Watching The Aeroplanes

Taking your child to the airport to watch the planes taking off and landing is a classic family activity. But I'd never got round to doing it with G, until today.

Since we moved to Salford I'd been vaguely aware there was an airfield nearby, and after driving past it recently I decided to go back for a visit. And so with the sun out once again this morning, I slathered us both in lotion and drove the short distance to the former Barton Aerodrome, now known as City Airport Manchester, and apparently one of the busiest airfields in the country for private planes and helicopters.

Almost as soon as we got there the North West Air Ambulance (the yellow helicopter by the control tower in the picture) hovered overhead then came in to land, which got G's interest straight away. But soon she was distracted by the playground in the viewing area, and set herself up in the toy house:

There was a little boy, slightly younger than G, also there, and G tried to get him to play in the house too. "Come inside my house," she commanded. He looked doubtful and didn't say anything. But G has obviously learned something from my parenting style. "Come inside my house and I'll give you a treat," she said, hopefully.

It didn't work, and the boy ran in the other direction instead. Maybe next time.

Settling In At School

Well, here's confirmation that the march of time is continuing. G had her first visit to her new school yesterday. She's starting in the nursery class at a local primary in September, afternoons only, so it's not exactly proper school. But she's going to have a uniform, teachers, a schoolbag, all that sort of thing. So yes, she's going to school.

I picked her up from nursery early so we could go along for yesterday's settling-in session. G was very excited until we actually got there and saw the other children, when she went very quiet and started hiding behind me. I asked her whether she wanted to go and play, and she looked dolefully up at me and said: "No, I'm too shy."

This was sweet, but once I got her sat down at a table with some arts and crafts she was happy enough, and I was able to leave her while the parents went into a separate room for one of those question-and-answer things during which I never know what to say. The children had a story and a snack while this was going on, and G looked much happier afterwards.

"Look daddy, I got a sticker!" she announced, and this seemed to be enough to keep her happy on the walk back home. I don't know quite why young children find stickers so enthralling, but we've found several uses for them in bringing up G. So it's fine by me.

Sandals And Raincoat

I took G to the playground at Parr Fold Park this lunchtime. It was sunny and G wanted to wear her new sandals. It was a good job I brought her raincoat too, because by the time we got there it had clouded over, and soon after it started to spot with rain.

So she played on the climbing frame with an outfit that wasn't really wholly suitable for any weather. Once she'd have got a bit upset about getting wet, but she's a bit more rough-and-tumble these days, and didn't mind getting her bum soaked as she went down the slide.

And as the video shows, G also enjoyed the swing.

"Higher!" https://t.co/Jp86iI9PPC
— Richard Jones (@rlwjones) June 20, 2013

Put Me In A Boat

Last week I swapped our usual Friday lunchtime swim for a trip to The Lowry museum and theatre, and a visit to their fortnightly arts and crafts session for children. Aimed at youngsters aged between two-and-a-half and four-and-a-half, it was led by a very enthusiastic woman who directed us to a table full of straws, coloured paper and paperclips, and challenged us to make something interesting.

I asked G what we should do. Given that we'd already been playing pirates at home that morning, she wanted a boat. The picture shows what we came up with. Neither art nor engineering rank anywhere in my skillset, but at least I managed to make something that stood up by itself.

G was quite excited, especially about the little gold bits of paper she cut out and added at the bottom to make treasure. So she wouldn't stand still for the photo, which is why it's a bit blurry. She had so much fun I'm sure we'll be back again soon.

Breakfast TV

I made my debut on the BBC Breakfast sofa this morning, reprising my occasional role as a pundit on stay-at-home dad issues. This is an occupational hazard of my career as a sometime journalist, and I'm now a veteran of many of these appearances. But this was the first time I'd appeared on the programme made famous in my youth by, lest we forget, Frank Bough. So I wore a jumper in his honour.

I was appearing with Gideon Burrows, author of a new book about stay-at-home dads. My experience of the media told me that I should really be disagreeing very violently with him for the sake of good telly. But we were both far too polite for any of that.

I managed to say at one point that I "slightly disagreed" with him about something or other. He told me as we walked out of the studio that actually he agreed with me on that point too. But then, anyone keen to hear an all-out ruck at that time of the morning is already listening to the Today programme, rather than tuned to the soothing sofa-based chat of Breakfast, so I don't think it really mattered too much. And they said when Breakfast moved to Salford they wouldn't be able to get any good guests on. I mean, I ask you.

G was watching at home, and Mrs J reported that she got very excited when I appeared on her TV, announcing: "Daddy is my best friend!" Not too upset at missing out at yet another media appearance of her own, then.

Sunny Bank Holiday Weekend

We had beautiful weather for the holiday weekend. But although we spent most of it out in the open, I started on Friday by taking G to the National Football Museum at the Urbis. She's a little bit bigger than the last time I took her there, back when the impressive building in the middle of Manchester was still a museum of popular culture. Now that she's playing football herself, I thought it might be fun to take her for a look around the new collections.

The picture shows her sitting on some seats from the old Wembley, although the exhibit which really took her interest was the cabinet full of huge silver trophies. The old Football League Championship trophy was in the middle, but it was the even bigger, shinier and gaudier examples dotted around, awarded for various long-forgotten minor tournaments, which she kept pointing to. When she comes back from football, or ballet, or whatever, with her first little medal, I'm sure it's going to be kept extremely shiny.

There was a food festival at Salford Quays on Saturday. We went along, and Mrs J raided the stall selling macarons. As confections go these have always confused me, mainly because I was brought up in Scotland where we have macaroons instead. Also confusingly, G wanted to eat the blue one. And so she had a blue tongue for the rest of the afternoon, as did I, after I helped finish it off when she didn't want any more:

Cake has been a regular theme of the time I've spent with G over the years. There was a lot around on Sunday afternoon at an event called G Festival 2013, held in Swinton as a charity fundraiser after a girl from the local area who died three years ago. After having lots of fun blowing bubbles and on the bouncy castle, we went to the cake stall and found an appropriate one for G. Although she doesn't much like icing, so I had to have the actual bit with the G on it:

Monday was the warmest day of the weekend, and just as well as we went to the East Lancashire Railway in Bury for another day out with Thomas the Tank Engine. The success of our last visit to one of these events in Llangollen in February was only slightly dampened by the fact it chucked it down all day, so it was particularly good to have a day of train-based fun without having to scurry around under cover all the time. G even had a dress on, and got to meet the big guy himself:

She was less keen on the Fat Controller ("but I'm very shy" she said, intently), and needed a good bit of prodding before finally agreeing to sit next to him. Less prodding was needed to get her to toot Thomas's whistle. She talked about this moment all the way home. This would have been extremely tedious, but we only live a quarter of an hour away. Which was just as well.

Chocolate Cheesecake

It was one of the first really sunny days of the year yesterday, and in the afternoon I decided to go into Monton with G for a coffee (me) and a cake (both of us).

This was the sort of thing I used to do often when we lived in Saddleworth, because there were a few places to go within easy walking distance and it was a good excuse to get out of the house. Now I'm at home with her less, and we're in a much more residential area, I don't get the chance as often. Besides, Monton High Street is a drive away, and who drives anywhere just to go for coffee (other than Jerry Seinfeld)?

We went to Selo Deli, a Ukrainian sort of place which has made a bit of a splash since opening with its own Monton Tart, designed to take on the venerable Eccles Cake. I had a slice, but G went for a chocolate cheesecake.

I pointed out that she might not like the nuts on top. She agreed that she didn't like nuts, but said she wanted the cake anyway. So by the time she dug into it as shown in the picture, we'd had the following conversation:

G: "Is that nuts on it?"

Me: "No, that's sugar."

G: "Oh, sugar."

Lies about cake are acceptable lies, I think. Especially if it means avoiding tears and having to give her my cake instead, neither of which I would have particularly relished.

The cakes were great. The hat was G's choice.

First Boyfriend

This week's big news is that G has her first boyfriend. They met in the old-fashioned way, at nursery.

Mrs J first became suspicious a couple of weeks ago, when she arrived to pick up G, who wanted to take an Octonauts toy home with her. "You can't take that with you, it belongs to nursery," said Mrs J. "But N said I could take it," pleaded G. The nursery leader let them take the toys as long as they brought them back, which might say something about G's negotiating skills.

Since then, Mrs J has noticed that G and N are usually the last children left in the group when she goes to collect G. Clearly, romance has blossomed during this time alone together. In the car on the way home on Tuesday, unprompted, G announced: "N is my boyfriend. And I am a girlfriend". When she got back and Mrs J relayed this news, I asked G what N was like. "We play with toys together!" she said, excitedly. All very sweet, but I suppose I'd better be ready for her to come home inconsolably upset one day, just in case.

I took this picture yesterday, during a walk at the lake at Clifton Country Park.

Scooting To The Hairdresser

I took G for a haircut last week. Or, more accurately, G took herself, scooting along like this as I ambled along in front. We were only going a few streets from where we live, but it still took ages. So long in fact, I gave up after a while and had to pick both her and the scooter up, and walk to make sure we got there in time.

We would have got there sooner if G hadn't spent ten minutes refusing to put her helmet on before we got out of the house. Every time I went to fasten the clip of her strap tightly under her chin, she burst into tears and stomped off. On about the fifth time, I managed to distract her enough with something else to finally get her helmet on, and she realised it hadn't been anything worth getting upset about in the first place. Fifth time is better than five-hundredth time, but still, I don't intend to let her make a habit of it.

Shaky Ladder

Mrs J was away last weekend, so it was just me and G on Saturday and Sunday. Not that this is particularly unusual, given that I've looked after her for the last three-and-a-half years, and still have her at home with me a couple of days a week. But when you've got to stretch solo toddler entertaining to an extra couple of days, you have to ration your standard activities out slightly.

On Saturday morning, I took her dancing. This was the first time I'd been, and predictably enough I was the only dad in an ante-room of 15 or so mums, waiting around for our children to do their ballet class next door. Not that I could really hear what was going on, the overwhelming noise from another neighbouring room was of a group of eight-year-olds learning how to street dance to the Macarena. I don't think I'd heard the Macarena since about 1996, and it seemed pretty old hat to me even then. So goodness knows what today's pre-tweenies make of it. Perhaps it's this generation's Agadoo.

I decided to save a playground trip for Sunday, not least because the forecast was good. And it turned out to be beautifully sunny. Sunny enough in fact to take along G's bike, which she rode very slowly along the path to the playground in Parr Fold Park. This was clearly far too much like hard work, and she bounded off and ran towards the big climbing frame as soon as we got near it.

Then she stopped, puzzled as how to actually get up. Possibly aimed at slightly older children, the only ways onto the frame itself were via a couple of shaky rope ladders, which G didn't much like the look of at first glance. I encouraged her up one, step by step, lifting her foot up each time while supporting her back. Eventually, she scrambled up, slowly walked over to the slide, then came down. This was much more fun.

So much fun in fact, that she quickly forgot about any danger associated with going up the rope ladder, and trotted straight back to it, climbing up herself. She repeated this process about 38 times, briefly stopping once so I could take the photo of her peering back down at me. It all helped tire her right out, which as any parent will tell you, is always the most important thing.

Frosty Playground

Today was a day off at home with G. After lazing around for a bit, looking doubtfully through the window at the cold outside, I asked her what she wanted to do, hoping she might suggest something indoors and somewhere warm. A sauna perhaps.

"Playground!" she replied, "Playground! Playground! Playground!" Looking at the thick frost outside, I put an extra layer on us both and drove to one fairly near our new house that we were yet to visit.

As you can see, G ran off excitedly in the direction of the swings. As you can also see, there was nobody else around. The frost in the park was still untouched, so not even any dog walkers had been past during the morning.

We didn't stay all that long, but there was time for G to save the day. We trotted back to the car to get out of the cold, and as I opened the door G gave me a serious look and said: "No daddy, you left the bag at the playground". This was true enough, her potty, wipes, spare clothes, water, and all manner of other posessions were still where I'd left them. I strapped G into the car and took a more leisurely stroll back to pick them up. Not that anyone would want to make off with them normally, but there really was no chance of that today.

Entertaining Herself

I was ill for a couple of days this week. Nothing too noteworthy, just the usual early winter bit of sickness that makes you not want to do anything apart from lie in bed, groaning pathetically. Unfortunately, the worst of it coincided with Thursday, which just happened to be my only day of the week with G at home.

She gave me a lie-in, which was very decent of her, but the long sleep only served to give her more energy when she finally decided to wake up. "Get up daddy!" she repeated, excitedly, trying to pull the duvet from where I'd attempted to securely anchor it. "Daddy's feeling sick, daddy's very sad," I managed in response. G thought for a moment, and said: "I kiss you and make it better!" followed all-too-inevitably by, "There! All better! Get up daddy!"

Later in the day I had to go back to bed, but managed to persuade her to come with me with the lure of Mrs J's iPad, which she'd thoughtfully left behind for just such an eventuality. I dozed off, and woke up some time later to find G still enthusiastically tapping away at the thing. She could well have been ordering boxloads of fine wines and other expensive fripperies for all I knew, but at that particular moment I was happy that something other than me was keeping her occupied.

I'm feeling much better now, by the way. The picture was taken last weekend, on the swings in a park in Salford.

A Little Adventure In Manchester And Salford

Today was daddy-daughter day. Or, to put it another way, it was can-you-take-the-baby-out-I-need-to-get-some-stuff-done day. So, while Mrs J began work on this year's Christmas cakes, I put G into her pram and pushed her out into Manchester, without much idea of where I was going to take her.

The weather was ok so I decided to go to the Christmas market in Albert Square. I've got no idea why these Christmas markets are always 'German' markets (unless it's got something to do with Prince Albert, that is). Whatever the reason, whenever I've been in previous years I've been hard-pressed to find any German people at all, amidst all the local stallholders saying things like "mug o' Gloo-vine is it love?" in thick Manchester accents. To my surprise, the girl who served me the mug of mulled wine in the picture above did appear to actually be German, although I'm no good with accents so she might just as easily have been from Bury.

I gave G a bottle (of milk, not mulled wine) while we were at the market then walked her around town for a bit. I thought about taking her back home then but she'd dozed off and. as I looked up and saw Victoria Station in front of me, I thought it might be fun to take G for her first trip back to her home city of Salford since she was born. And so, her first-ever train journey was Victoria to Salford Crescent. Not exactly the Trans-Siberian Railway, but long enough for me because it was hot on the train and that made her restless. I managed to settle her back down though and after a short walk through the Salford University campus we reached here.

Peel Park is the oldest park in the world. Or at least it might be. There's some doubt about it as well as a variety of other contenders, but frankly it sounds better to just gloss over all that and let Salford have its bit of glory. It was opened in 1846, after various civic leaders became concerned about all the pollution and disease in industrial Salford and Manchester. If Central Park is the 'lungs' of New York then I suppose Peel Park was intended to be exactly that for Salford. Slowly ambling through all the fallen leaves (which crackled satisfyingly under the wheels of the pram) I came across this.

That mark is 8'6'' above the ground. What's even more remarkable about it is that, looking around, I couldn't actually see where the River Irwell was, which proves it must have been an incredible flood. Amazingly, only three people died. Obviously at this point I had to go and find the river, which didn't take all that long. I pushed G across a green bridge but, as you can see, she remained impassive.

I knew that for part of its route the Irwell serves as the boundary between Manchester and Salford, just like the Tyne separates Newcastle and Gateshead. So I briefly wondered whether I was already back in Manchester. But the wheelie bins outside the nearby houses all had Salford City Council printed on them, so I was a bit confused. Then I spotted another bridge, and pushed G across that one too.

This bridge was a little bit grander than the other one. Presumably Alderman S Rudman JP (he obviously thought it was cool to tell people he was a magistrate) made sure that if it was going to have a plaque with his name on it, it had better look good. Anyway, this bridge was also over the Irwell, which left me even more confused because I'd only gone over the Irwell about half a mile previously and hadn't changed direction. I definitely still wasn't in Manchester though, as this sign suggested.

Seeing as I was obviously getting closer and couldn't remember exactly where the station was I thought I may as well just walk back home, and headed off in the general direction of Manchester. On the way we crossed the Irwell for the third time, at the point I was already familiar with, near the top of Deansgate and close to Victoria Station. That's the bit of the Irwell which separates Manchester and Salford, but it only acts as the border for a relatively short distance. It turns out that the Irwell doubles back on itself not once but twice as it flows through Salford, which explains all of those bridges. If I'm going to educate G all about her home city when she grows up, I think I'd better brush up on the geography myself first.

First Injection

G had the first of her injections today. We'd been warned that babies often don't take too kindly to jabs so both of us took G to the clinic for her shot, just in case it all ended in floods of unbearable tears. G was getting the BCG injection, which protects against tuberculosis. It's actually only 80% effective and lasts just 15 years or so (you may remember getting a booster shot while a teenager, apparently they don't bother with this anymore), but I suppose it's better than actually getting TB. It's only actually given to babies in certain high-risk parts of the country, of which central Manchester is one, although I'm not sure whether this makes G lucky to get the extra protection or unlucky to live in a disease-ridden hellhole.

She was fast asleep when we went into the nurse's room, and I had to wake her up and hold her very steady while the needle went in. There was a bit of screaming, but she dropped back off to sleep in the car on the way home. Next week G gets the full set of baby injections, and apparently it's likely to be a lot more traumatic, so I'll have to remember to stock up on Calpol (note - other child medicines are available, but Calpol's the only one anybody has heard of).

The clinic was in Beswick, right next to where the Manchester Super Casino isn't going to be built. I made sure G was proudly representing her home city of Salford though, as you can see from the photo. The other thing to notice about the photo is that I reckon G looks a lot like me in it. People have been saying that she looks like me for weeks, but I haven't really seen it until now. Obviously she's soon going to have more hair than me, but other than that there's no doubt she's her daddy's little girl.

Dirty Old Town

I went to register G's birth today. You have to do it in the district in which the birth took place, which meant a short drive back to Salford to the town hall on Chorley Road. When I told the registrar the name, she said: "Well, we don't get many names like that in Salford." Apparently this morning she'd had to register a Kaylum. Kaylum? It sounds to me like a cross between Kayleigh and Callum. I should have asked whether the unfortunate child was a girl or a boy, but I didn't, so that's going to have to remain a mystery. Maybe Kaylum is actually an incredibly post-modern name, like an anagram of something significant. I doubt it though.

So, even though she's got no other connection to the place, G is now officially a Salfordian. And I want to make sure she grows up with at least some sense of the city where she was born, and the other people who have come from there. Whether she'll be at all bothered is another story, but I'll be happy if she at least knows a bit about her hometown, and that it means more to her than just a word in the back of her passport.

I was thinking about one of those famous Salfordians earlier as I was driving through what was a typical Manchester day, all dark skies and rain. Like G, Ewan MacColl was born in Salford to a Scottish father, and he's best remembered for writing Dirty Old Town about the place. These days people tend to assume the song is about Dublin, probably because of this cover version by The Pogues. No doubt Salford Council would prefer that the misconception remains, so people don't automatically think of the city as 'dirty' or, probably even worse in their eyes, a 'town.'

I know it's probably pushing it a bit to hope that G will grow up to be a leading playwright and songwriter like Ewan MacColl. But there are plenty of other notable Salfordians she can try to emulate. Admittedly, one of them is ex-snooker player John Virgo. Although even if she develops a talent for doing trick shots and takes to wearing dodgy waistcoats, I'm sure I'll still be proud of her.