A very relaxing and enjoyable weekend spent back with the Squid family....most of it a veritable tornado of board games, red wine, and punning galore; all entirely worthy of the monstrous £85 train fare. Even took a nice walk on the beach today, and learned some interesting facts about longshore drift. They do say that every day is a school day, which I genuinely believe is both (a) true and (b) fortunate, the former being ratified by the fact that Clare is always calling me names and then stealing my lunch money, and the latter by the inalienable certainty that I evidently still have a great deal to learn. Not least about coastal erosion.
Anyway, nice to get away.
Overheard a pretty depressing conversation on the train back though, this evening. The principle auteur of this particular slice of misanthropy was a youngish woman with too many rings and not enough make-up, and the unlucky recipient of her blinkered world view clearly her plucky son, who can't have been older than maybe nine (ie: still riding the wave of youth's merry expectancy before the weight of the world crushes his spirit). As follows:
HER: So what are we going to do....when we get to London? It's your birthday trip after all, so anything at all. I hear you can get out to Thorpe Park pretty easily? Your father told me it's only half an hour on the train [NB: this is questionable]
HIM: Well the things is mum, I was really hoping we could go to the Science Museum...
HER: Science? Sounds a bit boring...
HIM: ....I've heard it's really interesting....
HER: ....yeah, I'm still thinking it's got to be a no....
HIM: Well can we go to the Natural History Museum then? I hear they have a whole dinosaur skeleton...
HER: ....well Thorpe Park has Nemesis, so....
HIM: ....well I'd rather see a dinosaur skeleton.
HER: Those museums are pretty expensive...
HIM: ...well no actually, they're both free...
HER: ....yeah but do they have candy floss?
HIM: Yes, probably. And candy floss is very high in sugar.
HER: What are you, Gillian McKeith? That's it, we're going to Thorpe Park and you're going to ride Nemesis with me whether you like it or not. Museums are gay...
HIM: ....I can't really see how that's fair....
HER: ....yeah, well, life isn't fair.
HIM: Alright mum, I trust you. I guess museums are a bit gay...
I was wrong earlier. Forget later life....I suspect his spirit is now crushed, cubed and awaiting delivery to the local landfill. The resignation with which he literally sighed the last line will probably haunt me forever. And I've seen My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.
Seriously Octopus; don't ever let me become that person. (A bad parent I mean, not a gypsy. Although while we're instigating these criteria.....that too. Not expecting it, obviously, but you never know. If we really are heading for a second consecutive quarter of negative growth then maybe living tax-free in mobile accommodation is the way forward...)
After witnessing the aforementioned and highly demoralising exchange, I turned my attentions to my new notebook, and spent far too considerable an amount of time composing the following:
'If the earth had ears and eyebrows to frown,
And stars had feet to run,
If the moon had hands and salivary glands,
Then you'd be my little red sun.'
No intended recipient. Just something to pass the time.
Your loving friend,
Action Squid
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