GOING MONK



Sometimes we do things as families that only have significant meaning to the people housed within our own four walls. I am sure this is a default for most families. A great example of this is the ‘family feast’ a Saturday night tea-time extravaganza of small bite-sized canapés designed specifically for TV consumption on the sofa. An added bonus of the ‘Family Feast’ is that all food is small – and as we all know small means not fattening right? Regardless of quantity a blini with crème fraîche and salmon is still only a blini with crème fraîche and salmon no matter how many can be squeezed onto tray. Home-made pizza (cut up really small), egg balls (mini scotch eggs to the rest of the world), Ina Menzels (little herby cheesy cracker bites of heaven) and a Ginger Special (generally a drink concocted of whatever non-alcoholic liquid Ginger can find in the cupboard, not including cleaning fluids). All of these things are meaningless to the outside world – but to us they are meaningless happiness filled nonsense that brings worth to a Saturday night. The ability for Ginger and Blondie’s friends to just dive in and pick the various names for food never ceases to amaze.

So - your first set of teeth are that important are they? I mean
you yank them out and shove under your pillow. They are disposable.

Like so many other families we have little quirks around music. There are songs that, when drifting across the airwaves, summon us all to the room of origin for a tribal knees up. We all dance a complicated but polished routine that would have Balanchine weeping in his grave with the knowledge that his choreographic gifts to the world could never be as great as ours. If you can’t enjoy dancing what do have? And by enjoying dancing I mean doing it, watching it, hearing it and feeling it. I have lost count the number of times a bewildered passer-by has idly gazed into our front room only to be confronted by two adults and two children doing the robot to Daft Punk’s Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger or a remarkably  in-sync running man pas de quatre to LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem. We are tempted to run out onto the street dancing to Twist and Shout in the hope that we can pull the entire road into a Chicago-style street party – and just sometimes, when filling the car with petrol, we have to check ourselves if Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go pops up on the radio. We are currently working on a significant routine for Olly Murs’s Army of Two that requires a lot of marching and people joining in mid-march – it is early stages.

 

Everyone's front room is decorated this was isn't it?

Film is the other great glue in Casa Us. Particularly Zoolander and Ferris Bueller. Ginger, Blondie and I have a tendency to recreate scenes from Zoolander at the drop of a hat; Mrs M presides over the Ferris scenes, which, if I am honest, have greater depth than my Zoolander scenes. All this said and done you can sometimes forget what is funny to your immediate nest is sometimes at best baffling and at worst terrifying to visiting children from external groups. All families have a shorthand, ours is based mainly on cultural reference and sarcasm, others, to our astonishment, are not quite so flippant.

 

Example one. EAT YOUR FOOD OR YOU WILL DIE. A light hearted off the cuff response that we have thrown at Ginger and Blondie for as long as we can remember. They have always taken and continue to take the advice on eating to sustain life with the wry cheeky ebullience that it deserves. Perhaps saying this to their cousin who was being a bit of a picky eater wasn’t the best move. The same earnest and lovely little child that we once kept up all night on holiday when we told her trolls live under the bridge that goes over the swimming pool at night (by way of discarded line to our two to stop them running round the pool at night. Something I might add they understood to be balderdash and was a peremptory strike at the ever present question ‘Why?’) Sadly, Ginger and Blondie knowing this and acting upon it didn’t translate to our niece. The crazy thing at the time was she didn’t even know what a troll was. I can assure you that she does now and she doesn’t fear them (as much) as she did on that night.

 

Sure he looks cute. But that dandelion stem is what a Troll
uses to imbibe crystal meth. Hence no teeth and purple hair.
They don't mention that in the Three Billy Goats Gruff do they?!

Example two: IT’S A WALK OFF. Ginger and Blondie had a friend round. David Bowie’s (only ever pronounced Dayviid Boawwee in our house) Let’s Dance! came on the wireless. Ginger immediately declared ‘It’s a Walk Off!’ Blondie and I disappeared and then reappeared. Ginger explained the rules:

'Now this'll be a straight walk-off, old school rules. First model walks, second model duplicates, then elaborates. OK, let's go to work.'

And we commence. First Blondie, for she plays the Derek of the film title and then me for I am the Hansel, not of the film title. We proceed, no ambiturning, faux fringe cutting, delicately drunk water until I eventually go Monk. On this occasion I had managed to get the spare pants, Blondie was forced to give herself a wedgie. Then it struck me – their little friend who had up till that moment being playing happily round our house all afternoon was staring just a little horrified at us. Hmm. Wonder how that little episode got retold back their house….

These are important moments in life I think. After all, every child should follow Ferris’s credo, ‘Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.’  And they should definitely be able to sing at least one verse of Wayne Newton's Danke Schoen…….