Thorpe Park October 2019

A quick post before I retire to be.  My daughter had a non-pupil day today and I took her to Thorpe Park.  We were only able to stay a few hours as she started to feel unwell.  Sadly I have now got what she has!

She only got to enjoy three rollercoasters, one being Swarm, which my son did not get to go on, but she also tried Colossus and before she left, Stealth.  Needless to say, the last one terrified me.

I am not sure when I will return, but I suspect both kids will want to visit here again.

Cambridge

Today was great.  After a great breakfast we travelled to Cambridge where my daughter had her birthday shopping experience. We were tempted to use the park and ride scheme but instead parked in the centre of Cambridge after a vote.  Being her birthday weekend, my daughter had the deciding vote on this.

After spending time and money there, we returned to The Angel and had an amazing dinner.

As I type this, everyone is asleep and I am watching Match Of The Day, not knowing the scores of course. 

My genius son

It is actually the birthday weekend of my daughter and as I type this, we are at the Angel in Bury St Edmunds.  We are to use this as a base to shop in Cambridge tomorrow.

We got here for afternoon tea, but later went out for nibbles.  I had an interesting walk with my daughter and met up with my wife and son later. While there, I realised that my son was spending a lot of time on his iPhone.  In order to restrict screen time for them, we have made use of a password, but they have repeatedly cracked it.  When I say they, I mean him.  He shares the code with his sister.  In fact, that was how I realised last time as I noted that she had been using her iPhone a lot, more than the time I had allowed her.  They have managed not only to work out the code, but a way of not alerting me that they are using it.  This time though, he gave it away and I realised that he had cracked the code.  Apparently, he beat it months ago, but I had not realised.  And he gets it off me, as he knows that deep down, I am proud and impressed that he has outsmarted me, again.  He also knows that his mother will be more angry with him.

But so far this month, he has lost his bike keys, his glasses, not been able to find things on the table in front of him, and this afternoon, his shoes, that he had taken off an hour ago!

Oops we did it again. This time in Syria with the Kurds.

We have abandoned another ally.  And Trump is getting the blame.  

For those who are unaware, Kurds in Syria have taken control of land in Syria as part of the Syrian civil war.  Once Unislamic State rose, they were important allies in defeating the inhumane barbarians that perverted the name of Islam.  We, in the west, despite not trying to end the Syrian Civil War with direct military force, aided the Kurds through airstrikes, volunteers and troops on the ground.

However, our support for them was going to end once Russia sent troops into Syria.  The continued presence of forces from the West in Syria otherwise risked a direct confrontation with Russian forces.  If Syria decided to take back control of the land controlled by the Kurds, the odds are that they would do so with Russian help.  Turkey was never going to be keen on Kurds creating a state next to the Turkish border, but could not do much while we in the west backed them.  So all they had to do was wait. 

Now we have left, the Turkish armed forces are free to eliminate what they consider a threat to Turkey.

But while we were going to have to abandon them, the justification of President Trump to explain this is bizarre, will antagonise Muslims across the globe, and will mean that even less people will trust the US, and possibly the rest of the West when it comes to similar issues in the future.   

Censored

My daughter reported me to Instagram today.

I had taken her to an appointment this morning and as we arrived early we bought a mocha each.  After the appointment after driving home I cycled to my Wednesday job and it was only when I had left home that I realised that I had not had breakfast.

After getting to work, I posted on Instagram that I had a mocha powered cycle.  When I got home after work, I found that my daughter had replied and called me an asshole.  I responded that she was an arse as an ass is a donkey.  And she reported my comment which was deleted!

Anyway the kids are fine.  My son is cycling back to school, though he was not able to do so today as he had lost his key to his bicycle lock!  His hand is healed and he was quite proud after coming third in his year in a maths test!

Getting out of cooking

Today, when at work (ill with ManFlu), I got a call from my wife.  I was not able to take it, but soon after got a message from my manager that my son was injured, having cut his hand.

All sorts of things went through my head, did he have an accident cycling being the biggest one.  But my wife had gone to get him and it turned out that he had cut his hand when cooking.  She took him to our local walk in centre and I joined them when I could.  I was going to spend time there, but she got time off work and stayed with him instead.  His wound was reviewed and glued and sent home. I am not at home yet, but am at work still, waiting for the traffic from the football match to subside.  All in all, it has been a stressful day for my wife, me and most importantly, my son.

What will be interesting is the reaction of his sister.  He has to keep his dressings dry and that means he will not be able to stack and unstack the dishwasher. Which means that she will...

A walk in the park

This week, the entry is more about my son than my daughter. At school, he has been asked to present the advantages of his school at his old school. Despite leaving in July, he says that it is smaller already!

And today he took part in the Park Run at Old Heath recreation ground in Colchester.  I got him here late, and without his registration card (which my wife had printed earlier) but he did really well.  I did see him walk for a bit, but he ran further than I could.

Needless to say, I am very proud.