Richard Hearn tries out all the table sports

Welcome to part two of my one-week holiday. (Yes, you did read that right.) This is where I clear up all the stuff I didn’t write about last week. First there’s some of the new holiday routines: The Boy and Youngest™ like to play hide and seek as soon as we get to our holiday home, no matter how small it is, and I always sigh with relief once I’ve found the cafetiere. We hurriedly unpack everything, including the DVD of Inception, which has accompanied us on most of our recent holidays, with me always optimistic I’ll finally get to watch the second half.

Another new routine – and probably the best part of the holiday – is the daily swimming. Normally in the morning, and always preceded by 90 minutes of The Boy asking ‘When are we going swimming?’ while I drink the contents of the aforementioned cafetiere. Next to the swimming pool is ‘the games room’. I go there with The Boy and Youngest™ and try to prevent them causing lasting damage with the various balls from table tennis, table football and, er, pool. “Why isn’t it called table pool?” asks The Boy. My best answer is that there needs to be a different non-table pool, in order to have table something. (Although there is the swimming pool, of course. This is getting confusing.)

“‘Why isn’t it called Table Pool?’ asks The Boy”

Explaining the rules of table football to Youngest™ is rather tricky, especially as he spends the whole time telling us which colour the teams are playing in (“Red! Blue!”) like the commentator at the beginning of a football match stuck on that initial groove. Other routines? A lot of ice cream, often at National Trusts. Getting really mucky in an historic setting. Many meals out in cafés, pubs and restaurants. Luckily, in terms of keeping the peace, the Ice Cream Flavour Rules were always followed by whichever place we were in. Vanilla. Strawberry. Chocolate. I have also decided that from now on ice cream while sitting in a restaurant should be called Table Ice Cream.

What else happened? I spoke last week of our trips to Bath, Avebury, Stonehenge and the Clifton Suspension bridge. We also went to Bristol Zoo, which had a freezer full of fish products sited at the end of the aquarium. Something about that seemed in poor taste. There was also the non-appearance of gorillas, and the sudden appearance of a dog to which Youngest™ sternly pointed with the instruction “Don’t lick me!”– it didn’t.
Leaving us with just that one major question: where are we going to take the unwatched Inception DVD next year?

Illustration: Paul Lewis www.pointlessrhino.com