Felix Baumgartner seems like a very down to earth guy

The title is a reference to the jump by Felix Baumgartner to earth. A long way up, taking ages to get there, and ten minutes later, he is on the ground. And no, I have not watched it. Yet.

I survived the day. I was was knackered. Though if that was due to a late night on Friday and Saturday as opposed to spending time with the kids remains to be seen. It was good to have them to myself though. Not that I did much. After my wife left (I could not tell if she was laughing and rubbing her hands with glee) I just relaxed and was a bad father, letting the kids watch television. My excuse is that there was a lot of Spiderman episodes taped and I needed to clear space on the Sky box and I am going to stick to it. The both parties were great. The first one really was one my son was meant to go to, but my daughter, along with a few other children from her year were invited. As one mother of a child in my daughters year was saying that she needed something more sophisticated for her birthday, the two girls cycled past on some tricyles. There was a great bouncy castle which I did not get to go on (just to check it was safe for the children) as well as lost of soft play. But it was a 5th birthday party. When it came to feeding the kids, I helped a little bit, but lots of kids gave me wary looks, after all, some strange man is offering them sweets and they have been told to say no to strangers! During this time, I helped guard a door from a boy and a girl who wanted to leave the crowd and play elsewhere. The boy even punched me in the stomach in an attempt to let me open the door! Some kids eh?

Afterwards, it was to Colchester Zoo for the party that my daughter had been invited to. I took my son to see various animals. He was just interested in the big park near the entrance to the park, but soon took to seeing the different animals and even got to feed an elephant! With going to school, he has been more aggressive in the evenings recently and this has resulted in a few arguments. Today was a great day for the two of us to bond together. I think that happened and hopefully, one day he will remember the time that he spent with me there. Fortunately my wife arrived at home soon after we got home. I had allowed the kids to gorge themselves on the sweets and cake that they had been given and she got back before the sugar rush made them high. All in all, despite not seeing my wife as much as I would like, it was a good day.