So off to the man made fake seaside complete with fairground rides, the town centre has put on for us poor people who can't afford a real holiday!
Tram ride first into the town centre.
"Mum, look a man" highlighted the 3 yr old who likes to spot anything and everything. "Yes, it really is a lessor spotted male". "What mummy, that man has spots, that man there *points to nutty looking psycho sat opposite"
Oh shit, humour wasted on kids and now I'm going to get beat up for upsetting a psycho.
Get off tram and walk to 'seaside'.. Great, surrounded by kids. Not just kids but other people's kids..
I can just about tolerate my own kids, but other people's... Well, it makes my already frayed patience a bit more frayed.. Mind you, what did I expect, it's not a beer festival. If it were I wouldn't be attending because I have kids. And beer makes me trump - a lot, so I'd probably get banned from said festival for emitting noxious substances.
The kids bee line for the giant sand pit, brilliant, my favourite thing is sand. Love the stuff. I especially love how you find it everywhere for days to follow. I give out the rules - 'do not throw sand', and within 5 minutes he's throwing sand. I give 3 more warnings on sand throwing before I have to remove the perpetrator/bugger of a son from the sandpit before he blinds someone's snotty little darling.
The 7 yr old follows, both are sandy. I don't really want to brush it off, I hate the feel of the stuff, so I see the water fountains are on and send the kids in that direction for a quick shower. Half the city use these fountains as a weekly shower anyway so we might as well take advantage.
I let them have a play while I took a pew on the provided deck chairs and had a nosy around at everyone.
Funny how when you go somewhere like this how you see every cross section of the city in one area..
Here's a rough guide to who was out and about today:
The Artist/Sculptor Type: Dreadlocked hair with a green ribbon tying those lucious locks back off his face. Usually wearing orange or green coloured cargo trousers and some tie dyed vest or other, may or may not have a tiny tattoo of a ships steering wheel on his upper arm. Usually has a massive amount of armpit hair. He will have ridden to town on his bicycle. Which is worth more than his house probably. His kids are probably called Arty and Lola-Lulabelle.
Suit Man: He wears a suit obviously, and sits on a bench eating his pre-packed sandwich, bag of walkers and his carton of mango smoothie (clearly a meal deal) Suit man always get a bit of green food stuck in his teeth and I often wonder if anyone tells him back at the office. His kids probably aren't born yet but will be called Myles and Maisy.
Titty Tina: She's usually in her mid to late 40's with an impressive rack which she hangs out of her slightly too small top. She wears the brightest lippy known to man, talks in a bit of a blokey voice, chain smokes and always has acrylic nails to match her lippy. She's probably seen more action than action man himself.
She doesn't have kids but if she did they'd be called Candice, Kourtney, Kaleb, Cain, Klemancy, Tristan, Summer, Britney, Cindy, Dillon & Shane.
The Typical Mum: Typical mum is what you think you should be but will never be. She's so mumsy. You'll never be her because you still like to wear denim. Typical Mum wears a flowery dress. At home she wears an apron, We other mums just lick our hands clean when we cook 'n' bake. (From a packet that is- something typical mum would never dream of doing!)
Mumsy mum, has Juniper and Joseph and both children are stood loyally by her side eating hummus on a twig. No wait, sorry, looked again, it's not a twig, it's an organic breadstick. Panic over.
The Potential Pedophile: Every town centre, every event involving children has one of these sat somewhere. They are always alone, usually wearing a thick tweed coat in the middle of summer, they're not doing anything apart from just being there looking like a pedo with no mates and no mobile phone, but you swear you're not going to take your eyes off this dirty old disgusting pervert eyeing up the kids. Even tho he's probably just blind and has rickets so can't walk.
The Have A Right Laugh Dad: This dad does my absolute nut in.
He's the one that probably only sees his kids for hourly visits once a week and there he is behaving like daddy day care. Jumping into the water fountains with his son called Dwayne probably, the one you look at and write off his whole life because he's bound for prison one day, mainly just because of his name.
Dwaynes daddy just jumps in the water fountains with Dwayne, he rolls in the sand pit with him, gets Dwayne to bury him in the sand (- so not fair because I wanted to do it). Goes down the Helter Skelter backwards, oh yeh he lives life on the edge! He's so much fun. Right on Dwaynes dad. Only we all think you're a twat and can't wait for probation to recall you to finish your jail sentence for stealing from Primark.
The Workmen: Sat having lunch just staring at Titty Tina's tits...
The Grandparents: Sitting together with a permanent smile on their faces laughing and smiling with glee at the next generation jumping and skipping and playing merrily. Totally oblivious to the little shits that they are because they believe the children are the future. Well that and the fact that they are partially sighted and deaf in one ear- that really helps.
The Teenage Gang: Not the scary hoodie types. These are just a gang of teens sitting somewhere, usually somewhere random like the middle of the path as opposed to a nice patch of grass out of the way, because they are teenagers and do cool stuff like block walkways. The 'gang' usually have tons of bags, mainly consist of girls, but somewhere in the middle you'll see a ginger haired boy with braces.
There's usually at least one goth like girl in the crew, one with far too much make up, a really spotty kid, a geeky one but she get straight A's and obviously ginger Giles.. They laugh at nonsense, drink Evian, and one always has a Chupa Chup.
......................
Kids are nice and wet after this so decided it was time to go, and had to buy yet another stack of clothes to avoid looking like I've tried to drown them. Decided to pop to one more shop before the tram ride home and just as I chose a lovely blusher and lippy, boy said 'oh-oh' and a puddle appeared on the floor. I'd totally forgot to play my recording of 'do you want a wee-wee, are you sure you don't want a wee-wee' and turns out he did want a wee-wee.
Operation 'try to look like I can handle 3 kids' fails at this point, I throw the make up back on shelf and leg it out of the shop and off home.
So, fake seaside, it could've been worse but it wasn't. Kids are tired. As am I. It's hard work when you have to remember how many kids you left the house with and ensuring you've returned with the same amount! I think the headcount is right. I'll double check in the morning..
