by Yesterday morning – on the last day of Joe Biden’s presidency – my niece entered the world. She was eight pounds something, so bigger than my nephew. As far as I know both mother and baby are doing fine. A few hours after my brother sent me the picture with no accompanying text, he told me the name. No zeds, no exes, an eminently spellable and pronounceable name consisting of only four letters. That was a relief. My initial thought was to write a limerick using her name – “There was a young lady called…” – because her name lends itself rather well to that form, but I couldn’t get lines three and four to work.
But heck, they’ll have their hands full now. My brother has been truly incredible with his son, but I doubt he’ll be able to give his daughter the same kick-start in life. And I dunno, the world in 2025 just seems so devoid of meaning to me that I don’t think I’d want to bring any more humans into it. Personally I think I’d be a pretty rubbish dad anyway. A Kitty is about my limit.
Yesterday I caught up with Mark in town. It was his idea to eat at a place in the bastion, but when we got there it was totally dead. After almost coming a cropper on the icy tiling outside, we decided to check out Eat Like a Man just off Piața Unirii. We were intrigued by the name and bearded man logo. It’s basically a burger bar where you can order a normal-sized meal like we both had, or a totally abnormal-sized one. We polished off our burgers and chips in no time, while pondering whether this or that item on the menu was sufficiently manly. It’s quite a small place. The decor is bright yellow and black – Wellington colours – with none of that awful ambient music. So many places are all modern and insipid and hospitally and I can’t handle them.
Dad got an email from the people who manage their flat in St Ives to say that water had been leaking into two flats below. They had to get their friend to check it out. As it happened, there was no leak from their flat at all, but not before Mum and Dad had been sent into a mad panic over the potential cost. They still have their other St Ives flat too. At 75-odd, they shouldn’t be dealing with this. Dad told me recently about one of the model planes he flies, one that he’d designed and built himself a little while ago. (I tried to imagine doing that myself. Yep, I know what planes look like. I could probably draw out a plane and cut the bits out of balsa wood and glue them together. But would the thing fly? Not a chance. I wouldn’t even know what bits and bobs to put inside to make it fly.) This is the man who has made a living from his paintings for 45 years and put together 25 pictures for my small book. A man of many talents. He said he’d like to be in his shed designing and building model planes, but he can’t because of all the work that’s still required on the house. That made me feel sad.
