Heavy rain

Heavy rain
Originally uploaded by tcatcarson

Oh man, that was wet.

When toys were good...

This is all Mum's fault, mentioning Maskatron.

Let's also pay our respects to...

Star Wars - too obvious, but very few people remember Nien Numb, the strange vagina-faced co-pilot to Lando Calrissian in Return of the Jedi. What makes him special is that you had to save up tokens for him, send them off then wait like a, well, hyperactive impatient child until it arrived. Even now I can still gauge the quality of a Star Wars character by how it feels in your hand... TIE Fighter Pilot - good, AT-AT Commander - bad. I also have fond memories of having to make the characters stand at 90 degrees to each other because they couldn't hold their guns straight.

Micronauts - apparently the mission of the Micronauts was to put the eyes out of children across the country, such was the number of pointy firing things they boasted. This was the Force Commander which I remember owning. See those red rockets and the bullet in his belly button? They fired out, fast! Most of the rest of my Micronauts were hand-me-downs but that didn't make them any less lethal.

Evel Knievel - cunningly modeled on the real Evel in that it would career wildly round the living room crashing from skirting board to skirting board before collapsing in a heap under the dining table. Unless it wasn't correctly engaged in the "gyro energizer" in which case it would miss out the skirting board bit and go straight to the collapsing bit.

Zoids - I got this Zoid on my P7 trip to Edinburgh. I also bought a real fountain pen which felt very sophisticated in P7. I actually left both of these precious items in the hotel, but they forwarded them onto the school, which was nice of them. Zoids were wind up robots based on animals which you chose, bought, unpacked, assembled then left in a hotel room.

Transformers - the link shows "Hound", my first Transformer bought in the wee toy shop which used to be at the top of the Eastgate Centre in Inverness. The box had coded stats on it, only visible when you used the mystical "red cellophane"...quite expensive now, like. Special mention should be made here to the Rock Lords, who could transform into...rocks. Very impressive when all rolling down a hill into battle, less so the rest of the time.

Action Man - I wasn't huge into Action Man, but I think a special mention should go to the well meaning person who bought me the Action Man deep sea exploration outfit. Nice looking it may be, but where is a 7 year old boy supposed to play with this? The bath wasn't nearly deep enough so mine ended up clomping his way round the garden in Fort William looking more like a charity marathon runner than a man of action...

...and then this baby arrived on the scene and nothing was ever quite the same.

Swimming

We spent this afternoon splashing about at Leith Waterworld having spent the morning watching the rain splash about in the garden. Kit is unbelievably confident in the water. We began with me supporting him on his front which makes him kick his legs in an "I'm doing it!" style, before plonking him into his inflatable thing for a trip round the rapids and on to the wave area. He likes this, but he like watching the girls more... His confidence really showed when I took him back out of the inflatable and allowed him to crawl in the shallows - every time he took himself deeper and deeper until I dragged him back as he spluttered and gagged on mouthfuls of water. Confidence is another word for lack of experience, I suppose. Any way he was happy enough to be ducked under the water (it's good for him) and certainly made an other little boy look like a bit of a wuss when he gurned his way round the pool.

And the best bit about the trip? We got a proper changing room this time, with a special seat to strap him into while I got changed. Aah, it's the little things...

Luke...I am your father

I have just made an advanced order from Amazon for the final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I can't wait to find out that Harry dies......

If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y and Z, with X being work, Y play, and Z keeping your mouth shut.

So...

Lorna's off to Amsterdam for the weekend! She owes her current PhD student a visit to an international conference so they left yesterday morning and will be back on Monday night. But they are working hard - they have been to the Anne Frank museum, Van Gogh museum, on a canal trip, out to dinner.......eh? Do Napier realise what they're up to?

That leaves Kit and I to fend for ourselves for a few days, and so far we are managing I'm pleased to say. He now stands unaided (at 13 months I should hope so, but he is a lazy git and is in no rush to walk anywhere) and enjoys any thing musical or on wheels. We bought him a xylophone last week which he loves, though he does tend to play in a "punk" style. I have managed to drop him off at nursery (8am) and make it across town to QPS before the bell. This was my main worry so I can relax a bit now.

The sharp eyed among you will spot the new link on the right to my SQH blog. I have been accepted on to Edinburgh Uni's Scottish Qualification for Headship course, involving 26 months of homework and soul searching. Two weeks ago was the introduction to course 1 which meant 3 days at Peebles Hydro, which was nice if a bit overwhelming.

Oh, I have finally set up a Flickr account so feel free to check out my pictures and make me a buddy, or whatever it is you do on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/tcatcarson/

I am reading A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving (again). It's dead good.

Kit Carson

DSCN2213
Originally uploaded by tcatcarson.

Well, what else would we dress him up as? About to stop the great train robbery...