To scale

We celebrated the kid’s 2^nd birthday on Saturday with a trip to Sundown. This theme park has a lot of notoriety as my favourite location: mum never used to make it much past the lost child collection point as I’d disappear off into miniature villages where adults couldn’t and lose the tail. As a result there was a degree of trepidation as we set off.

En route we saw a car half dangling in a roadside ditch, and seeing a kiddie-seat in the back, I stopped and half-pushed, half-lifted the car back onto the road with the help of another passing motorist... the other family were lost on the way to Sundown so then we had a convoy! Once through the gates of the park, we began to explore a range of miniature and not-so-miniature challenges which the kid loved. They now have two large buildings PACKED with soft-play together with all the rides and adventures I remember from 25 years ago. I’m delighted to say that I had as much fun running round and ‘supervising’ the child as he did playing, and it was quite magical to experience the place from his perspective.

He’s started talking more lately, and the whole day was quite the action packed way to see just what he could say and communicate. He was effusive about being able to “drive” on one of the rides, and talked all through the day, only lapsing into tears once when surprised by a squirting pirate on the barrel ride. My wife has a signed copy of David Crystal’s Listen to Your Child which she refers to quite religiously and is thrilled to report that in many ways the kid is ahead of the curve linguistically... as the old line goes - getting him to be quiet is the real trick!

Part of the secret to a good day out is not just listening to the kid, but letting him have the freedom to be himself. I realised at last why Sundown was magical as a kid... everything is to scale, and whilst and adult may find the rides simplistic and the doorways challengingly small... for a child it’ probably their first experience of walking through a door their size and having information presented on their level.

DAD

Salt pillars

Life is full of dilemmas. I don't mean the choice between two evils we get taught about in school, but the binary choices we make that have exclusive outcomes. For example, it's possible to travel to London or Edinburgh for the weekend and both are nice places, but you can't be in two places at the same time.

One of my favourite poems touches on this theme perfectly, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The step into parenthood is like this, it's a road that you can walk down where there's no going back. It's why people who loose their kids to tragedy take on a listless, broken quality, because the ground really has opened up right under them. Most of us will never have to suffer like that, but should still be mindful that there is no going back, after all who wants to become a pillar of salt (occasionally the theology degree comes back to haunt me!). My past of derring-do and colourful adventures becomes the stories that will entertain and inspire Harris.

I've seen snow in a desert, flown a fighter jet, been awarded a medal, won a knife fight (there was one knife, and the other guy had it to start with), saved a couple of lives, and perhaps most importantly, been willing time and time again to travel to far away places with only my somewhat distended baggage allowance (I travelled often enough to perfect a wardrobe that gave me an extra 30kg!) for extended periods of time to face the unknown or, in the case of some former students, the unknowledgeable which in a strange way is far more challenging). Honestly, being a dad is so much better and I wouldn't go back even if I could. After all, as someone who's always tried to live like an action hero, this is my chance to train a sidekick.

DAD