Wii are a familii

From left to right: Badger, Ms M, Stray and Master M.

There is absolutely no truth in any rumour that we have spent this evening making wii-miis of everybody from blog-land. None at all.

You couldn't make it up #2

Sunday morning breakfast.

Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication* becomes Badger-fornication.

Badger was most upset: fornication is definitely not Badger-Friendly, she informed us.

She was significantly more upset when we pointed out that to fornicate does not mean to dance in a provocative manner. 

*Sung to the tune of California Dreaming, as an extra tic-twist.

You couldn't make it up

Friday night.

Four hour round trip in the dog-bus, from the peaceful sheep-sanctuary of our village to the thriving metropolis of Manchester to take our places in the audience of the Britain's Got Talent Live Tour.

Badger's latest tic comprises singing popular songs, but replacing a key word in the lyrics with either "Badger" or "Schmaow".

Badger's repertoire is really quite impressive, and we particularly enjoyed:

Boney M's seventies favourite: By the river of Badgerlon. 

The Nolan Sisters' wedding classic: I'm in the mood for Schmaowing.

Tears for Fears's stadium fillers: Schmaow, Schmaow, let it all out, and Schmaowing the seeds of love.

and Rod Stewart's poke-your-eyes-out lyrical masterpiece: We are badgers, we are badgers ... 

The return journey was mostly Disney themed, and a high point was reached when Badger pulled off a wonderful impression of Angela Lansbury (aka Miss Marple, a classic Type B Badgerism) as the teapot in Beauty and the Badger.

The Britain's Got Talent Show was actually rather good, and only a little bit less entertaining than four hours in a car with Badger.

Capital punishment

I just received the following email message from my father:

Hi Stray,

capitalised is spelld wrongously on your krib shite.

If you want it to be on the walls of unsuspecting children, it will need to be amenderated.

With deep parental love,

Dad

He may have been spending too much time chatting on facebook with George Bush, but he is absolutely correct (the error is within the section about hyphens). My sincere apologies to anyone who has already distributed this sheet (or shite) as a hand-out in their school/family/church/neighbourhood. 

The corrected version can now be downloaded.

As Misssy M has now rebranded chasing-sheep as a public service, I should state that I have the full backing of my colleagues. I will of course be reconsidering my position in due course, and making the entirely voluntary decision to tender my resignation in order to spend more time with my family.

***

In unrelated news, it is very sunny and I am writing this in my garden. Bliss!

Happy penguin day

Ms M and I are having our first Valentine's day. Not that we believe in that commercialised nonsense of course. I gave her a lovely book about quantum physics, thoughtfully uninscribed incase Master M develops a further interest in such things and decides to show it to a friend. Master M is absolutely comfortable with his mum being gay, and also quite confident that most of his school-friends aren't as emotionally mature as he is. Sensible boy.

Which brings me neatly to the penguin thing.

Apparently, lovely bobo promised by text not to mention it ... having heard me refer to it at the weekend. I appreciate the discretion, but decided to share anyway.

I call Ms M my special penguin. Not in a sickly "aw, diddum widdums" kind of way ... it's a kind of soulmate-plus if you like.

A wide range of birds and animals form same-sex monogamous couples, but penguins do it with particular aplomb. They not only form deep and long-lasting attachments, gay penguin couples will raise orphaned babies. They also try to hatch rocks ... (bless) ... which led researchers to give them real eggs to sit on and then nurture - which they do with great success. Penguin families come in all shapes and sizes, all blends of sex and gender, without any apparent negative impact on their offspring.

It's a funny thing, this not-really-step-parenting thing. Master M doesn't need another mum, he's got Ms M and his step-mum as well as his dad. I pictured myself as a kind of live-in-youth-group-leader type ... but it definitely feels a wee bit more parental than that. So, clearly, as well as being Ms M's special penguin, I'm Master M's other carer-penguin.

Funnily enough, I think I remember seeing that tick-box on the permission slip for his last school trip ...