All that comes with it

My grandparents used to live near a ford across a river, and every time we went down to visit them I used to beg my dad to drive through it. There was just something about deliberately driving through a river that really excited me. I imagined dramatic sprays of water sandwiching the car and the hushed awe of onlookers as they witnessed the bravery and dare-devilment of our Dukes of Hazzard like actions

Ninety nine percent of the time however my dad refused. He said the river was too swollen, we didn’t have time, he didn’t want to risk flooding the engine. All petty meaningless excuses in my eyes.

I swore to myself that when I was a grown up I would never pass up such an opportunity. That whenever I came across a ford I would drive through it at full speed with all my windows down. Preferably in a car painted to look like knightrider. In short, that I would be a god amongst men.

Two years ago I came close to realizing my ambition. Kerry, Amy and I were on holiday in Northumberland and we randomly stumbled across a ford while on a walk. I begged and pleaded Kerry to allow me to go and get the car and drive through it, but she refused. Those age old reasons of the swollen state of the river and the risk of flooding the engine thwarted my dreams once again.

Amy and I did get to walk through it though, but somehow it wasn’t the same.

Fast forward to this Thursday. I was driving round the Yorkshire Dales scouting out the accommodation for the upcoming walk. I was trundling along quite happily when suddenly I rounded a corner and saw the road ahead disappear into a river, only to emerge glisteningly wet and triumphant on the other side. At last! My holy grail! A ford!

What’s more I was alone. There was no one around to spoil my fun. No one point out that last weekend England received as much rainfall last weekend as we usually do in the entire month. No one to remind me that only one hour ago I had walked along the bank of a river that looked like this:

This was my golden chance. My opportunity to fulfill my life’s ambition. And I grasped it with both hands. Ignoring my sat-nav’s persistent voice instructing me to “Turn around when possible” I confidently drove into the water.

All was going well until half way through when my wheels started spinning. As if this wasn’t alarming enough the car began slowly sliding downstream. I tried to recall if being swept away by a river had ever been covered in my driving lessons, but all I could remember was rules about not honking your horn after ten pm. Hardly pertinent as it was only half past two.

Eventually I remembered some advice about driving on ice and started to put my foot slowly on and off the accelerator in order to try and get some grip. This seemed to do the job and, despite the back end of my car slowly swinging out to point downstream, I managed to gain some purchase and slowly drag the car towards the other side.

All in all the whole experience was rather unsettling, and not one I am particularly eager to repeat. So now, at some unspecified point in the future, when Amy and Evan are both imploring me to drive through a ford I can see myself refusing; citing concerns about the swollen nature of the river and the possibility of flooding the engine. I will betray the 10 year old me and the eternal circle will be once more be complete.

I’m still going to park at the very top of multistory car-parks however, even if it does mean I have to walk much further. There are some childhood promises you make to yourself that are just too sacred to break.

Today is the fourth of July, the day Americans like to call “Independence Day”. In the UK we refer to it as “Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish Day”, but it amounts to the same thing.

Today is the day that people all over the USA get together and set off fireworks in memory of Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum defeating the alien invasion of earth. That will teach them pesky aliens not to install Norton Anti-virus on their mothership.

In all seriousness it probably says quite a bit about the two nations that America uses fireworks to celebrate the founding of their government, whereas we use them to celebrate someone trying to blow ours up.

So today is Independence Day. But not in our house it isn’t. We are having our Independence Day on the eighth of July instead. And it doesn’t have anything to do with a bunch of men in wigs signing a bit of paper either. Our Independence Day revolves around a little girl taking her first steps through a big door.

On Tuesday Amy goes to school for the first time. She doesn’t start officially until September. But next week she goes in for the afternoon for a taster session.

It’s a big day for her, and for all of us. But she’s ready to make that big leap forward into the next era of childhood. In fact she’s been ready for quite a while now. And the emotions that that knowledge stirs up are the very definition of bittersweet.

A great man (me) once said “From the moment they are born parents have to start letting their children go”. And that’s true. But that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to get a bit misty eyed about it though.

There are many things in this world that I am no good at. Remembering birthdays, resisting that second doughnut, tolerating old people in the supermarket, the list goes on and on.

But one thing I fail at in a truly magnificent fashion is computer games. It doesn’t matter what the genre: platform, beat-em-up, sports, first person shooter; I’m crap at the lot of them. If given a choice do tend to gravitate towards strategy games, but only because it takes me longer to lose.

Computer games are designed to provide regular small victories. Every time you solve a puzzle, beat a boss, or get a weapon upgrade your brain rewards you with a pleasant injection of endorphins. This spurs you on to the next challenge, and by such little episodes of task and reward you eventually complete the game.

Or that’s the theory anyway. The reality for me is that it takes me so long to achieve any sort of victory at all that instead of feeling euphoric when I finally beat Zurg the Mighty I just feel a sense of relief and a slight easing of my tension headache. Sometimes I can’t even get past the part where you enter your name without consulting online cheat guides.

It’s my belief that I’m just not designed for computer games. If my efforts aren’t sabotaged by my poor hand/eye co-ordination or my slow reactions then it’s by my short attention span and inability to think tactically. Even the game controllers somehow seem not to fit my big meaty paws properly. The fact that my kids regularly smear the controllers with jam and other noxious substances probably doesn’t help either.

But the sad thing is that despite my ineptitude I really like computer games.

My generation was the first to have home computers as a fixture in our childhood homes. Before us kids had to be content playing pong and space invaders in dark and dingy arcades, no wonder Jeff and Greg turned out so weird. I’ve even heard tell of a time in the dim and distant past when children didn’t even have access to computer games at all. Freaky.

With the advent of the ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64 in the mid eighties children could suddenly play games in the comfort of their own homes ( but admittedly only after a seven or eight hour wait for the buggers to load). And play them we did. Jet Set Willy, Horace Goes Skiing, Chuckie Egg; classics each and every one of them. Even back then I was crap, but that didn’t stop me talking enthusiastically about them in with the other snotty nosed kids in the playground.

Now, twenty odd years later, all us ZX Spectrum users are now in our thirties with jobs and kids and mortgages. But along with those responsibilities we also have Playstations, Xboxs and PCs. We may have swapped the playground for the pub, but we’re still talking about the latest Grand Theft Auto release or about playing with our Wii (*snigger*). In my group of friends at least, computer games have joined sport and children’s TV of the 80’s as a universal solvent - a neutral topic of conversation on which everyone is able to become involved.

I’m not saying that’s all we talk about, far from it. In fact, like most males, ninety nine percent of our conversational output is dedicated to taking the piss out of one another. But when the insults and humiliation reach a natural lull all it takes is someone to say “I’ve been thinking about getting a third generation console, but can’t decide between a Xbox or a PS3″ and things start to pick up again. It may sound geeky, but trust me, it certainly beats talking about the Huddersfield Chives chances of beating the West Yorkshire Mustard Tubes in the big game next Saturday.

So while I’m rubbish at them, computer games still hold a fascination for me. And every now and then I take the plunge and re-immerse myself. With our recent purchase of a Wii (*snigger*) I’ve been dipping my toes in the water again, and so far I’ve found the experience pleasurable. At the moment I’m making my way through Lego Indiana Jones and Metroid Prime 3. And while my progress is slow (Greg recently told me he had got Metroid for fathers day and he’s got further through it in one week than I have in the three months) I am at least enjoying myself.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have some aliens to kill.

I thought it was time that Evan widened his his vocabulary.

Dan: “Evan, say nincompoop”

Evan “flurble”

Dan: “Nincompoop”

Evan: “flurble”

Dan: “Say nin”

Evan: “nin”

Dan: “com”

Evan: “com”

Dan: “poop”

Evan: “poop’

Dan: “Nincompoop!”

Evan: “COLIN!!”

To be fair that isn’t quite as random as it would appear. Colin is the name of Evan’s keyworker at nursery and he adores him. “Colin” is his favorite word in the world and shouting it at every opportunity is his default setting.

Strangely enough Evan’s second favorite word is ‘Dolphin”. Since he first saw them at a sea life center in Spain he has been borderline obsessed. We must have watched the YouTube video of the Orlando Dolphin show nearly as much as we have watched Amy’s copy of “High School Musical 2″. Oh yes, it’s a culturally rich environment in our household.