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Archive for October, 2008

Pigeons

The Queen is in the juniors now. This is a big thing because

  1. The juniors is on a different site
  2. The Engineer is in nursery which starts earlier than the infants, and at the infant site
  3. So we have to leave twenty minutes before we used to last year
  4. And we don’t cross with Mr Goldtooth any more.

This makes our mornings a little more stressed and a little less jolly. But the upside is the pigeons:

Pigeons

Our pigeons are fatter than this

I confess: I have encouraged my children to do something terrible on a regular basis.

Whenever they see the pigeons, they make big roaring noises and run at them, sending the pigeons up into the sky, or across the pavements, depending on how lazy the fat birds are feeling.

We see the pigeons nearly every morning, as local Asians, believing the birds to be reincarnated relatives, feed them daily on torn chappattis, bread, birdseed, rice and beans. Sadly, they don’t do this in their own gardens, but in the shopping precinct, which is then covered in bird poo, mouldy bird food, and later on, with rats picking up the leftovers. The instructions in English and Punjabi indicating that feeding the birds is against the law have no effect.

I’m not sure whether my kids roaring has any effect either, but it makes us all feel better.

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Grammar Rulz

The Engineer said today

I make-ed a sandwich in nursery and I eat-ed it.

He doesn’t like his verbs irregular.

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On Monday, on the way home from school, I decided that the Joker and the Engineer could do with a haircut, so we called in at the BarBars (their pronunciation).

We like going there. The haircuts are swift and cheap, although I seem to have no control about the final look. I am trying to go for the slightly long-haired-sweet-little-lad-who-surfs effect, the sort you might find in mini-Boden – I am middle class, after all).

But stepping into our barbers is stepping into an Indian barber’s in Delhi, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. A telly showing cricket or Bollywood movies, a picture of a Hindu god/a Sikh guru/a verse from the Koran, a pungent smell of some strong cologne, some tatty newspapers in a swirly-lettered language I don’t understand and some magnificent barber’s chairs, upholstered in vinyl. The barbers themselves have elegantly coiffured hair, gold chains around their necks and a gold tooth or two.

Our barbers know how to cut hair and they don’t get the Boden catalogue. So despite my attempts to describe the look, my boys always come out with the hair cut that the barbers like. And what they like is a traditional short back and sides. The only variation (after going a good few times now) is that it gets left longer at the back. This time only the Engineer got that version. And they both got gel.

Last time we went I took a few photos of the barbers at work. And this time I took a shot when we got home to show why my boys would fail to make the Boden catalogue but are still gorgeous. Enjoy.

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