The Time Bubble

So, the fun continued fast and furious last week, with even the steadily worsening weather. Took Ollie into Oxford on the bus for the day on Thursday, which he loves. Jamie was at Julie's so we could sit upstairs on the bus. Had a few things to do which I won't bore you with (technicalities at camera shops etc) then we went to McDonalds for lunch. Here I did my good deed for the day. My friend Claire Atkin was there with her two kiddies, and had a bit of a disaster when her youngest pulled over a whole bottle of Orange Juice flooding the table, food clothes, everything. Fortunately I was able to leap into action, sprinting across the floor, knocking all the fat spotty people out of the way, to return in seconds armed with copious amounts of napkins to minimise the damage. It's very frustrating for a parent when such things occur in public, I remember an occasion some years ago when Ollie pulled over a whole large coke directly into my lap in Burger King so I had to go aro...

Let the carnage commence!  Well, there goes another Christmas, pretty much as expected. I've pretty much got my Christmasses down to a tee these days, have settled into a little family formula that works for us, so let's run through it. I don't like to spoil Christmas Day by being either hung over or tired since having the kids, the traditional Christmas Eve booze up has been knocked on the head. Back in the Nielsen days, this basically used to involve getting a lift into work on Christmas Eve, leaving work at 12, going on the piss around Oxford, getting the bus back to Bicester early evening (with crossed legs) and then continuing the festivities back in Bicester before ending up at someone's house, or maybe mine. I shudder to think about it now to be honest, waking up underneath a Christmas tree on the 25th amid a sea of Strongbow cans is an image best consigned to the archives forever. But - no need to miss out! I generally have a bit of a booze up on the 23...