When in prison, the arrival of the mail is always a big event. Joe gets his major input of the day with the delivery of the latest in a series of information processing devices. Well, there’s not much else to spend money on at the moment.
The Greatest Media Panic of All Time does not change the turn of the seasons, at least, not yet. it was time for the little potato people to get into the ground today, where (if past experience is any guide) they will stay in a kind of stasis until this time next year, when we will hopefully dig up about the same number and volume of potatoes to eat. If we get to the other side of this rupture, anyway. Here, Clare and Joe do the work, while I laze in the sun and document it.
In recent months Joe’s average rate of appearance on the blog has dropped, this being the first since 10th November, and that was just his back — 6th October as a proper portrait. The blog reflects life however, and maybe we just aren’t hanging out together as much as we used to. But this Sunday we did, getting a football fix after a blank day yesterday: mind you, it was cold. Anyway, one can use this as a check on his growth since he turned up the very first time in September 2011, more than half his life, and 3,088 days, ago.
Following my lament about the day’s football match on Saturday’s blog post, I shall not depict it — but here is Joe on his way to it, on a very pleasant November morning.
Golly, look what tomorrow is — day 3,000 of the blog. It would be nice to mark this with some momentous journey of some kind, but it ain’t gonna happen, as I will be spending the day working here in Hebden Bridge. But as with every other day on here, I will do my best — let us see what the light brings.
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.
