A couple of days in the sun.

It dawned on us recently that we hadn't had a holiday, just the three of us, without it involving visiting other family members, since R was born.  We were never big on foreign holidays anyway.  A week abroad every couple of years was plenty for us.  City breaks were the norm.  Other than that, our only holidays away from visiting relatives, were usually tagged onto family visits.

One thing that we had really enjoyed was camping.  It started with our childhood family holidays to the New Forest or North Wales, moved onto festivals and back full circle to the Yorkshire Dales.  We had finally got our perfect tent (three man with an awning for our gear), two stoves, thermal sleeping mats, decent sleeping bags.  We hadn't gone mad, but we could cope from Spring into Autumn.  Then, of course, pregnancy occurred, R turned up, and camping was shelved. 

As well as the pressures of dealing with a premature baby we had the added self-inflicted pressure of living far from our families.  Granny lives in Edinburgh while Nanna lives in Windsor.  A 4 hour drive in either direction means that we can't just pop over for Sunday lunch.  Even a weekend trip seams a little daft so most of our annual leave entitlement involves either the M1 or A1 for hours at a time.

This weekend however we decided to make some time for ourselves and try to rekindle our love affair with camping.  Gone is the 3 man tent in favour of a family friendly 6 man tent, giving us space for more family members in the future.  The stoves have been augmented with a portable barbecue and our thermal sleeping mats have been replaced by a queen sized airbed as Z is demanding her creature comforts.  What could go wrong.

If you hadn't noticed, this weekend was the August Bank Holiday weekend and, in England, that means one thing and one thing only, rain.  I had checked the weather forecast in advance so this came to no real surprise.  We had taken an emergency "pop up" tent with us for R to shelter in while we shouted, swore and got soaked to the bone.  The combination of the torrential summer rain, coupled with a brand new tent that we hadn't erected before, made for an entertaining half an hour.  Of course, with the tent up, the rain eased off.  R quickly made himself comfortable, spread some toys into every corner of the tent and set about exploring the five meters of canvas that was to be our home for the next two nights.

 

The rain didn't stop until the middle of the night.  That didn't stop me from lighting the barbecue, nor did it stop us from finding the steep path down from the cliff to camp site to the beach.  We explored the ruins of the second world war pillboxes that had fallen from their elevated positions to become high tide homes for stranded sea creatures.  Z even found a fossil although I'm not sure what it's a fossil of.

The next morning we woke to discover a flaw in our bargain tent.  With the wind in the right direction rain was being blown under one of the ventilation windows and into R's bedroom.  Luckily he was sleeping at one side of the room so didn't wake up in a puddle.  The rain had at least stopped, but the clouds hung to the site like the barnacles which covered the pillboxes.  We made the decision to leave our tend and explore Filey, somewhere that I had been to a couple of times but neither Z or R had had the pleasure of.

 

We had made the right decision.  A ten minute drive later and we were in brilliant sunshine, paddling in the sea, building sandcastles and eating fish and chips.  The only down side to our day trip was that R had his first encounter with a wasp.  We were worried because his grandfather, Poppa John, is allergic to wasps but happily it looks like that particular gene hasn't been passed down the line.

Back at the site the weather had finally lifted.  Now that we could see past the end of our guy ropes R started to get brave.  Just how far away from the tent and from us could he get?  We were all happy as long as we could see each other, it was only when he rounded the side of a tent a couple of hundred meters away that I put my running practise in to use and shepherded him back where we could see him again.

Our second night passed without a hitch.  Putting R to bed and having to stay around the tent meant that we could spend plenty of quality time together.  We played cards, chatted and managed that rarest of things, an early night and eight hours of sleep.  The next morning we were woken by what passes for the dawn chorus on camp sites, families screaming at each other as one child complained that their sibling was in their part of the tent.  The mothers attempt to calm things down was even louder and more shrill than the original complaint.  I'm glad it wasn't us but it made for a reminder of things hopefully to come.

We packed up our tent and made our way home happy in the knowledge that we had survived our first family holiday.  We had also rekindled our love affair with pitching a tent and sleeping under canvas.  Best of all R had a great time.  In his words "I love camping." and with those words spinning around my head I'm already planning our next camping adventure.

Children's Menu - Sukhothai

Anybody who knows me probably knows that this is not my first attempt at blogging.  What you are reading is actually my fourth blog, but I have not started writing this one at the cost of the others.  My other blogs are all food related, so I guess it was only a matter of time before food reared its head here.  The thing with children is that they constantly want feeding!

At home R usually tucks into most things that we put in front of him, mood permitting, but we are not always at home.  We do venture over the doorstep and brave the big wide world and that is when trouble can start.  This summer we have been taking picnics with us when we have been venturing out, but every now and then a more substantial meal is called for and that is when we run into the Children's Menu.

As I mentioned, R likes his food, however there are a lot of Children's Menus out there that consist of burgers, bangers and mash, fish fingers, spag boll, chicken nuggets and not a lot else.  We're not food snobs* by a long shot and, apart from the chicken nuggets, we feed these types of meals to him at home.  The difference being, at home I can vouch for the quality of the produce, in a pub, cafe or restaurant I cannot.

Recently however, I was made aware that Leeds based Thai restaurant chain Sukhothai had a children's menu.  I was determined to give it a go as; a) I had never eaten in Sukhothai and had heard good things, and b) We had never given R Thai food.  He loves pasta and noodles so we thought we would be onto a winner and this week we got our chance to try it out.

As it was a midweek lunch time the restaurant, on South Parade, was quiet apart from a few suits.  The business people didn't look too happy about a buggy being pushed into their midst but the staff were happy to see us and got us seated very fast.  Speed is key when dealing with hungry toddlers so while R counted the butterflies on his menu we chose dishes from the Express Menu.

Complimentary prawn crackers kept us occupied until the main courses arrived, but when they did I started to wish I hadn't allowed him to eat so many of them.  His children's portion of Pad Broccoli with noodles was as big, if not bigger, than my Pad Kee Mao.  He was never going to finish all of it but he did give it a good go.  He even insisted on using chopsticks which completely blew me away as he'd never used them before.

Yes, that is a children's portion!

Even though he ate a lot there was still plenty on his plate by the time he'd finished.  Of course he still had room for ice cream and he wisely swapped the chopsticks for a spoon.  His two course meal was £4.95 which, given the portions, was superb value for money.  It was really healthy too, packed with fresh vegetables, even the ice cream came with fresh fruit.  Our meals were good too, so good in fact that I think we'll be going back for more.

If you are in town, or close to any of Sukhothai's 3 other restaurants with children in tow, you should give it a try.  For the record this is not a sponsored blog, I was not invited to eat at Sukhothai and I received no freebies.  I just had a really good lunch with my family.

*well we might be a bit snobby.

What's in a Name?

Baby names are always in the news and no more so than this week, with the naming of George Alexander Louis, His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge.  There was a lot of media speculation about what the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would call their bundle of joy.  There continues to be analysis of the name and people pontificating over their choice.

Celebrities like the Beckhams have followed a trend of famous people giving their children unusual names.  Recently, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian named their daughter North.  Quite nice until you realise that she will take her fathers Surname.  There were sections of my family who were not happy with the middle name that was given to my little brother.

It seems that all of us, from princes to paupers, are scrutinised by what we call our offspring.  It is the first thing, other than DNA, that we bestow on them.  We hadn't given much thought to what we were going to call our baby until the day he arrived.  In our defence, we thought that we still had two months to go before making the decision.  We had a girl's name in the bag but as we didn't know what gender our baby was we needed a boy's name too.

We spent the early part of labour going through the alphabet trying to find a name starting with each letter, that we both liked.  We skipped Q, X, Y and Z.  By the time he was born we had chosen a first and second name for our little man.  The following day, in my first act of fatherhood, I registered the birth and named our son.  I know that I could have waited but we didn't know at that point if he would survive the trauma of being born prematurely and we wanted him to have a name.

He did survive and, looking back at our short list of names, we definitely made the right choice.  He fits his name well.  But does it make that much difference?  Shakespeare's thoughts on the matter in Romeo and Juliet would suggest not.

Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.

Does it really matter what we call our children?  As parents we love them unconditionally, no matter what they are called, even when they are royally winding us up.  There is their future well being to think about, but other than that, What's in a name?

The Long Weekend. Chapter3

Back in the days when I looked after R every Friday, we started to go swimming.  Due to the unique way the Council makes decisions, our local pool, South Leeds Sports Centre, closed down so I had to drive to Morley for our weekly splashing session.  This week the decision was taken to demolish South Leeds Sports Centre but you can read about that at South Leeds Life.

I'd arranged a play date for our swim and we decided to go to Armley Sports Centre.  R was giddy with excitement as we looked out his swimming trunks, swim nappy and water wings.  We chose an octopus to take with us and got in the car.  R was still bouncing as we picked up our dates and ran into the sports centre.

All was fine until we got into the changing room, that was when the spell was broken.  Suddenly R wanted to be anywhere but where we were and he certainly didn't want to go swimming.  In the two and a half years since he was born I have never seen him have such a tantrum.  Crying so hard he was almost fitting.  Backing away from me like I was about to eat him.  I managed to calm him down, soft gentle talking, making sure he was ok.  But when I suggested that he might like to have a swim it all kicked off again.  In the end we got dressed and our dates had a nice swim without us.

I was stunned to see R in this state.  I was upset too.  Firstly and selfishly, I wanted to go swimming and he had ruined my plan for the morning.  Secondly, I can still clearly remember the fun I had learning to swim with my dad, although I was a little older than R is now.  Thirdly, I don't want him to be traumatized by the idea of swimming.  I'll leave it a while before we try swimming again, perhaps it will be easier with mum in tow as well. 

Other than today's epic disaster this weekend has been great.  I do love spending so much time with my little boy and I think he like hanging around with me too.  Going back to work tomorrow morning will be a struggle but it wont be long until next weekend and more fun.

The Long Weekend. Chapter2

After yesterday's foray in to Leeds' cultural heart I decided to get back to earth for toady's daddy daycare adventure.  Earlier this year I sponsored a pig at Swillington Farm, with the sole intention of eating the whole beast from nose to tail*.  We have been visiting the farm every couple of weeks ever since to check on his progress.  Today we took the short drive out of Leeds to visit Breakfast.

Although it was only a short visit it was clearly an exciting one.  My piggy was sleeping in the shade of his sty but some of his younger cousins were happily running about the place.  We also saw the chickens and turkeys.  It was all enough to wear R out completely.  After yesterday's nap fail, I got a good two hour nap out of him this afternoon.

One of the things that saddens me about living in the UK at the moment are the constant reports that children don't know where their food comes from.  That milk comes from a cow and that chicken comes from chickens shouldn't be a surprise to teenagers.  As a bit of a food obsessive I refuse to allow this to happen to R.  He already knows where milk, chicken and ham comes from.  He has eaten whole fish with gusto.  He has eaten a wider variety of food in his two and a half years than I had eaten by the time I was 18.

Taking him to the farm reinforces the early message that animals free to roam around are happy.  In turn, I hope that this turns into knowledge that happy animals make good food.  You have to start these things at some point and there is no time like the present.

Z comes home tomorrow but not before our final adventure of the weekend.  I hope R will have lots to tell her about his time with daddy.

*to read more about my adventures in pork click here.

The Long Weekend. Chapter1

We've been quite lucky with the way things have panned out since we had R.  Yes the start was far from ideal, but everything seems to have worked out for the best.  Even having my hours at work reduced to save the company money meant that I could dedicate more time to being a dad.  Every Friday was "Daddy Daycare".  We went swimming, fed the ducks and generally mucked about together.

Z's maternity leave came to an end at the same time as I was asked to go back to work full time.  Since then Daddy Daycare has been limited to the odd Saturday or Sunday so that Z could have a day to herself.  This weekend Z is off gallivanting around Wales on a Hen Do and I am back holding the reins.  I've tried to organise at least one thing for each of the three days with the express hope that R's afternoon nap won't let me down.

Today, with Z dropped off at Leeds Train Station, I made a small picnic and we set off to spend the morning at Leeds City Museum.  This is, without a doubt, one of my favourite places in Leeds.  I have and will continue to spend hours walking around the museum.  Perhaps one day, when R is a little older, I might get to look at some of the exhibits instead of toddler wrangling may way from Stone Age Yorkshire to modern Leeds.  Until that day I'm happy enough.  The place is full of child friendly interactive activities, which R gets more out of with every visit, and he loves toddler town and the tiger.

We left the museum and made our way across town to Park square to have our picnic.  There were probably too many "suits" for the squirrels to be out and about but that small detail couldn't spoil our lunch.  R is a good eater but the promise of cake for pudding made the sandwiches disappear in double quick time.

I was ready to go home after lunch but he had other ideas.  Our route to Park Square had taken us past the City Gallery and R wanted to look around there too.  Sadly this extra jaunt knocked my afternoon plans for six.  I'd hoped to get him home before the afternoon nap kicked in but alas he slept on the way home and promptly woke up the second I put the key in the front door.

I still had the chores to do that I was going to tackle while he slept, so I moved some of his toys into the kitchen so we could play while I cooked and cleaned.  The afternoon could never match up to the fun morning that we'd had but it was no disaster.  The only tantrum of the day came at bath time.  For some reason R has decided that he doesn't like baths.  That is until he is in one splashing around and then it's impossible to get him out and dried.

We said good night after a couple of stories and the day was made complete as he muttered "love you too daddy" as I laid him in bed.  There is only a day and a half left until Z gets home, we both miss her but I love spending time like this with my son.

Leeds 10k

On Sunday, along with almost 10,000 other people, I took to the mean streets of Leeds to take part in the Leeds 10k.  This was my first proper run since deciding to try and get fit in the middle of last year.  I'd taken the decision to do something about my fitness after realising that my son, R, would only be getting faster, as I was getting slower.

I got to Millenium Square at 8:10am and started to wonder what I was doing there.  Everywhere I looked there were people limbering up, stretching and generally looking like they knew what was going on.  A thought dawned on me.  If I just set of running, there and then, I could complete the course and be on my way home before the race had even started.

I didn't start running.  Instead I nervously stretched, took on water and tried to vanish into the crowds.  Now, I know what I put on my application form.  I know that I had estimated my time as around one hour and twenty minutes.  I do not know why I was corralled in with the elite athletes.  This did not do my confidence any favours.  The slowest section I could put myself in was sub forty five minutes, half my expected time.

We were ushered, by the army, to the start line, and there we continued to wait.  Finally, after standing around like cattle, whilst the morning sun beat down on us, a local radio DJ got us under way.  I was aware that I tend to run too fast but there was no slowing down.  Running in a crowd is infectious, you become part of a pack.  It's the closest I have come to feeling like a zebra on the Serengeti.  Luckily the crowds lining the route were a lot more friendly than the packs of lions that encourage the zebras across the plains.

The cheering on-lookers did help, as I'd be told they would.  The volunteers handing out water bottles and soaked sponges definitely helped.  Being passed by a panda and a banana didn't help my confidence at all.  But it was the thought of seeing my son at the finish line that kept my legs moving.  That and the thought of the money I'd raised for Bliss, got me over the finish line in one hour and seven minutes.

I know that I'm not going to challenge Mo Farrah any time soon but for me getting over the line was a great achievement.  If I can run for an hour, walking every now and the to catch my breath, then I'm sure I can kick a ball around a park with R without the need of an oxygen tank on stand by.

I chose Bliss, the premature baby charity, to run the 10k for as R was born 8 weeks early.  We were lucky that we didn't actually need their support but we witnessed first hand the work that they do for families who really need support when their dreams of a normal family life are in turmoil.  I know that my run is over but you can still support Bliss by donating on my Just Giving page.