Being a dad

I was recently asked to contribute to a feature on what it's like to be a dad in these modern times.  The feature itself isn't due to be printed for several months, and as a journalist myself, I doubt they'll use much of what I provided. Hardly surprising as I got a bit over-excited and came up with a screed of self righteous copy about what a great father I am. It was particularly ironic as the day after submitting it I proved my fathering skills by letting our three year old tip over on his scooter on to his face resulting in a fat lip, grazed nose and lots of blood.


Anyway, I was asked to comment on a few areas, and on the basis that I don't necessarily practice what I preach, this is what I said.


ON DADS' DEPRESSION 

Luckily for me I didn't experience anything that I would call depression, although I know somebody who did.
I think it is something that many dads are not even aware of. We're all primed to look out for symptoms in our wives and partners, but don't really consider it among ourselves.
Becoming a parent is harder than many of us imagine. Nothing you are told can really prepare you for the lack of sleep, worry about doing things properly, and frustration when things don't go right (the baby won't feed, won't sleep, won't stop crying). The first few weeks in particular are like baby boot camp.
It's a real eye opener and the wonder is that more men don't crack up. You're trying to be the strong, capable male role model you've read about and seen on TV, and often combining this with work. It's like having two jobs at once.
I got through it the first time by just getting on with it. I expected it to be a challenge and it definitely was, but it does get better eventually. And because it's all new, there is a sense of discovery and joy as the child develops which overcomes the bad times. The slightest thing, like a smile, can turn a really crappy morning around.
Funnily enough I found the birth of our second son tougher, because I underestimated how hard it would be with two kids. I thought that having done it once before, it would be a walk in the park, which is definitely wasn't.
Kid A was a worse sleeper than his brother, and suffered really bad colic when he was very young. Both my wife and I had this rose tinted idea that as our first son had been such a bad sleeper, we would be blessed with a sleeping scond son, and it was almost like a slap in the face when it didn't work out like that. There was almost a sense, of "Here we go again!" this time round. You've also got the other child demanding your attention, so it's a real plate spinning challenge.
I've definitely been less stoical this time round, and more grumpy at times. It probably made it a bit harder to bond with A  if I'm honest, although that has passed and I love him to bits now. It does strain your relationship unless you talk about it. Both parties inevitably think that they are getting the rougher end of the deal and that neither understands the other. Just being open about how you feel is a great release, as is humour. There are times when it gets so bad that it's hard not to laugh - perhaps a bit hysterically.

ON DADS' ROLE IN THE FAMILY
 
I always assumed that I'd have a central role in bringing up our children. As much as things break down along gender lines to a certain extent, we try and have equal roles. Obviously I can't breast feed and my wife can't assemble flat pack furniture, but we try and do the same things for the boys, whether it's cooking, playing, reading bedtime stories or bathing them (although this is something that I've found that I do, mainly because my wife was nervous about doing it when they were young).
I've never been a man that thinks it's beneath him to change a nappy. As far as I'm concerned, if you want a full role in your child's upbringing, then you need the full range of skills.
And they are skills. Very little we do with our children is completely innate. You have to pick stuff up by trial and error. You need to be able to soothe your child when they are upset and not just think that mummy will do it. She's not always there!
My dad died when I was 13, but my memories of him are of a family man, and that's what I wanted to be.
So, right from the start I've thrown myself in and got involved. In the early days I would even wake up in the night when my wife was breastfeeding as I felt I should be doing something. It seems like madness now, but at the time I think I felt I was being supportive by not getting any sleep as well - duh!
I don't think I've ever felt excluded, even when the boys have preferred to go to mum. It's understandable that they have a closer relationship with her in the early days, and I've never felt threatened by that. They quickly become individuals and you realise that even quite early on you will have your own relationship with them. As they get older (ours are 3 and 11 months at the moment), I'm probably the go to guy for boisterous play, which I absolutely adore.
My relationship with my wife has changed because we have less time for each other. We can both be irritable with each other because of tiredness and perceived lack of empathy from the other person. It can get like the Monty Python four Yorkshiremen sketch in the "I'm more tired than you" stakes. But at the same time we're closer than ever because of what we have in common. I don't think either of us truly wishes for our pre-children lives back. (Although a bit more time for personal interests would be lovely).
I didn't join any dad's groups as there wasn't one where I used to live in East London. However I did spend about 18 months working part time and looking after our first son, when my wife went back to work. During that time I gravitated to a number of dads that were doing the same thing. As much as the mums I met were lovely, I think there is something about the dad experience that makes you want to share it with other blokes. It was fun to hang out with them. Dads groups definitely have a role though. I'm quite confident about my role as a dad and wouldn't have a problem going to a class or group where I was the only man there. But I know that some men don't feel that and value an exclusively male group. It probably makes it easier to ask some of the many dumb questions that occur to us all. We're probably less worried about feeling silly in front of other men. And how can you feel intimidated by a hulking bloke who is carrying round a pink dolly and pastel shades changing bag.

ON PATERNITY LEAVE AND RIGHTS
 
I'm a freelancer, so I didn't have any paternity rights. At the same time, I have more flexible time, so I knew I would be able to spend as much time as required or desired at home.
Having said that, the nature of my work is feast or famine, and some work came up about a week after J's birth that I felt I had to take. It was just beginning to sink in how hard it was all going to be, so at the time I was a bit guilty about leaving the house knowing I was making my escape from the crying fury that was our baby. Then I'd come back to a wife in floods of tears who would thrust him into my arms and disappear upstairs for a break. Tough times.
I'm used to being around, so I think I would have found it hard to be content with just a couple of weeks paid paternity leave. My temptation would have been to set aside some money and sound out my employer about the possibility of taking a sabbatical from work to spend more time with the child. The benefits are obvious: you're a help at home, you can bond with your child, and it gives you a bit of perspective on your career - what are you working for in the first place?
Would I like to see better paternity rights? Probably I would, although I can appreciate the concerns of small companies especially who worry about all the new fathers suddenly wanting six months to spend with their child. Not everybody wants this, but I think the option should be there.
In a wider sense I hope that Sure Start doesn't get broken up. Both my wife and I found the Sure Start groups in our area a great resource and a great way of meeting other parents. It would be a real shame if they suddenly became unavailable to a few parents. 

As I said, it's pretty self righteous stuff, but it's a snapshot of how I feel that in a few years time may be a handy reminder.


More light-hearted posts to follow.

Forever friends

Formerly HackneyBoy is very excited today as his friend, LondonBoy is paying a visit to us in Colchester. They are both just over three years old and as the only boys in our small group of NCT-accredited parents, they bond quite quickly as youngsters.

This manifest itself in the rumbustious nature of their play. Whether it's nature or nurture, boy's playtime is definitely more physical, in my experience. Admittedly, my experience is of having two boys, and all of their cousins are boys too. 

Anyway, both also share a boys' love of trains and Thomas the Tank Engine. (Before becoming a parent, I don't think I had any appreciation of how big a franchise T the T is. I doubt I've met a parent of boys whose son wasn't obsessed with trains from about two onwards. Sod the pension, plough your savings into HiT Entertainments. It's hard to see how it's a passing fad after 65 years. Incidentally, it seems that the uber-commercialisation of T the T is relatively recent. My elderly uncle [and another model train nut] visited us a few months back and was telling me how it was more of a cottage industry in his day. The Rev Awdry, who wrote the books, was quite a feature at train preservation societies in his time, but it was far from the global brand it has become.)

Trains: not just for boys

Anyway, I digress...

HackneyBoy and LondonBoy both disappeared upstairs as soon as they arrived at the house. They are playing HB's newest game, Deliveries. This involves trains (of course) and the delivery of sundry items, and in a new twist invented by mummy last night, messages. He has some Brio wooden track and a battery powered engine to pull the carriages. The track is laid out along the floor and shuttles backwards and forwards with the deliveries. This can go on for hours, so I am particularly glad at LB's appearance today.

But I'm more glad that they still seem to be friends. They are only young and friendships are fragile things, so it wouldn't be surprising if their camaraderie gradually whithered over time. For now though, it seems strong. HB gave LB a big hug when they got into the house, and LB reciprocated by helping HB remove his shoes.

And I haven't heard crashes or crying yet!

Night out

Last night my wife and I wandered into town for a night out - the first we've had together since HackneyBaby was born ten months ago. Praise be to nanny and grandad for babysitting, especially as the little fella is teething at the moment, so was a bit of a handful.

It's quite a strange sensation being childless, even if it is for only a few hours. Mind you, as the main topic of conversation was kids - ours and other people's - we were never truly alone.

The Missus delighted in dragging me round the pubs of her youth, particularly the Hole in the Wall, which was the Goth pub of Colchester she informs me. Not that she was a Goth. In fact,she says that she used to get stared at for being too shiny and not wearing regulation black. Last night we probably got looked at for looking old or because I looked rather like an off duty policeman.

The other pubs we tried were:
- the Hospital Arms, which was rammed and is definitely one to revisit - nice ales, and the homemade bar snacks sounded good
- the Kings Arms - also very busy, but with a more officey crowd, so we didn't stop. Probably nicer for a relaxing daytime pint
- the Fat Cat, which is ostensibly my local. It has a very impressive ale selection, although the locals seem a little cliquey on the evidence of my few visits (apart from my very first visit, when the barman regaled with "Hello, I haven't seen you for a while!" Or ever in fact). I have a suspicion that the Cat is the Coppers local as it is very near the Police station, so I'm a  bit surprised I wasn't greeted more warmly this time. Perhaps I failed to give the proper Masonic greeting as I palmed my change.

Anyway, the morning after I am slightly paying for this debauched evening as it was my turn to get up with the kids. However I was rewarded by seeing HackneyBaby's (or should he be ColchesterBaby now?) first steps. Onwards and upwards.

Tributes

When we lived in Hackney, it was sadly not uncommon to come across moving, makeshift floral tributes on the streets. Often these were for the victims of violent crime, such as Jahmal Mason-Blair, stabbed in a fight he was trying to break up, Edward Thompson, shot by mistake, and Shaquille Smith, stabbed by a gang as he played outside his home.

When Jahmal died there was an incredible shrine that sprung up under a railway bridge that I used to pass when dropping my son at nursery. Like many young boys, he had aspirations of being a footballer, and was considered by Tottenham Hotspur. His shrine was made up of flowers, pictures, candles, football shirts, poems and pictures from friends and people who probably didn't even know him. It was a touching sight, and I remember the care that local road sweepers used to take in tidying around it.

Yesterday I came across something similar in Colchester. It was to commemorate Cassie McCord, a 16 year old schoolgirl who was killed when a car mounted the pavement on Monday. Again, the flowers were piled up on the pavement. Schoolchildren stood around crying and comforting each other. Another tragic waste of life.

It's easy to see these sorts of tributes as a bit mawkish and another example of how our famed stiff upper lip has given way to Diana-ish public displays of emotion, but I think that they serve a useful purpose. They remind us of the inevitability and the sometimes arbitrary nature of death. As we live longer, death is something that we don't encounter very often, and we don't always know how to react to it. 

The first funeral I ever attended was my father's when I was 13. The formality of the occasion and the ceremony was something I didn't know how to react to. I can still recall the shock of being pushed forward at the graveside to be one of the first to throw some soil on the coffin lid. The finality of the gesture hit me like a hammer. I've never really liked visiting his grave since then. It just doesn't feel like the best place to remember him.

An interesting take on the role of the grave was shown on Channel 4's Big Fat Gypsy Wedding programme this week. A father, Paddy, was shown visiting the grave of his first son, who had died in a car crash. Rather than being an overly sombre occasion, it was a time for remembrance and celebration of the boy's short life. CDs were played loudly and beer was drunk by the assembled crowd, who came every year on the anniversary of his death. In a programme that has been labelled as rather voyeuristic and mocking, it was extremely touching and a demonstration of the different ways we have of remembering those we love.

Another non-conventional tribute is the 'ghost bike'. These painted white bicycles appear to mark the spot where a cyclist has been killed in traffic. In Hackney, they are becoming almost as common as floral tributes to young people. The latest is for Dan Cox, who was knocked over at Dalston Junction. The bikes are a reminder of the individual and a somewhat chilling warning of accident black spots.

One uplifting element to the sad story of Cassie McCord is that she carried a donor card and her family agreed that her organs could be used. In this way, she will be remembered by many more people in future.

Cooking with kids

First catch your child...

I do most of the cooking in our house. It's something I really enjoy and I think I'm not bad at it, but this evening's effort brought home to me how degraded my skills have become.

The thing about cooking for children is that there is little appreciation for your efforts and little discernment. A carefully crafted, nutritious, homemade meal could inevitably be trumped by a turkey twizzler and chips. Kids don't really care about provenance or how long it took to make. They care about having something that they recognise and having it now, or five minutes ago.

This relentless drive to get food on the table at an allotted time is what makes cooking drudgery, and it's why women of my mother's generation turned to convenience foods as their saviours. I can well remember as a child the close correlation between what was advertised on TV one week and what appeared on your plate the next. Crispy pancakes, chicken nuggets, and my particular favourite crispy batter fish fingers. I loved these so much that I'm sure I had them every day for a week until I was completely sick of them.

Anyway, I'm enough of guilty Jamie and Hugh disciple  to try and go down a different route (as well as being a hypocrite for denying my children the tasty treats I so enjoyed). By and large we cook meals from scratch, try and use fresh vegetables as much as possible. However this can take so long that inevitably you end up eating the same as the kids. This in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. It's good for the family to eat together. The problem is that I don't always feel like eating at 5.30 when the kids do. And the lack of seasoning and adult flavourings like chili, does result in slightly bland fare.

The upshot is that I'm falling, ever so slightly out of love with cooking. I don't get many chances to indulge my love of cheffy touches these days. It's a bit more of a bish, bash, bosh approach. Hence tonight's meal, which was a hurried Annabel Karmel salmon tagliatelle, albeit with a few ingredients missing. It just looked a bit of a mess to me, and I cooked it.

Of course, the kids loved it!

Today we drink!

Reaches the parts other gassy liquids can't

Or at least we could if there was a reason beyond the sheer love of alcohol. For today is the first of February and the end of January's self imposed no drinking rule.

And yet it seems such an anti-climax. Probably because it is a doddle for me these days. I've been doing no-drink Januaries for years and it definitely gets easier with practice. Last year I went for a couple of months without drinking in (enforced) solidarity with my wife after the birth of our second son. It was only supposed to be two weeks, but I felt a little aggrieved about being reminded of the promise I'd made to not booze in those tough early days. I grumpily took this to be a slur, so to speak, on by fathering abilities. Surely I could switch seamlessly from glass in hand to wipes and nappy. So, to demonstrate to my wife what an uncaring woman she was, and how lucky she was to have such a self-sacrificing other half, I stayed dry for eight weeks or so.

That showed her!

Actually, it was probably a good thing that I did lay off the ale, as HackneyBaby was not, and indeed, is not, a good sleeper. There is nothing that erases the pleasure had from a few convivial evening drinks quite like a screaming baby. Early morning soothing sessions are better faced with a clear head. Firstly, you're less likely to drop the child. Secondly, any relaxing effect those drinks will have had, are now gone.

So, here I am again, ready to reenter the world of drink. In the past, this has been a day I have been counting down to, whereas this year it's a bit of a 'so what' moment. As I say, it's too easy these days. I feel like an old lag keeping his head down and doing his time quietly.

So, in the spirit of disruption and personal challenge, I'm setting out to do something that will be infinitely tougher for me.

February is designated sugar free. Apart from fruit and unavoidable added sugar, I'm going to try and avoid the sweet stuff. No chocolate, no biscuits, no cakes, no soft drinks, no fruit juice, no jam on toast. I have a massive sweet tooth and am starting to worry that my predilection will be passed on to my boys. It's hard to deny HackneyChild a chocolate digestive when I'm happily ploughing through half a packet with a cup of tea. If they are not around - or perhaps replaced with something more child friendly for the odd treat - then that has to be a good thing.

It's a good job there are only 28 days though as I'm rattling already. And I might need a few drinks to complete it.

Rubbish entry

It's been ages since I posted, and the longer you leave it, the harder it gets - ooer!

I keep coming up with ideas for posts and then not writing them, or playing around with them in my mind until the fancy has gone. So I'm not promising any great shakes with this post. It's just to get me back into the habit.

One of the reasons I haven't posted for so long is that we finally moved house just before Christmas. We've swapped Hackney for Colchester and a two-bed flat for a three to five bed Victorian semi with garden. I'm just coming to the realisation that a house this size is almost like having another child in terms of the demands it places on your time. Never mind keeping it clean - we haven't even got it clean yet after the state the previous owners left it in - everywhere I look I see a job to be done. Painting, decorating, shelving, carpeting, gardening... the list just goes on an on. Now I know what people mean by a project.

Although we've only been here a month, it does seem like home already. This despite the fact that the house is absolutely freezing and holds heat like a sieve does water. The kids love it and as well as having their own bizarrely decorated rooms, they have a play room for all their toys and lots of other rooms to spread their toys about in. They don't understand compartmentalisation.

It's nice though. We can see lots of possibilities here for the future and the neighbours seem nice, if a little less exotic than our Hackney neighbours. We miss our London friends, but they're just down the line, and in the next week or so we will have a guest room for their - hopefully frequent - visits. Just remember to bring long johns.

Oh, and Happy New Year.

More autumn fun

Is there anything more fun for a young boy at this time of year than kicking rustling piles of leaves? Well, yes, there probably are, and it depends on the youth of the boy where he gets his kicks, but it has to be in the top five. Especially when dad sanctions throwing armfuls of them in the air too.

Ready, steady...

Wheeee!

How sad am I?

It's been a tough week. HackneyBaby is not sleeping very well so we've been up at all hours through the night. To make matter worse, just as his big brother is discovering the joy of a lie in, he has taken over the 6am - or earlier - shift.

I've been feeling a bit low recently. I've only just managed to shake off a cough that has been lingering for weeks. It didn't really develop into a full blown cold or flu, but just left me feeling a bit crap. Combined with my sore foot and the lack of sleep, I haven't been the happiest of bunnies.

This week has been especially wearing as we've been trying to get HB to stay in his cot when he kicks off. Up until now we've been walking him about, taking him downstairs to stop him waking his brother. Anyway, we've decided to stop that because:
a) it doesn't really work, and
b) he's getting too heavy to cart around in the middle of the night, and possibly...
c) because his brother scared the bejeezus out of me the other night by appearing silently by my side in the darkened front room and loudly asking "What are you doing?"

So this week we've been trying to keep him in our room and his cot. On one hand this has been easier for me as my wife has been dealing with him when he wakes up. However the unspoken quid pro quo has been that I've been getting up with him in the morning. We used to take it in turns to do this, so by the end of this week I was shattered.

My wife is not an unfeeling woman and she offered to take the kids out today and let me have some down time. (They went to the St Joseph's hospice Christmas bazaar, where Barbara Windsor was there to open things up and was, by all accounts a real sweetheart.)

This left me free to do whatever my heart desired - go back to bed, go to the cinema, head for the pub... whatever I fancied. In the event I found it really hard to think of anything to do. I eventually went for a walk and found myself looking at all the weekend dads out with their kids on bikes, playing and having fun. Although I was only divorced from mine for a couple of hours I felt an irrational envy, almost a separation anxiety, as I wondered what my two lads were doing.

It's crazy. I see them every day and for a lot longer than many fathers do. As much as I sometimes think that they have completely taken over my life, it is obvious that they now are my life.

And yes, I realise how icky that sounds.

Autumn gold

It's been a downpour today, but it was glorious yesterday. Even mucky old Hackney looks quite nice in the sunshine, especially when we're having such a glorious autumn for leaf colours.
Back in the day, before we had kids, we'd be heading out to Suffolk at about this time of year for an autumn break in the lovely seaside town of Southwold. Invariably we'd drive through beautiful golds, reds and yellows which would make me wonder why New England in the Fall is such a big deal when we have such wonderful scenes in our own country. 
Plus, I doubt you can get real ale like Adnams in New England. Nor find a boozer like the Lord Nelson.
These pictures aren't great, but I just wanted to capture how lovely the leaves look at the minute in case there are no more sunny days before they all drop.

 

Clay man

He sits... and waits... for a 38 bus

Not a great picture I know, but I had to climb on to somebody's wall and lean out to get this shot of the mysterious clay man. As he is looking away from me it is impossible to tell what look he has, or if he has any features at all. I'm thinking that he is perhaps Hackney's answer to Anthony Gormley's Event Horizon statues.

More bus stop top art

Following on from the under the radar success of the space potatoes and the wooden clacker things, the guerrilla artists of Hackney are at it again. Last night I noticed a small clay figure on top of the bus stop at the top of Graham Road. From my vantage point on the top deck of the 277, through the rain and condensation smeared windows, I could just about make him out. He seems to be sitting on an armchair as if watching an invisible TV.

It reminded me that I'd spotted another miniature figure on Kingsland Road a few weeks back. He also seemed to be made from unpainted clay, like his chair bound brother. However he was standing atop a wall with a life belt round his midriff. Poignant it was!

Unfortunately lifebelt man he has now gone as I tried to find him later to get a picture. But I wonder where the next clay man or woman might crop up and what they'll be doing.

This hurts

I have just discovered I've got a bunion. I don't know if this is good news or bad as I thought I'd broken my foot somehow or maybe developed gout. Which is worst?

All I know is that it bloody hurts at  the moment - throb, throb, throb. I am currently self-medicating with Kronenbourg, which I don't think conflicts with the anti-inflammatories I'm on. For now though I'm a hobbling, limping fool and I don't like it. This really makes me feel like the old dad I am. I can't descend the stairs with any ease. I can't actually walk very far at the moment. It's a real pisser.

Our two boys are so physically demanding that I feel like a bit of a spare part at the moment. I'm only marginally more mobile than the six month old, who is already hauling himself up on things and standing gummily grinning at us: "Look what I've done."

CRUNCH!

Advanced Police driving course - failed

We were sitting in the house yesterday when there was an almighty crash on what sounded like Graham Road. Being, like most people, nosey by nature, I halted what I was doing at the time - dressing down J over something or other - and rushed out to see what was going on.

A crowd of other rubber neckers had gathered on the corner of Graham Road and Navarino Road, where a couple of rather embarrassed PCs were surveying the scene. By all accounts they'd tried to undertake a car that was already turning into the side road, completely misjudged and kerrunch!

Although this tableau provided no little amusement, particularly for the guys who frequent the nearby bookies, it was extremely fortunate there was nobody on the pavement at the time as the results would have been terrible. Perhaps the police drivers wouldn't have been so foolhardy if there had been pedestrians, but this was the spot where Arina Romanova was knocked from her bike and killed a couple of months ago. Navarino Road is heavily used by parents and kids going to and from London Fields. On a lovely sunny, Saturday afternoon, it could have been much worse.

They knead the bread

I yield to no one in my love of a nice spelt sourdough, but it's getting so you can't move around here for artisan bakers. Maybe they are the new plumbers. A couple of years back there was the idea that the middle classes were chucking their jobs in the City, accountancy and law to make their millions fitting U-bends and Armitage Shanks three pieces. Given the price of the average pain de campagne, perhaps dough is going that way.

The latest addition is the E5 Bakehouse, which is located in a railway arch just off London Fields. We stumbled upon it this morning, after stumbling upon it on Facebook. We bought some rather rich, but fantastically yummy muffins for £1.50-1.75 each, which although pricey is still cheaper than Violet. The USP seems to be the organic nature of the goods on sale. They are to be very into the provenance of the flour and such like. But ultimately the proof of the pudding is in the eating and the chocolate and cherry, and carrot cake muffins we tried were fantastic.

(Not E5's yummy muffins. These cakes are for display purposes only)

Bread is their big thing though and there was a baker hard at it on Sunday. Apparently they will be making bread every day, which opens up the fantastic opportunity of strolling up there of a morning and picking up a still steaming round of bread. Or going for a run and dropping in for a baguette on the way back. Jeez, I love Hackney!

They are also running baking classes, which sound like fun. For £65 you undergo a full day course which will show you how to make the perfect sourdough. As a bit of an amateur baker, this sounds very interesting. I kept a sourdough starter for four or five years, but recently gave up on it as I was making bread with it so infrequently. Partly this was due to the fact that I have so little time for indulgences like baking what with the kids' demands. But another was the fact that I could never get the same taste that I would buy on Broadway Market from Degustibus, whose Californian sourdough is the Holy Grail. Maybe I can perfect my crumb and crust with some tuition.

I worked in an industrial bakery when I was younger - summer holiday job. Oddly it never left me with a desire to make, or even eat bread. Probably because the process was so deskilled. You basically did one small part of the process - classic assembly line stuff - so you couldn't really feel much ownership of the final product, which wasn't much to write home about anyway.

Getting your hands into the dough is a completely different matter.

The 6.30 Club

In which Dad tries to do some surreptitious blogging while keeping an ear out for the almost crawling baby behind him.

Baby A is what you would call an early riser - 6.30 is a bit of a lie in. My wife and I tend to take it in turns to do the early shift with him. By rights I should probably get up with him every morning as she feeds him in the night, which is usually a drawn out affair. However, for the past week or so I've been getting up with him as well. He's been sleeping so badly that it's almost like a return to the baby boot camp of the early weeks. It seems as if he's been waking up every hour, although in my sleep deprived state I can't be sure of anything. Yesterday I mentioned to Mrs Holiday that he seemed to have slept well only to be met with a withering rebuke that I'd slept through the worst of it.

Not that it's usually possible to sleep through and most nights I end up pacing the living room with him. At the moment he's still in our room as we've only got a two-bed flat until we move to our Essex mansion. So, when he wakes, if he won't go back to sleep quickly we take him downstairs so he doesn't disturb his brother.

It's a funny thing. Even when he's bawling his eyes out, he is often asleep in my arms by the time we get down the stairs and into this room. Maybe he finds the peculiar odour relaxing. Here I will walk him or rock him, which can be for anything between 10 minutes (hooray!) and an hour (lots of inward swearing at this point). He seems to be thriving on it though - he's a happy little chap when he wakes up. For us, it's sleep deprivation torture and leaves us zombified for the rest of the day.

For now, we're waiting for the day when we can put him in his own room and not hear his every whimper, which is probably part of the problem at the minute. His brother was similarly restless, although in a different way. We used to have to lie beside his cot and hold his hand, but at least you got a rest. With Baby A it's a full body work out in the small hours with no warm up.

Reinforcements have now arrived in the shape of big brother who is currently keeping A occupied by distributing various toys to him. One thing to be thankful for is the fact that they generally get on well at the moment. I hope that remains the same as little brother's crawling progresses. J already finds it annoying when he wrecks his carefully constructed train layouts. Will I be an early morning peacekeeper in the months ahead?

Anxious times

As we get closer to moving to Essex, I'm getting steadily more nervous. Not just because of the usual worries about leaving the little corner of East London that has been home for the past 11 years.

I'm starting to worry about everything really. The buildings report on the house we are buying came in today. Overall there's not a lot to worry about - it's not going to fall down the week after we move in. However, seeing in black and white what you are buying, and seeing all of its little blemishes highlighted is quite sobering - we're buying THIS! Mind you, I'd hate to see the report on our current property.

A bigger concern is the school catchment we are in. We specifically bid on the new place, and dropped another property because of the school we thought it was nearest to. I consulted with the local education authority about this as finding out catchment areas is like trying to uncover the recipe for Coca-Cola - there are a lot of pretenders out there, but you're never sure what's the real deal. Surely the council would know.

Apparently not. In my original conversations with the LEA, I was talked through a map of where the boundaries were by a lady in the schools team - "Up this road, down that one...." It all seemed very thorough so we went ahead and put in our bid on the house which, fro her information was in the catchment of the school we wanted.

Weeks later, by which time we were up to our ears in costs of moving, the surveyor, of all people, mentioned that we might not be in the catchment we thought we were in. I checked again. This time the process seemed a little more robust. The guy I spoke to said he had to access a computer programme to get the definitive answer. Except it wasn't initially definitive. Firstly he said that we were in catchment - cue huge relief and air punching - then he added "Unless you are in Road X". Since this was our prospective road and the basis of our entire conversation to this  point, I felt a little like the beauty queen who was announced as winner only to have the crown pinched from her head seconds later due to the announcer giving the wrong name.

We've missed out by one street, which is rather galling. One of the reasons that we are moving is that some schools in Hackney are not great (although not the one that J would probably have gone to had we stayed - Gayhurst gets decent reviews). We're now in the odd position of escaping from inner city London, with all its perceived problems, to leafy Colchester, where it's possible our son will go to a worse school than he would have had we stayed here. As my wife pointed out, we are possibly the most crap, pointy elbowed parents.

We did think briefly about pulling the whole deal, but we're so far down the line that it was a bit too scary to more than contemplate. Maybe the sink school will have pulled its socks up in a couple of years time.

Another worry is work. Specifically will there be any? It's still very quiet in my line these days and I'll be at the end of a very long line should I need to get back into the Smoke. I haven't yet identified the media quarter of our new home. Surely there is one!

So really I've got to keep accentuating the positives: bigger house; garden; closer to the seaside; near to family; nice town... Phew, it's good to know there are still reasons to cheerful.

Easy rider

I finally got round to testing the Boris bikes today. The nearest ones to Hackney aren't actually that near so it meant a trip down Kingsland Road to the Geffrye Museum where there is a rack in nearby Falkirk Street.

First impressions were favourable. There were plenty of bikes to choose from and they all seemed to be in good condition. Rightly or wrongly I'd expected that they would already be showing the signs of unwanted attention from vandals and drunkards, but the docking station itself was well kept and the bikes looked very impressive in their serried ranks. These ones hadn't been stickered either.

The process of obtaining one was pretty straightforward too. You just insert your key into the docking station, wait for a green light and you're away. The bikes are pretty robust but not uncomfortable. The seat is easy to adjust to the required height, the chain is enclosed so your trousers won't get caught in it, and the seat is padded and sufficiently wide to accommodate most bottoms. They also have built in lights which flash funkily as you ride along, drum brakes which were efficient without throwing you over the handlebars, and a 'basket' at the front for strapping in a bag or coat. They also have a stand.

There are three gears which ranged from the hilariously frenzied - ideal for getting off at lights - to a decent third which made me feel I could actually get the beast moving at a decent pace. I was actually able to overtake a few people on their own bikes. They were probably in a more leisurely frame of mind than me as I raced to the next docking station to ensure I stayed within the 30 minute free window. It's actually remarkably easy to do as the stations are thick on the ground in central London. There were also plenty of bikes at all stations apart from Clerkenwell Road where only two were left. Maybe this is due to the difficulty of hiring the bikes. Unless you have a key (not that difficult to apply for and they only cost £3) you still can't use the bikes. I'm sure the casual use scheme will be up and running by summer and by then I can't imagine it will be so easy to get hold of a bike, on a sunny Sunday afternoon for example.

I did go a bit bananas on the first leg with the result that when I descended the bike my legs were as jellyish as Simon Pegg's character in Run Fat Boy Run (filmed partly in Dalston actually) after his first spinning class. I took it easier after that and cycled from Kingsland Road to Borough Market, then on to the Royal Festival Hall for lunch before heading back through the West End, Bloomsbury, Old Street and back to Falkirk Street.

The overriding sensation was how being on a bike really shrinks the city. It was Saturday so traffic was probably lighter, but I was getting around much quicker than I would have done on any other mode of transport. Also, although the bike is hardly a design classic, I didn't feel as much of a plonker as I thought I would, and saw lots of other people on Boris bikes.

Overall, I can't think of much negative to say, apart from the fact that they don't extend very far into East London. If Boris really does intend to be a mayor of the whole city and not just the West part, I hope that this changes very quickly. There should already be a stream of them leading up to the Olympic site to get people used to the idea of visiting what is for many a strange part of town. Let's be 'aving 'em!

The Spurstowe in a former life

I came across this ad today, which I remember being shot at the Spurstowe on Wilton Way about five or six years ago. At the time it was still an old man's boozer, complete with the stripey wallpaper that you can just about make out in the picture.



Now, it's on its second incarnation as a trendy gastropub/cool hangout. So cool in fact that it doesn't even have a name. The current owners took down the name when they were redecorating and said that they were looking to rename it. I suggested they have a competition, but it looks as if nothing came of it.

My own suggestion is the Hotchip and Mumford, in celebration of the major sartorial influences for the drinkers... and the fact that they serve chips.

It is amazing how the fame of the this particular area has spread. First with Grazia dubbing London Fields the coolest park in London. Then the New York Times alighted on Wilton Way to number its charms. I did wonder if the backpacker parked outside our door yesterday had cabbed it straight from Heathrow to soak up the Wilton vibe.

But of course, what goes up, must inevitably come down, and it seems the backlash has already started. It has to be said that although there are a lot of dickheads about, they are mostly polite middle class youths who do add a certain vibrancy to the area and some comic appeal. There was a decidedly Nathan Barley-ish picnic going on outside the Lido on Saturday, complete with a DJ working a sound system from the back of a shopping trolley.

Sweet.

Bankers

It's not an original observation, but they really are a bunch of bankers aren't they?

I'm currently looking for a new mortgage as we're moving house so I've been surfing finance sites for longer than is healthy. My current mortgage is with Gnat West (the Frank Bank - Unemployed? No money? Then f--- off! Thank you Viz) and they recently sent me a reminder that my current deal is nearly over. I've just been rereading their kind offer and see that the two year fixed deal they have offered me - a customer of 10 years plus - is more than 2% higher than an offer open to any old Joe, on their website.

They can't even claim that the web offer is new as I spoke to one of their call centre staff yesterday and he said it had been around since the time that my reminder was sent. And my muggins offer comes with a £199 arrangement fee, compared with no fee for the one on the website.

The sad and bad thing is that there will be people out there who have taken them up on this and be overpaying by hundreds of pounds a month. Customer loyalty really does only cut one way it seems.

Advice for Dave

I was recently interviewed for an article on the BBC website about being a dad to tie in with the birth of David and Samantha Cameron's latest child. It came a bit earlier than expected, but luckily they managed to get it up in time.

As a journalist myself, I can't complain about being misquoted. I did pretty much say all of that stuff, but because of the brief, I didn't get much of a chance to talk about the joy of being a dad. And there are lots of joyous aspects to it.

However, it's fair to say that I found our second child tougher than our first. Partly this was because of the mismatch between expectation and reality. Despite being told by enough people that two or more kids were a lot tougher than one, it went in one ear and out the other. I thought that by the time number two was on the way, we had this parenting lark down pat. More fool me. Like lots of aspects of parenthood, you really have to experience things yourself and find your own way through.

I particularly struggled with drawing a boundary between family and work time. Because I work from home mainly, it was all too easy to be dragged into domestic crises - children crying, wife crying, poomageddon etc. Combined with the inevitable lack of sleep (well, not inevitable I suppose. Our second has proved not to be the placid balance to his energetic brother, but more of the same), the first few months turned out to be a not very productive time for me work wise. It was just as well that we were in a freelance recession!

I can't imagine what it will be like for the PM to try and stay on top of his workload while being a thoroughly modern dad at the same time. Of course he's already had three children, including one disabled child, so he's probably more disciplined than I'll ever be. With Samantha laid up after her section, there will be plenty for him to - and not just making tea and toast as he joked yesterday. It's lucky for him that he has Nick Clegg to hold the fort while he holds the baby.

It's going to be tough for them though with Sam having given up her job and the freezing of child benefit - thanks George! Family friendly government? We'll see.

Oh and the joyous bits. Well, the early days don't last for ever, do they?

To do list

After a few weeks of frantic searching, we have found a house in Essex which, if everything goes according to plan, we should move into in a couple of months. Which means that our Hackney holiday may become a permanent vacation.

Now that the move is imminent, I'm mentally listing things that we'll have to try and do before we leave here. Some of them are things that I've always meant to do but haven't got round to. Others are favourite activities that we'll miss when we move home. In no particular order:

* a meal at Buen Ayre on Broadway Market for a proper Argentinian steak. Window table please, as frequented by David Byrne a couple of months back.
* an afternoon at the Museum of Childhood with the kids. It's been my home from home for the past couple of years and the saviour of many rainy days.
* a morning swim at London Fields Lido - apparently the US swim team are eyeing it up for the 'Lympics.
* a few cheeky pints at the Wenlock Tavern, one of the few spit and spit pubs that haven't been gastro-ed up. They do blinding doorstop sandwiches to soak up the ale.
* go for a run along the canal past Victoria Park.
* complete a few more legs of the London Loop. Kids have put a stop on our efforts as most of the legs are a fair few miles and not particularly buggy friendly. It's a great walk though.
* late night bagels from Brick Lane. Preferably eaten slightly squiffy on a nightbus home to Hackney.
* cycle across London for free on the Boris Bikes. Although I've registered I still haven't tried them.
* ask to busk alongside Mikey at Dalston shopping centre.
* visit the Horniman museum. (I'm putting this down mainly because there's a good chance that we'll do it this weekend.)
* go to a ukulele night, such as the one in Stoke Newington's Lion pub.
* take a trip along the Thames on a boat.

There are plenty of other things, but that's a good start.

Poltergeists

In some cultures it's thought that when you die you are presented with all the things you have lost 'on the other side'. That's a lifetime of single socks, dropped coins, mislaid keys and mobile phones collected in the great lost property office in the sky.

I'm expecting that moving house is somewhat similar and that we will start to unearth lost treasures from behind furniture and the foot of drawers that have been unopened for years. Since having children, the rate at which things go missing has increased exponentially. It's not just the obvious stuff like kids socks, although they do seem to have a life of their own, or hats and dummies (ditto). Stuff just seems to disappear into thin air to the extent that you begin to suspect a malevolent presence.

Toys are another candidate for missing in action status. This particularly infuriates me as I have something of the quartermaster about me - a place for everything and everything in its place. It drives me nuts when I can't find the last piece of a jigsaw, the final action figure for a particular toy, or the piece of track that completes the railway line. Where are they?

I suspect that some of them ended up posted in the bin when J was younger. Other items might possibly have been left at his nursery or tossed from his buggy. It's not even that this stuff is valuable. It's the not knowing where it is that annoys me.

At times of greatest exasperation my wife nods sagely and says, "I'm sure it will turn up." This drives me even more bonkers. Does she know where it is? Is it some kind of elaborate game that she has devised with the kids - "Let's watch daddy lose it, shall we. Hide his phone in the freezer." Mainly however it's because I suspect her of being the architect of many of our losses. She is very scatty, with a slack attitude to her own possessions which she is passing on to our offspring.*

The latest loss is a whole bucket full of toy dinosaurs. One or two of their number going missing is just about excusable, but the extinction of the whole pack (hmm, collective noun for dinosaurs?) is mind boggling. It's right up there with the mystery of the mini guitar amp. This isn't a particularly small item and we don't live in a particularly large flat, so where the flip can it be?

I'm beginning to think that there is only one solution to the problem - throw away half of everything you own. At least that way if something turns up later you will feel blessed.

* Sorry darling, but it's true!

Why the long face?

The overriding memory I have of my mum when I was growing up is that she always seemed grumpy, usually with me. Our house was a whole world of 'no'.

Now, of course, the boot is on the other foot, and I can see that what I took for her unfair crabbiness was probably just plain exhaustion at bringing up two kids on her own. This combined with the ongoing repetition of house rules and regulations designed to prevent your offspring killing or maiming themselves or each other.

This is particularly brought home to me now we have two children. To a certain extent it was easy to be fun-loving, easy going dad when we just had Number One Son. Now with his four-month old brother in tow, I frequently find myself in the role of bad cop, relaying all the many ways he is letting us down with his inconsiderate behaviour.

He is two years old. I am 43.

I think he can see it coming now. His face creases up into a mask of misery and he implores me: "Don't be annoyed with me."

It is a mask of course. He's well sneaky and knows that I find it hard to be hard on him. Unless like last night I'd been up all night, due to brother's sniffles, including a 2am trip to Tesco for Calpol which he only succeeded in dribbling down his front anyway. When his elder brother started complaining that he couldn't sleep in his bed due to wasps, it really was the final straw!

"Get in that bed NOW, and go to sleep. If I hear one more word from you I'll... " (tries unsuccessfully to think of a suitable sanction for a two year old. I had started to remove his favourite toys when he misbehaved, but when he said, "What shall we take away next?" it was apparent that my punishment regime had been turned into a game by him. You can't win.)

Eventually he did go to sleep, although not before complaining of more wasps and telling me where I should sleep (on the landing, outside his door). It's suffice to say that none of us are fresh as a daisy today - well, he is, but his parents are looking more haggard than usual.

Meanwhile, my dear old mum has turned into a doting and fun grandma. Enjoy your rest mum. You've earned it.

Househunting

The shiny-suited ones have done us proud and managed to sell our humble abode for an anything but humble price. I'm almost ashamed at what we're getting for it (subject to contract) - almost but not quite.

It was all over relatively quickly - about five weeks to sell, during which time we were absent for many of the showings. This wasn't on purpose - we simply have the kind of fun-packed social lives that require us to vacate the Capital at weekends. I'm glad we weren't around though. If there is one thing more dispiriting than having someone do the tour of your house in about two minutes flat (that's a no then!), it's half-hearing the muted discussions as they tear apart what's still standing of your little castle.

Now the shoe is on the other foot, and it's us who are the moneyed interlopers, traipsing through people's lives, guffawing at their taste in decor, and rubbishing their houses.  Actually, I'm not that rude. Not even about the one really horrible house we've seen recently. (A big clue should have been the requirement to remove shoes at the door). Even here I oohed and aahed and commented favourably on the room sizes - sometimes it's the only thing you have left in your armoury of compliments.

I haven't househunted for more than 11 years, and then it took me months and I probably saw about 30-40 properties before falling in love with the ample proportions of my current des res. Then it was a backwater street in a backwater part of town. Now it's a newly hip quarter of an Olympic borough, which is probably why it has done so well on the market. From a two-bed flat in Hackney, we're now looking at four-bed detatcheds in Essex. How does that work?

Not that our new-found paper wealth is making the process any easier. After sifting through properties on-line for ages, we had a shortlist of about ten properties, and surprise, surprise, none of them is quite right. Nice location but bedrooms are too small, loads of rooms but the garden is tiny, fantastic space, but it's in the middle of nowhere, amazing space, but it's right next to a car park... and so on. Then there's the different tastes and priorities of me and the missus.

I can't deny that househunting is great for the nosey though. It's a great insight into how other people live, and estate agents are such gossips. I love the way that they let slip with enough of the backstory to pull you in - "they've split up - such a shame. I think they'd take an offer!"

Hopefully everyone is open to an offer at the moment, as our initial plan of cutting our outgoings seems to be going to pot as we have exhausted the cheaper properties in our range and are now looking towards, and maybe beyond out notional maximum budget. Then again, this may be a once in a lifetime to get ourselves a pukka Essex mansion.

Sweet!

On my bike

I have just registered for the new London bike hire scheme, which launches today. I was spurred on as I noticed several docking points while driving (whoops! Not very green) through Islington yesterday. There seemed to be a mass last minute exercise going on to 'bike up' all the docking points with the rather clunky looking machines that we will soon be able to ride.

Style should be the least of your worries when riding a bike, however of late it has become an activity that you need to be seen doing round these parts, preferably on a modish single speed bike or retro granny model. No need for bicycle clips either as trousers as worn drainpipe tight this year.

I doubt the  Barclays machines will go down particularly well with the London Fields massive as you will look as cool as a Tory on a bike. However, I was excited enough to register at about 11 last night, and am now waiting anxiously for my access key to arrive.

The scheme works by allowing you to pick up one of thousands of bikes from docking stations around the capital. You pay £3 for the key, rather like your Oyster card and then pay as you go. The first 30 minutes are free, so it may be possible to cross London by planning your route carefully and swapping bikes as you go. However the scheme is cheap enough at £1 per day, although there is higher rate if you don't have credit in your account. A full year's membership costs £45, which you'd struggle to buy a bike for anywhere - even in the thief's market of Brick Lane.

It is as yet unclear where all of the docking stations are. The website promises to locate them on a map, but they weren't there last night when I looked - not even the ones I spotted off Pentonville Road and next to Islington Sainsbury's. It will be something of an own goal if we don't have them in the Olympic boroughs as part of the bid has been about a green transport policy for visitors - as long as you are not a member of the IOC, which seems intent on traffic free carriage to the Lea Valley in special lanes.

For me, it will be an opportunity to get back on two wheels. I haven't had a bike for ages as there is not really room to store it in the flat. The only problem is that I doubt they come with kids seats. Maybe some enterprising sort will develop a quick release version that can used with hire bikes.

These sorts of schemes have been in action for a while in many European cities, such as Paris and Frankfurt. The key to their success, according to my sources, is speedy reallocation of bikes so they don't simply disappear from high traffic sites, such as railway stations to the periphery of the scheme. That, and removal and repair of any duff machines. I suspect there will be plenty of need in the early days as cycling novices, such as me, and local vandals put them through their paces. Overall though, what's not to like?

In depth report coming soon.

Sugar Sugar

Like many first time parents, we did a lot of things by the (smug middle class parent's) book: breast feeding for a year (not me, obviously); weaning on nutritious pulped food; avoiding exposure to TV; no sweets. Jeez, we were smug.

The no sweets thing was something that I was particularly keen on, having seen the havoc that the introduction of 'treats' can have on a healthy eating regime. Mainly to myself actually. As a Scottish child of the Seventies, I was raised on the newly available convenience foods and sweeties.

(My mum was, and remains a marketing man's dream. My sister and I used to be able to accurately guage what we'd be having for dinner by checking out what new ads were breaking that week. You could guarantee that mum would trial any new innovations as soon as they hit the shelves.)

So when it came to HackneyChild, I was determined that he should be given the best dietary start. In this I was helped by my wife, who had a completely different upbringing to mine, in that she was deprived of sweets to such an extent in the early days that the first time some kindly soul gave her jelly babies, she started playing with them, thinking they were dolls.

That story always stuck in my mind. To this day I have a massively sweet tooth, brought on in no small part by the kind of food my old Scottish grannie thought suitable for growing laddies - treacle and syrup sandwiches for example. White bread, natch! Or just a straight up sugar sandwich. I didn't stand a chance.

Anyway, I thought we'd done pretty well keeping J's exposure to the white stuff to a minimum. I used to weed out the nasties from the birthday bags he was given at his nursery, but really it seems to have been all in vain. After a delayed start, he has taken to all sorts of sweet things like a demon - cakes, ice cream, chocolate, biscuits, are his 'favourite thing' as he terms it.

I know there is some debate about how bad sugar is for kids and whether it really does turn them bonkers, but today's evidence look daming. After being particularly good, his mum bought him an ice cream which he liked lots thank you very much. After that, it seemed as if he had been swapped for an evil twin. He wanted to chop off his brother's head and kick him downstairs, he wanted to SHOOOUUUT, wouldn't have an afternoon nap despite being very tired, he was crying and stumbling about like a miniature drunk.

Being the good and consistent parents we are, we have told him that he is NEVER having ice cream again. That should sort him out.

Thumbs up for Lollibop

Children and festivals don’t mix. It’s a fact that some parents choose to ignore in the relentless pursuit of those hazy, lazy, carefree pre-children days. Give it up guys – they’re never coming back.

Maybe the organisers of Lollibop are on to something. The event, which was held for the first time on 17-18 July in Clissold Park, Stoke Newington, offered a decent day’s entertainment that kept both ankle biters and their minders entertained.

Billed as the Big Bash for Little People, a telling addition might have been (and harassed parents). Yet the overall feeling of the event was that it was fun, lively and safe, and those attending looked pretty relaxed. It helped that Sunday was a glorious day, but the whole tone of the event was designed to put visitors at ease. Arriving just after noon I heard the security guys on the gate telling some curious onlookers that only adults with children could come in. The wrist bands for children and reminder to write on their name and phone number was a nice touch, and made it feel more like a school outing.

Indeed Lollibop had a pleasantly home made feel to it, which is not bad for a festival put together by a professional events company – I hope I’m not damning Continental Drifts with faint praise, it’s meant to be a compliment. The old Stoke Newington festival was gloriously uncommercial and a great example of community involvement. I’m sure it’s a touchstone for these kind of events.

The site was pretty big but pleasantly not too crowded. Not such good news for the organisers I’m sure, but great for parents and children who were able to take advantage of the activities without waiting for too long.

There was plenty to get excited about (if you were four years old) and to be thankful for if you were a bit older. A small petting zoo complete with pony, goats, sheep, stoat, and er goslings (help me here), was a big hit. As were the obligatory bouncy castles and craft activities. I loved the clean loos (complete with loo paper and a flower) and baby changing and feeding facilities.

Mums and dads could also enjoy a crafty pint from the ‘adult crèche’ located near to the music stage. My highlight of the day was the Bikini Beach Band, whose surf rock version of Popcorn is still playing in my head. Another nice touch was the opportunity to purchase ear defenders for youngsters. It wasn’t that loud, but it showed consideration for the audience.

Other highlights included walkabout entertainment such as a scrap yard challenge horse, stilted fairies, a troll and Alice in Wonderland characters. You could also head to the Miniscule of Sound, mini niteclub, watch some Babyoke (baby karaoke), see the bubble man, dance to a Latin beat, enjoy some comedy, dress up or take part in a sports day. And, as they say, much, much more.

As a paying event, the big question has to be, was it worth it? I didn’t pay for my ticket, and would probably have baulked at the £53 on the day cost of family entry. However, compared to an afternoon at the cinema, bowling or even swimming, it was competitively priced, and positively cheap compared to taking the kids to see Arsenal at the nearby Emirates.

The problem for the organisers is that Hackney is blessed with so many great free events during summer. I had seen elements of the show, such as the Albion pirate ship and soft play area at recent free events in London Fields for example. The nearest comparison with Lollibop is probably Paradise Gardens in Victoria Park, which was completely free. Of course, it was largely funded by the local authority and it may be that there as the council looks to make savings, it is less able to fund such feel good activities.

Will enough people pay for Lollibop to make it viable in future? Only time will tell. We certainly felt it was a great day and would welcome it back next year, even if we had to spring for the tickets this time.

The Secret Garden

Actually, it's not that secret, but today I paid my first visit to the funkily named Dalston Eastern Curve Garden. This is a two-year project to create a community garden in a neglected urban space.

Despite sounding like a dance move of years gone by, the Dalston Eastern Curve was in fact a junction link for the recently reopened rail line at Dalston Junction.  For years, it's been a forgotten slice of land tucked away between derelict buildings, a faceless shopping complex and a congested thoroughfare.

That started to change last year with an arty project called Dalston Mill. It had quite lofty aims - I'm not really sure if I understood them, but it made a fascinating place to visit with an inquisitive toddler. Behind these anonymous black fence posts they are growing wheat - behold and marvel!

You couldn't actually eat the wheat due to contamination caused by fly tipping over the years, but it was an interesting project in many ways.

Leap forward a year and the DECG (could that catch on as an acronym?) is almost up and running. I popped in there this afternoon and found a group of lovely people who seemed very excited by the prospects. Speaking to one lady, she said how they hoped to get schools involved, wanted people to come along and plant things, to have semi outdoor events and solicited my advice on what toddlers might want to do in such a space.

J was in kid heaven just being let loose with the hosepipe. Can he do that every day? It was like our bedtime Magic Garden stories (copyright Dad) brought to life.

I hope it works out. It's such a great idea - and one that I hope is not seriously being linked to Cameron's vacuous Big Society notion, as here. My cynical side wonders if it will end up being nothing more than a nice hideaway for the local drunks. I'm sure that won't happen, especially if they get a little cafe in there - parents of Hackney will come flocking.

Winner!

Maybe it's these austere times, but I've found myself entering a lot of competitions recently. I lack the dedication of the full time comper - the person with a house full of toasters and tea towels, three cars in the drive and the promise of four foreign holidays a year. All because they are on first name terms with lady luck and have a punning way with 10 words or less tiebreakers.

Having spoken to a few compers in my time, I realise that it's practically a full time job for some (the retired mainly). But I also know from past experience that many competitions don't attract that many entries. I worked on a magazine once that had a monthly prize draw for a travel prize. The prizes were pretty decent - spa weekends, hotel breaks, travel vouchers, tickets to sporting events - yet regularly failed to get into double figures of entries. At the same time, we had several regulars who would enter every month and sent in elaborate hand made postcards to increase their chance of being pulled from the presumably bulging postbag. My favourite was one entrant whose postcards were in the shape of teddy bear's heads, complete with fake fur, beady eyes and a sound chip in the nose that played the Teddy Bear's Picnic when squeezed. She never won!

But I have, thanks to my good friends at Hackney Hive. We will be attending this weekend's Lollibop, a big outdoor event for kids in lovely Clissold Park. I'm not quite sure what to expect, but the lineup looks good, so if the weather holds - Sunday looks the better bet - it should be great.

Now all I need is to find a local website that's running a competition for High Voltage.

Carry on regardless

In certain cultures it is customary that babies are not put on the ground for the first year of their life. Trust me on this - I'm a bit shaky on the details, but I have Metro-level knowledge it happens in Bali. Maybe it works in extended families, but three months into Hackney_Child 2.0's life, it is getting pretty wearing for the distinctly nuclear Holiday family.

He is a pretty massive wee thing and doesn't take that kindly to being put down. This can mean carrying his impressive bulk around for hours on end while he dribbles down your aching left arm (I favour that side). I fear I will end up like one of those lopsided crabs that develops a massive claw to compensate for the loss of the other one.

As well as refusing to be put down, he also doesn't see why you should sit down on duty. What difference it makes to him I cannot tell, but the moment bum touches seat, his back starts to arch and he squirms and squeaks until you resume the upright jiggling position. It's like handling a large and chubby eel. I remember when I was a kid my dad told me that the only way to stop an eel wriggling was to make a cross in the ground and lay it on the axis. As I recall it didn't really work that well on the elver we'd caught, but the thought remains.

It's beginning to affect me physically. Today I found myself jiggling involuntarily when he started crying even though I wasn't carrying him. People look. I'm also developing a rather splay footed dad walk that is partly designed to rock the bairn and partly aimed at slowing down my progress as Number One Son is usually dawdling some distance behind complaining of having 'empty legs'. This means swapping lumpen baby for his older sibling, who usually regains his energy levels once perched on my shoulders and commences to try and compress my neck into my chest by bouncing up and down on it. The only compensation is that they are both growing at such a rate that one day soon, they will be carrying me.

Cherries!

On my way to the pub I noticed a lady picking fruit from a tree in the local playground. I stopped to chat. She was eating cherries, which seem to have arrived at a perfect state of ripeness today. They tasted lovely - sweet, yet slightly tart and smaller than the supermarket offerings

Returning home later, I noticed another tree heavy with fruit where some of the local kids were handing out scrumped cherries from a Tesco bag. Everyone seemed happy and relaxed at this shared bounty. It reminded me of the time I discovered some edible chestnut trees in Victoria Park. I was running along the canal side one evening and spotted a Chinese lady filling bags with something. The next day I revisited the spot with my son and we were given a bag of chessies by a fellow forager.

I had great plans for them - some sort of cake - but unfortunately I left them sitting in a bag in the lobby and they went mouldy.

It's nice to know that even in the heart of London, you can still get a bit Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. I'm going back for more tomorrow. They'll be gone by the weekend.

If you don't want to know the score, look away now...

I watched my first World Cup game in a bar tonight. It's been nigh on impossible to sneak a visit to the boozer for 7.30 kick offs as it's smack in the middle of bath time. Tonight, thanks to the beneficence of Mrs Holiday, I was able to watch the Spain v Germany at one of my locals. She put both of the children to bed tonight, which was beyond kindness.

Back at the pub, it was standing room only. This didn't completely surprise me as I'd passed by during the Germany v Argentina quarter final on Saturday and it was hopping. Now Hackney is a very cosmopolitan area, but there was big love going out towards Deutschland - it was as if they were the home team. Which they may well have been - I suspect there are more Germans in the borough than Argentinians (although possibly not Brazilians, as we have a Brazilian butcher on Mare Street).

In fact there are some interesting Germanic links in Hackney. The German Hospital, just up the road from us is a reminder of an early wave of immigration to London. More recently, as Iain Sinclair's Hackney history reminds us, the borough has been a haven for political extremists such as Baader Meinhoff member Astrid Proll. She worked for a while at the Lesneys Matchbox factory in Homerton.

I'm not sure of Spanish links, but there seemed to be plenty of 'Viva Espana's' in the air tonight. Of course, many of these may have been coming from locals. There was a great atmosphere, which was probably because it was not an England game and there was no need to gnaw your fingernails to the bone. Not that I would - I'm Scottish. I've no fingernails left.

Anyway 1-0 to Spain seems to set up a cracking final on Sunday. Whether I'll be allowed out to play or not is another matter.

Splash it all over

This has been a fantastic week of weather although I've been fretting about work enough not to enjoy it. Yesterday however, Mrs Holiday and I went to Greenwich for the afternoon with the two kids and a friend and her two. The plan was to take in lovely Greenwich Park, let the boys stretch their legs and then have lunch in a bar in the grounds of the Naval College.

As it happened, we didn't get much beyond the first patch of grass. This was being watered with an array of sprinklers, which J's pal Other J (let's call him OJ for short) headed for like iron filings to a magnet. J swiftly followed and it quickly became apparent we wouldn't get much further for a while. The two of them stripped off and swooped and hollered around the sprinklers for the best part of the next hour before a reluctant break for lunch and then back for more running around in their pants and getting soaked. All to the soundtrack of soloists practising in the Trinity College of Music which overlooks the garden.

It reminded me a bit of the films we see of New York kids playing in water hydrant spray - the nearest they get to the seaside perhaps (although Coney Island isn't that far away). It also reminded me how good children are at coming up with their own entertainment and that perhaps parents are sometimes guilty of trying too hard to entertain them. Mind you, that was before they started to daub themselves with mud, at which point the laissez faire approach ceased.

Both J and OJ had smiles a mile wide playing in the spray, as did most of the people who wandered past. It was so hot I'm sure that a few of them wouldn't have minded a cooling drench themselves. When we get a garden I think I'll have to invest in a hose and sprinkler pretty quickly - here's hoping for hosepipe ban free summers.

Actually, I've just remembered another water feature that would be well worth a visit. This has been outside the Royal Festival Hall for the past few years. Wonder if it's there this year.

The new Space Potatoes

A couple of years ago there was a strange phenomenon of objects being left on the top of East London bus stops. Space Potatoes, as nobody but me called them were small objects d'art made from spuds wrapped in foil, cotton buds and wooden skewers. They seemed t have no discernible purpose other than to intrigue, and as far as I know, nobody was ever sure who produced them.

Now these objects seem to have street art successors, on a road near me at least. The new mystery objects are coloured blocks of wood with words such as 'POWER' 'TAX' and 'MONEY' printed on them. They are connected together with string and slung over telegraph wires. So far I have spotted a small clutch of them at the top of Eleanor Road, E8. What does it all mean?

Dad and lad day

Yesterday I had J for the day while his mum took the little one off to meet her work colleagues. It was a nice reminder of what it was like when I looked after him more often, and also an indicator of how much he has progressed.

We didn't really do anything that different to our old routine - London Fields playground, Museum of Childhood, Hackney Library - but at two and three quarters, he is so much more independent than he ever used to be. I have always been in the habit of asking him if he wants to do whatever it is I think we should do. Now, more often than not, the answer is, "No! I don't want to do that!" unless I have presented him with an illusion of choice to direct his response (even then, there's every chance he'll see through my flimsy plan.)

Before we left the Museum, he was playing on his scooter on the area outside. I took the opportunity for a sit down while he whizzed about - he is very adept on it - and after going up and down the slope a few times, he settled into a conversation with one of the staff.  I couldn't actually hear what was being said, but by the looks of his hand gestures and facial expressions, he was holding up his end of the conversation. I had this sudden pang of regret, recognising that he no longer needs me for everything and is on the way to developing his own life.

(Actually, after a while I did sidle up to the lady and muscle in on the conversation in the manner of Billy No Mates at a party. They were talking about the seaside as it happens and he was describing how the tide was in on a recent trip to the seaside, resulting in no beach. However when the tide turned, the beach was very big - well observed!)

An area where I'm quite thankful he needs me less is in the toilet department. As he's now potty trained (apart from a few night time accidents) I don't have to lug around the changing kit of old - nappies, wipes, mat, spare clothes, etc. My duties are now relegated to holding the potty for him, agreeing that, yes, it is a big wee, and helping out when he has to use big toilets. While doing this at the Museum, I had the misfortune of seeing my sunglasses fall into the toilet bowl as I positioned him. What's a dad to do? Well, they were £16 from Boots, so what do you think I did?

I'll need to remember not to nibble on the arms from now on.

The countdown starts

I could put it off no longer. More than two months after number two son's arrival I called in the estate agents this week. I really have been putting it off, partly due to a dislike of shiny-suited spivvery in all its forms, and also through reticence at the prospect of kicking off the process.

This week I've seen three estate agents, and although they are all... well, estate agents, they weren't as bad as the ones I remember from the last time. Especially the one who sold me my current gaff, who was a slimey creep. This lot were almost human. I admit that it's hard to feel a sense of loathing to someone who tells you your flat is worth more than four times what you paid for it - you want to kiss them actually.

Of course it's all paper money, and no sooner had I got used to my notional new wealth than it seemed to be slipping away. There's an issue with the lease - it's too short - so I have to go cap in hand to the bloke who owns the freehold and negotiate an extension. I say negotiate - it feels like he's got me over a barrel, so it may be a bit of a one sided conversation. Basically I'm going to get stiffed.

There are also issues with the various elements of the flat that I feel give it its character, but that others may think are a sign that it's about to collapse. I had a builder round today to give me a quote on some plastering and he started raising the possibility of subsidence. Gloom!

Luckily, this is where I'm hoping my new found friends the slimey east eight estate agents will come into their own. If they really think this place is worth what they say it is, then I don't doubt they can shift it. The number of tight-trousered trustafarians walking around these days gives me hope that I'm in the right place at the right time. Where we'll be in six months time, I couldn't say.

The kids World Cup

The last time the World Cup rolled round I was child free. Come to think of it, I wasn't married either - truly young, free and single (well two out or three, maybe). This time I have two kids and a lovely wife to consider before the quadrennial soccer fest kicks off.

Usually the World Cup period involves a certain level of selective social hibernation as I avoid fellow human beings, pour over the pre and post match build up, gossip and analysis, and only come out for the big matches. These are usually taken in at the pub, or at somebody's house with a crate of ale.

Hmm, it's not so simple this time. Pubs aren't the most welcoming place for kids full stop, and even if they were, the idea that a two year old will sit still for 90 minutes (realistically two and a half to three hours by the time you've blagged an early seat, stayed after to celebrate/commiserate... and don't even mention penalities!) is a fantasy.

So I've started wondering if there are child-friendly places to watch some of the games. I know that some pubs have areas you can hire, which might be suitable, and some cinemas are showing the matches on big screen, but are there are any events that fully cater for the harassed dad who wants to zone out for a few hours knowing that his offspring are being catered for?

We will fight them on the cakestands...

I recently received an email about proposed cuts to Hackney nurseries. The website explains what is going on a lot more coherently than I could. It also seems to be a very fluid situation, so watch this (or that space).

We went to the park to find out more about how local people are trying to fight the cuts. In some ways, it seems a similar story to the recent cause celebre of the Hackney Arts Club. This is a very popular club run by volunteers with a small grant from the the local Sure Start. However because of a change in priorities, its funding was cut and money reallocated elsewhere.

It's hard to argue if scarce funds are being used for people who are in greater need than yourself. In the new era of Sure Start, I'm probably not a key target (although as a male, primary carer I did seem to tick a few boxes and staff got quite excited when I turned up). However the problem in both of these cases is that it's difficult to know if funds are being reallocated or simply becoming 'efficiency savings'.

It's a case often made that services designed for the poor are poor services. It's kind of ironic that middle class users of Sure Start can be characterised as undeserving spongers by a government predominantly elected by the middle classes. Hey ho!

One of the great things about Hackney is that there is a real sense of 'something must be done' activism when stuff like this happens. It was great to see at the Fun Day in the park that facepainting and cakemaking have a role to play in the fight ahead. There's a meeting tomorrow to determine the next steps.