It's been so long since my last entry I have skipped over a period in my life containing:

10:26:2005
--y's first birthday
London getting the Olympics
London getting bombed
Dinner with Stockhausen
'Lost' season 1, 'Arrested development' season 3, 'Curb your enthusiasm' season 5.
Various Blunt Clubs, work related stuff.
Being tortured by the Chinese
And sleeping in a parked car outside Rochester between 2am and 4.30am with a Frenchman.


I'm in Vienna again for half term and have had some more time to spend with the kids. I was out with --m and --y today, or ‘The little ones’ as that group is known to us. When you have two kids out of three, there are three variations on which two you can have. With the younger two it’s 'the little ones', with the older two it's 'The kids' and with the oldest and youngest it's 'The girls'. Easy.

I bought a day travelcard ticket (or the Vienna equivalent) and gave the Switch receipt to --m and told him it was his 'ticket'. (In reality kids under 5 travel free but he feels the need to have a ticket like me) . They have a sort of honour system in Vienna where there are no barriers but instead gates with little boxes on them which validate your ticket. You do this by inserting it into a slit in the box until you trigger a date stamp that hits the ticket and rings a little bell at the same time. Kids love those little boxes and I have often had to give them scraps of paper to stick in there.
Today we went on a bus, an U-bahn and a tram, and --m 'dinged his ticket' on each one. Later we went to the park and as --y and I were sharing a yoghurt I heard --m say 'Ding!' and saw him validating his ticket at a tree. It seems he’s getting ready for a future of mandatory electronic tracking for all citizens, even in the park.

--m is quite sweet to --y in the way an affectionate bear would be sweet to a cat; the friendly mauling isn't always appreciated. At the playground --m went off and played in the sandpit, slide and climbing frame on his own or with other kids (at last! Thank you, School!). --y busied herself on a little train made of logs which was just high enough to hold onto if like her you are still not comfortable standing unassisted. Every now and then --m would visit her and 'help' her get into the train despite her protests and obvious indications that she'd rather he piss off. Sometimes he would good-naturedly push her onto the ground whereupon I’d have to step in and administer a telling-off which he’d show no signs of taking seriously.

Later that day, --m fell asleep on the sofa and seeing this, --y carefully worked her way over to him and started methodically slapping him on the head. When this failed to get much response she came back with a plastic bottle and started hitting him with that. I was quite impressed at how she was able to choose her moments to avenge all the humiliations he had visited on her during the day. Eventually she had enough and shuffled off. --m slept on.

--m and --y have similar facial expressions. --y gave me a smile today that made her look exactly like --m at one year. Sometimes it's funny to see the two of them looking at me and effectively see the same face simultaneously smiling and frowning, older and younger, side by side.


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