It’s not quite the finale of Enter the Dragon but I still like this one. However, how come Joe gets on three times, one neatly in each third — and I’m only on once? Perhaps I am only part vampire. It would explain certain things.
In all the eight years (minus a week) that I have been doing this blog there have been various selfies and shots of Joe — but we’ve never been captured together. Until tonight. Other than the slightly grubby glass in which we’re being reflected, I quite like this shot. To the right, the ferals gather at one end of Halifax bus station, being told off by some security guard who calls one of them a ‘scrote’ every few seconds. Meanwhile I ponder the fact that I’ve entered the last week of my 40s.
Another day when I didn’t leave the house. Joe will be fairly housebound for a while too, as today he went and had his “Sybil Fawlty” operation; in other words, the removal of an ingrowing toenail (this being what kicks off the fun in the Fawlty Towers episode, “The Germans”). He seemed fairly blasé about it all. But it’s not like he needs any great excuse to put his feet up at the moment — and why shouldn’t he, it’s the summer holiday.
Joe finished his GCSE exams a couple of weeks ago and so now, like all the UK’s 15-16 year olds, has an extended summer holiday, interrupted only insofar as his parents nag him to do things to get him out of the house. Attending part of the annual allotment summer tidy up (July is inspection month) didn’t seem to enthuse him much though. But the redcurrants are ready to eat (all six of them).
On the day I started this blog, 26/8/11, Joe was just short of being eight-and-a-half years old. He did not finish primary school until July 2014. Yet today was his last day of lessons at Calder High — there are still exams to do, but no more classes. He arrived home at lunchtime in a shirt scrawled with signatures from staff and classmates. I can’t be the only parent asking — where does the time go? How quickly it passes… at least for him. (Not for me. My life moves at a crawl.)
At age 16 Joe has his first, but doubtless not last, bout of major school examinations — the GCSEs. The first week is done — the whole show lasts about another month yet, though. Today’s revision schedule: Physics. But we did let him out to go to the cinema later.
Tomorrow — or today as I post, that is, 4th March — is Joe’s 16th birthday, so it’s about time he made a reappearance here as it’s been nearly four months (12th November) since he featured. As one of his birthday gifts today we bought him a new suit, as it’s getting to that point in life where some form of occasional sartorial elegance will do one no harm. Eventual choice not pictured here, but he does look dapper in it. I know I would say that, of course.
I do try not to repeat myself on here, but after 2,636 days it’s gonna happen, sorry — so here is another version of the shot offered on day 1,134, 2nd October 2014. Same hands, same dentist, and same person — Joe — being inspected. But also a better version of the shot, I feel. We come here every few months, roughly, so the next time you might see this is some time in late April next year. Or perhaps not.
Joe is the person who has appeared on this blog the most often, but the last time was three months ago, in Guernsey, so let’s have him return with an action shot from one of his rehearsals for his upcoming Food Technology exam (or whatever it is they call it these days). The egg whites are whipped up successfully to the soft peak stage, and the chocolate (72% cocoa solid…) is about to go into be melted. And it all turned out very well.
On the wettest day for months, and trapped in the house, Joe initiates his parents into bizarre Dice Man-style games of chance, in which the family fortune teeters on the edge of a d20. The wine is Clare’s.
