: “Yeah.”

Oh, to be a 10 year old boy again!

North Berwick Minis end another Season on a High

A strange feeling of deja vu - another mini-rugby season ends, with another North Berwick win at the Preston Lodge mini rugby tournament.

North Berwick P6 win at Preston Lodge Tournament

The boys won all 5 of their games – against Musselburgh, Preston Lodge, Watsons, Haddington and Portobello – and played some lovely rugby in the process.  Well done boys!

Kids Say the Funniest Things (part 71)

Another corker from my youngest on a recent family holiday to the Lake District – the conversation somehow got onto eye-brows.  Eye-brows to you and me; eye-browns to my youngest.

Despite much hilarity and explanation from her two older siblings, she was insistent that eye-brows are in fact called eye-browns.  Because they’re brown.

You can’t fault the logic, so for the avoidance of doubt, I give you eye-browns:

Eye-browns ...

 As opposed to Eye-blonds:

... Eye-blondes ...

Or even Eye-gingers:

... Eye-gingers

My Next Car?

It’s official - my Skoda is a write-off.  My girls have been busy specifying the requirements for the replacement: 

"The perfect car for you dad"

It breaks down as:

• “little bit faster than the old car”
• “3 seats in the back, 2 in the front”

The gold glitter sparkles down the sides, I’m assured, are a nice to have – rather than a mandatory requirement.  The search starts here. 

Tyred of Paying Too Much? T’internet is Just the Ticket

You can love the internet for many reasons.  But surely one of its greatest benefits as a medium is the price transparency which it promotes.  It’s easy to get bogged down with the proliferation of price comparison sites which abound.  But there’s little more satisfying than doing your own research and saving yourself some cash as a direct  result.  Or maybe I should just get out more.

Anyhow, my car needs new tyres, on account of the 52 mile round trip I do in and out of work each day, and the taxi service I provide for my children.   I was looking to replace two Pirelli P6000 tyres (205/55 R16V specification). 

I checked out Kwikfit: £101 each, fully fitted.  Ouch!  I then checked out Black Circles: £68 a pop, fully fitted.  I’ve used both services in the past, and from experience can vouch that other factors (such as quality of service or convenience) don’t provide any other useful differentiation.  So in this instance, price is the determinant.

Tyres ...

The net result is that I’ve just saved myself £66.  This certainly helps sweeten the pain of shelling out cash for something as mundane as new tyres.  The £66 saved will cover the cost of something far more enjoyable – match tickets for me and my son to watch the last cricket ODI of the summer between England and Australia in Durham next weekend.

... or Tickets?

And with England already 3-0 down in a 7 match series, and the star players dropping like flies, I fear the experience will need some sweetening.

North Berwick Minis End Rugby Season on High

We’ve reached the end of a long season.  But it ended on a high!  The North Berwick P5 Rugby team won the trophy at the Preston Lodge Tournament.

The sun shone, and the boys played some lovely open rugby, entertaining the watching spectators by running in no less than 47 tries in their 5 games. It was the kind of performance which makes those cold November mornings at North Berwick Rec all worthwhile!

Particularly gratifying for us weather-beaten old coaches was the way in which the boys worked as a team and played “heads-up rugby”,  looking to offload the ball to a support runner before the tackle.  We’ve been working on it for the last five years, and it’s really beginning to come together now!

And here they are with their well-deserved trophy.  Well done boys!

North Berwick P5s

The rest of the season’s match reports are available on the North Berwick RFC website.

Dog-gone Virtual Pets

Picture the scene if you will – Easter Saturday, a family holiday down to the Lake District.  The sun shining outside the car, its occupants lazily meandering down the A7, through the Scottish Borders, having deliberately shunned the M8/M74 route in favour of a more tranquil journey.  The River Tweed follows a complementary path, with newborn lambs nestling with their mothers along its course.

Mum sits serene in the passenger seat enjoying the views.  Dad sits in the driving seat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel with quiet contentment, gazing alternately between the road and the scenery.

All is calm in the back seats, the three kids having seen enough of the nature outside the window, all now plugged into their electronic devices inside the car.  The Nintendo DS is the gadget of choice – with 2 units shared between 3 children to encourage sharing and filial respect.  Nintendogs and Littlest Pets are the games of choice – both very gentle and designed to foster responsibility within a playful environment of care and nurture (or so says Nintendo).  For those of you not familiar, these games allow you to  play with, train, walk and wash your virtual pets.

Virtual Pets

But the calm doesn’t last for long.  Middle child soon pipes up: “Hey, who’s been taking my dogs for a walk!??”

Not to be outdone, eldest child soon pitches in, the anger growing as the realisation begins to break on him: “That’s nothing, some of my dogs have been deleted!!”

Youngest child is initially conspicuous by her silence.  But it doesn’t last for long, the peace disturbed by volleys of accusation and counter-accusation flying backwards and forwards between the occupants of the rear seats of the car.

Everyone knows what’s coming next:  some serious parental intervention. 

“Enough!!” growls Dad, with a stern glance in his rear-view mirror, panning across the visages of all three of the backseat passengers.  “Can’t you all save your squabbling for real things which really matter?!  I can’t believe you’re all arguing over something as silly as a bunch of imaginary pets made out of nothing more than pixels!”

Peace is restored giving Dad some space to consider his comments. 

Fingers drumming on the steering wheel, and eyes gazing alternately from road to scenery, it was only when I reflected on what I had said that I realised how wrong I had been. 

These may not be real pets in any physical sense, but my children have invested hours of their time, and bundles of their energy in nurturing, developing and caring for these onscreen animals.  The animals may only be made from pixels, but they have captivated the imaginations of my children and countless thousands of others.  And these affections, feelings and emotions are very, very real.

As my attention turned back to the road, chastising myself for my hasty judgement, it occurred to me that games such as these (and the likes of the Tamagotchi before it) are increasingly representative of the electronic and virtual environments into which our children are growing up.   We adults now think nothing of sitting in front of screens, investing time, energy and emotions in social networking or writing blogs.   These are very real things for us.  Why should it be any different for our children?

Kids Say the Funniest Things (part 26)

As a father of three, my kids are a continual source of amusement and entertainment to me.  Whether they mean to be or not.

For me, the amusement started in the days before my own delightful offspring arrived, with a trip to some family friends.  Their three year old was just coming to grips with the finer points of language, but hadn’t quite got the hang of different categories of poultry.   Quite logically, therefore, he referred to ducks not as ducks, but instead as “chicken boats”.  I’ll leave you to work it out.

Not to be outdone, my eldest (when he was really still quite young) was playing in the street with his wee pals, when he started talking about a “goat’s car”.  I was perplexed, and on closer inspection his infantile ramblings had nothing to do with animals, but instead he was talking about his friend’s go-kart.  Needless to say, from that point forward, in my family go-karts are now called “goat’s cars”.

Go Kart

Goat’s Car

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few months later, he had me in stitches again.  He was helping me in the kitchen preparing a meal.  Each ingredient which came to hand was met with a constant barrage of questions.  “What’s this, Daddy?”, “What are those, Daddy?”.  I picked up some whole nutmegs, preparing to grate them.  The question came.  I explained, “this is a spice, and it’s called nutmeg“.  “Ah!” came the knowing response, “duck eggs”.

Nutmegs

Duck Eggs

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kids really do say the funniest things.  Hey, maybe somebody should make a TV programme about it?