Waiting Cinderella to start
The first family trip to a panto was almost a screaming success with the easiness of finding parking space near De Montford Hall on the Monday after Christmas when nearly everybody else was heading to the shopping centres for the sales and the discussion afterwards of the next Christmas’s trip to a show. Number One Son was excited to see his big name-sake on the stage, although he would have been happy to go home when the interval started. That was the point when the standard length of a CBeebies panto was reached. I also believe that the love story in Cinderella is not a big hit with the little boys. The little girls with their mainly Frozen dresses were more a target audience for that content.
The panto in Leicester has an amount of BEMA talent rarely seen outside London. The fairy godmother and step mother could hit their blues and disco notes and Baron Hardup was a familiar face from Goodness Gracious Me. I also learned from the story and the programme who Buttons is and how he and the Prince Handsome’s valet Dandini became included in the standard British panto Cinderella. Naturally, the show includes bad contemporary jokes with references to both Leicester and current affairs. The ball scene contained a dance competition in the style of Strictly Come Dancing, but it also contained the traditional lines that a few years’ back filled me with puzzlement: “Behind you” and “Yes, it is” followed by “No, it isn’t” repeated several times. The audience participation seems to include also all people having a song and dance play just before the end. These sayings and customs are – part of the British Christmas ingrained in the national soul. In a similar way as the ever-so-puzzling Christmas crackers: why do you actually have them? They do not really crack with a bang, there are no sweets or chocolate inside and they are expensive: you do get the paper crown as seen in all British TV specials, though. Another puzzling British custom came to my mind when I watched audience queuing and eating: ice cream in the theatres at the interval. It is mid-winter, so what do you want: a small tub of extremely expensive, cold dairy product. I already was marvelling this habit many years ago in the West End.
Geocaching
I and Number One Son also took part in our first geocaching treasure hunt. In principle this was a large family walk in the Castle Hill Park with people who had got to know each other some time ago in the NCT coffee group. Now the then toddlers are tweenies or teenagers, so extra measures are needed to drag them outside from tablets, mobile phones and computers. Although watching our activities over Christmas, the family who reads their phones together, stays together. Number One Son got really excited about a treasure hunt in the snow and ice and he had a good run with some of his friends. Friends’ parents had also remembered to take a sledge with them, so all the children went sledging in the end. Some use for the A46 sound banks...
The long stay over Christmas also allows us parents to remember that we are not only trying to balance work and life and take care of our son, but are actually in a relationship. In addition all those irritating items on the magazines tell you how tired parents should work on their relationships. However, with all other family members elsewhere and friends in the same pickle as us (and many being single mums, too), allowing the partner sleep-ins seems to be the number one way of showing that one cares. Somehow, magically, you row less when you are less tired and can begin to think of other activities than sleeping when together.
So we tried to be extra romantic – with some unexpected results. Over Skype Archaeologist Husband asked me before my trip back home just after his parents and brother had been visiting what I want for Christmas. I tried to paraphrase Mariah Carey and say that all I really want is to be at home with you. This romantic gesture was met with a rather stern statement that he wants a dishwasher. I did comply and buy one for ‘us’ in the end, but have remembered to remind him that something more gallant had been expected as a response to my gesture. However, it turned out that Nana and Sister-in-Law had not been amused when they could not find a dishwasher after they had suggested clearing the table and washing up; a realisation that a dishwasher is now a standard feature in other families made Archaeologist Husband's demand more understandable. However, in order to balance the gallantlessness, I showed my bad wifeness relatively swiftly when Archaeologist Husband suggested a ‘date night’. I misheard this as a ‘bake night’ and was slightly puzzled aloud with his sudden eagerness in testing the Great British Bake Off baking book he had bought me together when he normally wants to rule the kitchen alone. I was quickly told that, actually, he wants to go to our usual pub together. That sounded better, so I have now booked a babysitter for a couple of pints so we can for a couple of hours try to remember how it was before Number One Son...
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