I begin the day with an epic lie-in. Saturday is Designated Lie-In day, but it’s gone 10am before I eventually get up, shower, and get dressed. I’m hoping that an extended lie-in will help kick the deadening fatigue that hit me the previous evening. I get up when required, generally to make breakfast for the Kinderbesten, but then return to my comfy lair each time. I don’t fall back to sleep, but the warmth and relative peace inspire a result, almost meditative state. The cats, who I have fed but purposely neglected to let out, join us one by one. Eventually all four cats are sprawled out in a line along the middle of the bed. It’s almost like a collective sleep-in, but the Kinderbesten are too young and naive to understand its glory.
Anyway, the lie-in doesn’t really work. I’m not exactly tired, but I am plagued with a dull headache for several hours after surrendering my bed. A combination of coffee, Panadol, britpop (mainly Portishead) and pottering around the house seems to do the trick. After much delay we manage to leave the house for the promised birthday trip to Lollipops (one of those indoor playground type places). We’re both dreading it–big open space, lots of people, lots of kids, lots of noise–but the Kinderbesten are excited. So excited in fact that it takes almost half an hour to persuade them to get ready and leave the house. In the end, Lollipops is a bug bundle of Just Fine. The kids play, we drink coffee and eat potato wedges. After a few hours the kids are as ready to head home as we are, which caps off the afternoon nicely.
We watch Apollo 13. Carter, predictably, announces that he’s tired and wants to go to bed about halfway through (right before things get interesting). It’s times like these that I should remind myself how hard it used to be to get him to go to bed not so many years ago.
I start reading The Martian again. It seems the right night for space disasters.