Ah, bathtime.

I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to get around to this subject as it’s my favourite time of the day. You can keep your walk-in showers – as far as I’m concerned nothing beats wallowing in a nice warm tub of water.

So what exactly happens in my bath? Some people like to play with rubber ducks, or boats or submarines but they’re not for me. Sometimes I like to chew on the tail of a large rubber dinosaur and just chill, but mostly I think it’s much more fun to play with the taps: turning them on and off, on and off. Actually I don’t usually have to turn them off because there’s always someone there to do it for me. I’ve heard other people have their baths on their own, which must be terribly lonely for them. I’ve always had an audience for mine and, on the whole, I enjoy the company as long as they don’t try to spoil the fun.

For some reason my turning on the taps seems to make people grumpy, so you’d think they’d cheer up when I switch my attention to pulling out the plug – but no, it just seems to make their mood worse. And then they turn on the taps even though they’ve just told me not to do it. Some people are never satisfied.

Then there’s the question of bubbles. I used to have a lot of bubbly baths, which was brilliant if you wanted to put your head in the water and pretend to have a big white beard and bubbly hair (trust me, this joke never gets old). But then they said I was eating too many of the bubbles so they stopped putting it in.

Sometimes I’m in the mood for a good old splash and there are a lots of different methods I can recommend. At the bottom end of the scale there’s the simple hand-slapping-the-water method. That’s ok for starters, but it’s tiring after a while and quite honestly there are more effective ways of redistributing water. To move the game on a bit you can reach over the side – causing quite a slosh in itself – and pull in a towel or two. Then you can throw the towels out again. This has the added benefit of keeping people busy for a few minutes so that you can go back to turning the taps on to keep the water level topped up. But if you’re really going for the full ‘Perfect Storm’ effect you need to slide your body forwards and backwards along the bottom. If you get up enough speed you can cause a double Tsunami which will have people running in all directions. Ah, you should see the joyful expressions on their faces.

But some nights I just like to wallow. Wallowing in a nice warm bath at the end of a tiring day is as good as life gets as far as I’m concerned. I lie on one side with half my face in the water so that whenever I fancy a drink I just have a quick slurp. In fact the bath is where I do the majority of my day’s drinking. I’ve never really mastered the art of the cup and having a syringe full of water squirted into your mouth isn’t the most pleasant way to take a drink so a few gulps of warm, soapy water usually hits the spot quite nicely.

Of course all that drinking can bring on problems of its own; after all, any water that goes in has to come out at some point. But the way I look at it, you’re sitting in water anyway so what difference does a little more make? Especially if I’ve been in there a while and it needs warming up. Ok, so it goes a little yellow and Curly Top has now refused to share my water afterwards, but I think that’s his loss. Smiley and co. used to try to catch my outpourings in a plastic cup but after a few futile attempts and some very wet hands they’ve given up. That reminds me, Flower Girl only recently found out what the plastic cup in the bathroom was for; turns out she’d been using it to drink from when she came in late.

I was going to tell you about hair washing… but quite frankly it’s too distressing. I really must remember to speak to the social worker about this.

Anyway, all good things must come to an end and eventually they pull the plug on me. But I’m sure you didn’t expect me to be beaten so easily; a quick press of the thigh and I can keep the water in for at least another ten minutes, and there’s no way I’ll ever get out of a perfectly good bath while there’s even the tiniest drop of water left.

Perhaps you think I would have to admit defeat when faced with an empty tub? Pah! Even without water I’d quite happily stay in the bath all night if they’d let me have a duvet. But no, the boring traditionalists insist on me getting out. Still, I don’t see why I should make this easy for them so I don’t give up until there are at least two people to haul me out and wrap me in a towel. Body drying I can just about tolerate but I firmly believe there are no circumstances under which you should ever let anyone rub your hair. And since the bath has finished I can’t usually be bothered to stand up at this point but there are always some of my staff around to support my weight.

Dressing? Well personally I probably wouldn’t bother but as I have lots of people to perform this service for me it would seem a pity to disappoint them.

And that’s it. Nice and relaxed and settled for the evening so I go and lie on my bed where all my favourite toys have somehow magically scattered themselves within a convenient arm stretch.

But as soon as I’m on the bed I always have the terrible thought that I might be missing out on something that I’ll need during the night, so I leap out and charge downstairs to check. It’s always worth popping a head into the bathroom on the way as there’s sometimes another bath running, and if there’s no-one about I can jump in for another splash. Usually I bump into Smiley at this point. He likes to spend this part of his evening mucking about with armfuls of wet towels.

He does have some funny habits.

 I had an unconventional birth.

Woah, hang on… confusion alert. Didn’t we already talk about all the usual gory, sticky, yucky, pushing and heaving stuff? http://www.boybiteshorse.co.uk/groovy-baby/          Well yes, you’re right. Clever you for paying attention (I never do). But this was different.

The way I remember it I was around 18 months old and sitting on the hall floor. We used to live in this big old house which had a floor with very big black and white and orange and blue triangle patterns all over it. I really liked this floor. I would sit and stare at it and sometimes I would crawl around in circles and look at it for ages, and it made my head spin in swirly shapes.

But we need to go back a bit.

We’d just arrived home from one of our visits to see another of those really old guys in a white coat. He’d talked and talked to Smiley and Frowny in a really serious voice. Now most of this is just blah, blah, blah to me, but it was something about ‘syndromes’ and ‘never being able to do this or that’. It was difficult to pay attention because he had some awesomely cool stuff on his desk: colourful rubber tubes and shiny chrome and plastic bones and stuff, so I spent my time trying to wriggle out of Smiley’s arms in an attempt to reach it all.

Anyway, white coat guy had done all his serious talky-talk and he must have upset Frowny in some way because she’d given me this really big hug when she was putting me in my car seat, then she was really sad and hardly said a word all the way home. And normally her face isn’t frowny all the time, but this time it was.

When we arrived home Frowny went straight into the kitchen to carry on being sad, but Smiley seemed ok, and he put me down on this big old hall floor and sat in front of me.

And that’s when it happened.

Smiley started talking to me – just as he always did – but for the first time I understood exactly what he was saying and what was going on and who I was and what the name of the funny, fluffy, purring thing was and all sorts of other crazy stuff. I’m telling you, my head nearly exploded with everything rushing in at once.

And I was able to answer back which was properly cool because I’d never had a voice before and now I found I could talk to Smiley even when I wasn’t looking at him or when I hadn’t heard the question, so I could have a conversation with him while I was getting on with actually-really-very-important-other-stuff. At first I didn’t have much to say for myself but soon I was jabbering away and telling him about all kinds of things. Frowny came out of the kitchen and she could hear me too and she smiled for the first time in ages.

But the coolest part of all was that I found I didn’t need to bother with using the actual words.

Talk about weird.

Told you it was confusing.

I love Flower Girl.

Hmm, perhaps that’s not saying much because I love a lot of people. I can’t help it. I’m a very loving person. But even by my usual standards I really love Flower Girl. She’s one of my most special-est people in the whole entire world. Ever.

It’s like having a really cool mum: all the good stuff without the bits where they embarrass you. It’s difficult to describe, she kind of looks after me, but she doesn’t. This is trickier than I thought.

Ok, let’s start again. I’ve met lots and lots of people, most of them very nice. But only Flower Girl knows exactly the games I like to play and exactly how I like to play them. And she always uses this really nice voice, which I’ve noticed she keeps just for me. She has the biggest smile I’ve ever seen – even bigger than Smiley’s, which is saying something.

When Smiley and Frowny are having one of their shouty times, Flower Girl picks me up and takes me to another room and we do Row, Row Your Boat for a bit. And sometimes when it’s late I just lie across her on the sofa and we have a cuddle and she does singy-songs and she plays music on her phone for me and I fall asleep in her lap. Not even Frowny has ever done this. Smiley has given it a go a few times, but it just isn’t the same.

Flower Girl has been there ever since before I can remember. But the first time I actually noticed her was when she started wearing big red shiny boots. I was only at around boot-height myself at the time, so they made a big impression. And the boots were only the start. Soon she was wearing really funny clothes like a clown that I’ve never seen anyone else wearing. Big dresses in bright orange and bright yellow and, well, just bright. And stripes and checks and spots and all sorts of swirly, zingy patterns that make your eyes go funny.

And then one day flowers started to grow out of her head. I’m not kidding. I’ve never seen this problem on anyone else but it doesn’t seem to bother her. Some days there were lots of little flowers. On other days there were great big, single flowers. It was seriously weird. I tried picking a few of them for her but however many times I pulled them out they’d just grow back again. Freaky.

Flower Girl has always been a bit bigger than me but I think I’m catching her up because now I’m tall enough to give her really strong hugs around the neck and shout in her ear which I think she really likes because she makes this little yelping noise. But just as I was starting to catch up with her height she began to spend more time in her room with the door locked and I couldn’t see her. Sometimes she was with her squealy friends but most times she was on her own.

I’d sit outside her room for hours, with my head leaning against the door, just waiting for her to come out. I’d call to her but she didn’t answer. I’d put my fingers under the door but I couldn’t feel her. I’ve often fallen asleep like that, just waiting for her. Eventually she always came out and then she’d give me one of her special smiles and a hug and all the waiting time was worth it.

But then one day she wasn’t there any more.

Of course, this sometimes happens; lots of people come and go. But not Flower Girl. So I went on waiting outside her room for hours even though the door was open and I could see she wasn’t there. At first I waited for a few days and then everything was ok because she came back. But then she disappeared again for a few more days, and she’d come back for a day. Then gone for a few more days. And the amount of days she wasn’t there became longer and longer.

Now I only see her very sometimes.

And sometimes I still sit outside her room, hoping that she’ll open the door, but she hardly ever does any more.

Will this eventually happen to everyone I know?

I’m not at all sure what the fuss is all about.

There I am, lying in the bath with my finger in my eye and Curly Top says “That’s disgusting!” What’s so disgusting about putting your finger in your eye? I’ll bet you’ve all done it at some time. Of course if you’re as talented as me you’ll be able to hook the end of your index finger right round under the eyeball and make your left eye go in a different direction to your right. I do this quite a lot because I like the colours and funny patterns it makes. Smiley and Frowny have been told to stop me doing it… some nonsense about ‘going blind’ or something, I wasn’t really listening. But honestly, how are they supposed to stop me? As soon as they turn their backs I’ll just do it again.

While I’m on the subject, that’s not all you can do with your finger. If I’m bored with sitting in my chair – usually either waiting for food to arrive or when I’m waiting for everyone else to finish eating – I sometimes stick one of my smaller fingers right up my nose as far as it will go and make a kind of clicking noise with the bendy boney bit inside. That one really freaks them out. I tried this once on Smiley’s nose when he was carrying me out of the house to strap me into the car. I was a lot younger then; my fingers were very small and his nose looked very large so I thought I’d see how far up I could poke a finger. It turned out I could push it all the way up and hook it over the top into a kind of hole. I held on like that for a while but in the end it was too funny watching him hop around and I had to let go because I was laughing too much.

There seems to be a very fine line between what’s funny or disgusting and I’m not sure I completely understand the rules. For instance, when I was very little one of my uncles discovered I’d never tried ice cream and decided to give me a bit of his on a spoon. He held it up for me to taste and I stuck out my tongue and then everyone laughed. Quite frankly I was a bit annoyed by this, not so much by the laughing as by the fact that I wasn’t getting the ice cream. Apparently the thing that was amusing them so much was the fact that the end of my tongue was ‘forked’ when I stuck it out. They kept holding the spoon just that bit too far away for me to reach so that I was having to stick my tongue out as far as it would go. Frustrating. Eventually they got bored with this and just gave me the ice-cream so it turned out ok in the end and no-one mentioned the tongue thing again. Fickle lot.

I suppose the tongue isn’t really what you’d call disgusting so much as fascinating. Now if you want disgusting you can’t beat eating things. I’ve already told you about the various types of poo worth trying, but did you realise the sticky jelly stuff inside nappies is also good to eat? Leaves quite a dry taste in the mouth so you don’t need too much of it, but you can always amuse yourself by spreading the remainder over the sheets and carpets.

Of course if you’re thirsty then urine isn’t a bad drink and it’s always on hand. I usually refuse all drinks on principle – I can never remember what the principle is, but it’s something I stick to – so I generally get very thirsty by bath time. I never understand why more people don’t enjoy soapy water and it’s even better once you’ve pee’d in it… slightly salty but well worth a try.

Anything else? Well you can’t really count runny noses because everyone have those. And it’s hardly my fault if they never give me a tissue to use. Like most boys what I usually do is rub my nose on my sleeve or trousers, but why stop there? Sometimes I’ll wipe it across a wall, the sofa or the carpet – whatever’s closest. In fact now I come to think of it one of the best places to rub it is in people’s hair; Frowny’s is especially good for this as she’s got so much of it and it’s always dangling in my face.

And that’s it. Nothing really out of the ordinary.

Well, unless you count the nail biting. Of course, lots of people do that but I notice they don’t really put as much effort into it as I do… most of them seem to stop about a third of the way down the nail but with a bit of perseverance you can go a lot further. Ok there’s usually a bit of blood to deal with but I’ve never been the squeamish type. And why stop with your fingernails? Obviously you’re not all going to be as flexible as me but I find while I’m waiting for my fingernails to grow back a toenail makes an equally good snack between meals. Often better in fact because they smell so good at the end of the day. You have to be a bit more careful with toes because if you go too far the toe goes bright red and swells up for a few days and then you have to see the doctor for more medicine. But on the bright side it gets me out of having to walk for a while.

So what’s all the fuss about? It’s not as if I’d eat a croissant or anything like that. Now that really would be disgusting.

I spend a lot of my time testing things around the house.

I recently mentioned how easily ornaments can be broken – anything as fragile as a vase is just asking to be broken, I mean glass or ceramics are hardly materials I’d choose to stand up to the abuse of day-to-day family life. All I’m usually trying to do is have a look at it and see if it falls into one of the three main categories:

1. Does it light up?

2. Does it play music?

3. Does it taste good?

If none of the above, drop it and move on I say.

Now if it’s a little ceramic model of a cat or a flower girl or something, again, how can I be held to blame? If they’re going to make it look like a toy it’s hardly my fault if it’s not strong enough to be played with, so again, not guilty.

But it seems there’s a bit of a ‘grey area’ with a lot of the other things around the house. For example, when I’m bored I often like to flick the light switches on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off – on and off…. I regard this as a public service in seeing how long the bulbs will last, but other people seem to think differently.

It’s the same with doors. I like to open them and slam them shut just to make sure they’re working ok (I once saw a machine doing this to a drawer in a big furniture shop – I could have sat and watched it for hours). Fifty or sixty times is usually a good enough test but in some cases I like to keep going a lot longer just to make sure. Another good test of a door’s strength is to open it all the way and then keep on pushing a bit more so that you can test the hinges as well. With some doors you can’t open them far enough but in a lot of cases the hinges just lever straight out of the wood and you can pull the whole door down. You’d think Smiley would be grateful to me for pointing this out but he seems to get very bad tempered about it. He usually tries to re-mount the door by putting the screws into different parts of the frame but it’s surprising how easily a wooden door frame splits from top to bottom after I’ve tested it a couple of times. I think he really ought to give up and leave the doors off altogether.

You wouldn’t think a radiator was an accident waiting to happen would you? They look innocent enough just sitting there but I’ve found if you pull really hard on the top edge they’ll often pivot away from the wall in a cloud of brick dust. But again, do you think I hear any thanks for my efforts?

That’s another odd thing I don’t understand; if we have all these radiators everywhere, why do we still have the old fireplaces? I had a good look at one of these recently but it was just as hopeless; I pulled this big black metal piece off the bottom, banged it a few times on the hearth to see how strong it was and all the little green tile things just shattered. I couldn’t believe how easily the first few broke so I tried banging a few more and they were all just as flimsy. It’s a good job I pointed this out before someone got hurt.

In fact there are all sorts of potential dangers around the home. Plasterboard walls are surprisingly thin if you lie on your back and try kicking them (which is also a good test for checking the strength of door panels).

Now that I’m a bit taller I’ve found that light fittings often pull away from the ceiling with just a quick tug. But don’t go away with the idea that I’m super-strong, I pulled the letterbox flap off the door the other day with hardly any effort at all.

And don’t get me started on mirrors and picture frames – did you know that they’re usually only held in place by one or two screws and a bit of string? Madness!

Honestly, you take your life into your hands every time you walk around the house. I’ve heard people saying that most accidents happen at home and with the standard of shoddy workmanship I see in most people’s houses I’m not at all surprised.

Our house is like a prison.

We have glass gates to the kitchen, dining room and Flower Girl’s room. We also have outside locks on the doors to the upstairs and downstairs bathrooms and all the bedrooms, including mine. For some reason we also lock the front door from the inside during the day. I can’t get into the kitchen unless it’s meal time or unless I’m on my way through into the garden… but then I have to get someone to help me undo all the silly locks. The living room, hall, stairs, landing and my bedroom are fairly easy to get to most of the time, but even then I usually have someone following me around.

What’s going on? Everyone else is allowed to come and go as they please, why not me? I watch them over the gates and think how much easier everyone’s life would be if we were all able to go wherever we wanted. For instance, I’ve spent hours watching Frowny doing the cooking and she’s always having to rush about between cupboards and drawers, opening and closing the oven and the fridge… it’s just not very efficient. If she allowed me to help her I could start by emptying all of the cupboards so that she’d never have to go hunting at the back for all those jars and tins and packets that have gone out of date. In fact I could help her with that problem too by opening them all and making sure they tasted ok.

Then I’d open the drawers and get out all of the knives, forks and spoons for her. And I’ve watched her chopping up vegetables with tiny little knives – takes her ages and I know for a fact that she keeps this whopping great big knife like a sword in the bottom drawer which would get through all the cutting jobs in no time at all.

She also spends ages sorting out all my medicines for me. Hours and hours taking all the little pills out of the packets and putting them in separate bowls. Ages spent with syringes sucking up all the medicines from different bottles… all pointless. I reckon if we just took them all out at the same time it wouldn’t take me more than 20 minutes to munch through the lot. Job done.

As for the bathrooms, don’t get me started. Every day they’re endlessly turning the taps on and off, on and off, on and off… crazy. Whenever I get anywhere near any taps I just turn them both on full then never have to deal with them again. So much time saved.

In fact it’s the same story all over the house. In mine and Curly Top’s bedrooms we both have boxes, baskets and cupboards full of toys. Well you can’t very well play with them like that can you? Do you see where I’m going with this?

In the living room I used to see Frowny lifting up vases, picture frames and other bits and pieces so she could do the dusting (I even saw Smiley doing this once, but it was a very long time ago), so whenever I see ornaments on any surface – wherever I am – I try to help by pushing them all onto the floor for her. It’s surprising how delicate some of those ornaments are; sometimes they break and have to be thrown away, so I like to think that’s another good deed I’ve done in pointing this out. Actually now I come to think of it I haven’t had to do much of this in our house for a long time so she’s obviously starting to realise how silly ornaments are in the first place.

At my school and at some of those places where I go to play at weekends they have lots of doors with flashing lights and beepy-buzzy things on them. But they don’t work very well because sometimes they let one person go through and sometimes they don’t. They seem to work better with two people so I usually go and get someone and put their hand on the handle to see if we can go through together. But even then they don’t always work.

If a door is left open I can never resist going through to see if I can get a snack for myself. A couple of times I’ve found doors open to the outside and in those cases I have a little wander to see if I can find a garden with a bouncy castle or a paddling pool. Usually all I find is lots of cars whizzing by, but within a minute I always bump into someone I know… how weird is that? In fact they often turn up in groups of two or three; all the attention can be a bit embarrassing at times but I do my best to live with it.

But the gate thing at home started a long time ago. When I was very little we used to have these baby prison gate things which were frustrating at first, but as I grew bigger I realised that with a bit of determination (and a lot of rattling) I could just pull them off. If this failed I could just lean on them until they collapsed. Smiley got wise to this and started attaching them to the door frames with big screws, but when I was a little bit taller I found I could lean right over, lift my feet and pivot over the top… not the best idea I’ve ever had – because it involved landing on my head or my face – but very effective.

Then one day we had a visit from a man with a clipboard who went round the house looking at all the doors and making funny sighing and tutting noises. He said “wood” and Smiley said that was no good because I would climb up it. I didn’t know what he meant by that but it hardly sounded like a bad thing. Then clipboard man said “metal?” but Frowny said she wasn’t having that because it would look like a prison. I quickly lost interest in the conversation and wandered off, but a few weeks later I came home and there were glass gates everywhere.

At first I wasn’t very keen because I kept walking into them and banging my head, and they were no good for climbing because they were too slippery. After a while I got used to them and found that they were very good for making dribbly patterns on, which has been particularly nice for Frowny because its given her something to polish after she lost all the ornaments.

There’s a bit of a problem with opening and closing them though; for some reason clipboard man only put doorknobs on the inside, which didn’t seem very efficient because it meant the grown-ups had to keep reaching over the gates to open them. As soon as I was tall enough I thought it would be a good idea to help by reaching over and opening all the gates myself, but one day when I came back from school all of the doorknobs had disappeared. Spooky. Drives them all mad when the doorbell goes or the phone’s ringing and they’re on the wrong side.

Now everyday I have to watch this ridiculous situation where every time anyone wants to go in or out of a room they have to argue with each other about who’s got the doorknob in their pocket or where they put it when they last had it. Sometimes Curly Top is locked in the living room with one of his friends and he calls for the toilet: Frowny flaps around in the kitchen, eventually finds the doorknob for the gate, opens it, locks it behind her, unlocks the living room door to let Curly Top out, re-locks it behind him, unlocks the bathroom door to let him in, locks it behind him, then has to go through the whole process in reverse to get back into the kitchen. The world’s gone mad.

The solution seems obvious to me, just take off all the gates and get rid of the locks on the doors. But you try telling them that and do you think they’d listen?

You just can’t help some people.

Obviously there’s absolutely no need to explain the Blankey Game to any of you, because I’m sure you all have your own subtle variations on it.

What do you mean you’ve never heard of the Blankey Game? How can that be? The absolute, no question, bestest and most popular game in the world and you say you’ve never played it? You sad, sad, people.

I’ve seen you all out there kicking a ball around a field and I’ve thought, “What’s the point of that?” You kick the ball away, then you run after it, then you kick it away again. And then you give it to someone else and it’s their turn to kick it away. Makes no sense at all.

There’s another one where someone tries to throw you a smaller ball and you have to whack it away with a big stick. I really can’t see the point of any of these games… if you don’t want the ball why bother with it in the first place?

Well I simply can’t let you all go on with such empty lives so allow me to explain. First, find a decent-sized blanket. My favourite is a mustardy-yellow jobbie with a kind of squared texture all over it. It’s perfect because it’s not too thick or fluffy (things can get pretty heated during the Blankey Game) and you can almost-but-not-quite see through it.

So what you do is this: search round the house for the blanket and drag it along behind you (sometimes along with whatever relative or stubborn cat happens to be sitting on it). You then have to go and search for Smiley. Now obviously this bit isn’t going to be very practical as it would take him a long time to get around to playing with everyone in the world. You can play the game with other people at a pinch but if you can persuade Smiley to play you’ll be in for a treat because he’s the undefeated world champion.

When you’ve found him all you do is hand him the blanket and he’ll do the rest. He usually starts by making a kind of groaning noise or mutters something about being busy but don’t believe a word of it, it’s all part of the game – you just keep handing him the blanket until he accepts it. He usually weakens quite quickly but don’t give up if it takes a little longer. I don’t think I’ve ever had to persevere for more than an hour or so.

As soon as he accepts it what you have to do is run away as fast as possible. This is hilarious. Don’t ask me why, it just is.

He then has to put the blanket over his head and chase after you, making “Oooooooh!” noises as he goes. Ok, so you run up and down the hall a few times, stepping on whatever person or animal is silly enough to be in the way and he staggers around after you, bumping into walls and door frames. By this time he’s usually managed to grab me a couple of times as I’ve been dashing past. He squeezes me in a bear hug and, with the blanket still over his head, presses his face up against mine and makes creepy ghosty noises. But, fun though this is, it’s just the initial warm-up period. Now it’s time to take things up a gear.

At this point Smiley attempts to throw the blanket over my head. This is the really weird part because when it’s over his head I can see him perfectly well, but when it’s over my head I become COMPLETELY INVISIBLE! How cool is that? I wander about the house following all the vague shadowy shapes and all I can hear them saying is “Where’s he gone?” I can’t see him anywhere!”

I quickly pull the blanket off my head to reveal myself and they look absolutely shocked! And just as quickly I put it back over my head and they’re back to being completely baffled… honestly, I can’t believe they haven’t figured this out yet, especially because at this point I’m usually laughing so hard I’m worried that I’m going to burst something.

Now this would already be enough to make it the best game ever invented, but wait, there’s more. The final stage involves Smiley dropping to his knees, still with the blanket over his head, and chasing around the floor like a dog in search of my toes. I can run but I can’t hide. I try lifting my feet off the floor as far as possible when I’m running away which possibly makes me lose some of my usual cool composure (I know you’ll find that difficult to believe) but at this point I’m usually past caring. I’m still working on a technique where I reckon it’s possible to have both feet off the floor at the same time while I’m running but I haven’t quite mastered it yet. Sometimes Smiley scurries off back to the living room and goes quiet and still for ages, so I have to sneak back to check if he’s still alive but at this point he comes back to life and starts chasing me again. Gets me every time.

After a few minutes of this I’m so exhausted that I have to confiscate the blanket from Smiley and go and flop on the sofa for half-an-hour or so to recover. And to stop him bothering me any more I usually put the blanket over my head to make myself invisible so that he won’t find me.

If you’ve never played the Blankey Game before then find a partner and do it today. I promise you it’s the most fun you’ll ever have.

Honestly, I could wet myself.

And frequently do.

You might have noticed that it’s been quite a while since my last post. I wouldn’t want you to think that’s because all has been dulls-ville in my world – as if – quite the opposite in fact.

As most of you know I get Smiley to write up my adventures for me… well you didn’t think I was going to do it myself did you? Duh! Anyway, the twit fell off his motorbike a few weeks ago. He said it wasn’t his fault but how anyone his age can be allowed to be in charge of any kind of motor vehicle I’ll never understand. Anyway, the poor little sausage banged his knee and has been complaining about it ever since. How a sore knee can affect his ability to type is something else I don’t understand (I need to start a list) but I think it’s been less to do with the typing and more to do with his preoccupation in finding a replacement motorbike. The new one’s bright yellow… oh, good grief.

So with Smiley all spick & span we were ready to get back to normal service. Lots and lots to tell you about so I’ll start with…………………. hang on… what’s this? What’s going on? Feeling.. a… bit….… funny………think……………… I’m………………………. having ….. …………………………………… a …………… ngh..en ………… ghj*?eo ………………… zn^*n%4 ………………………….. %b*!>nf*bv?h …………………… f&z=2m6&$£zz…….. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx………………………………….

*************

Sorry, blanked out for a moment there. Not sure what that was all about, hasn’t happened to me for years and years. Let’s see, I was in the bath, then there was a lot of splashing and I hurt my back on something and then nothing. Weird. And then I was in the hospital with Frowny who was frowning even more than usual. No idea how I got there but I think there might have been an ambulance involved at some point. Sorry to have missed that, ambulances are very cool. I really wasn’t feeling too good. Bit confused. Just wanted to go home but they weren’t letting me leave.

If you’re ever in that situation I find that if you make enough fuss they more or less allow you to do whatever you want. So if they want you to sit down, stand up. If they want you to stand up, lie on the floor. If they want you to lie on the bed get up and run around. If they want you to be quiet because it’s the middle of the night and you’re disturbing other people…. well, I’m sure you get the idea. They soon decided I was well enough to let me out of there.

Great, back home in my own bed with my own toys at last. Really tired. Frowny said I didn’t have to go to school the following day so I was going to sleep till lunchtime and make the most of it. Hang on, what’s this? Six o’clock in the morning and I’m feeling…… a………. bit………………………… funny………………… ag…. ain ……………………… vvgh..xn………… xh??%n!ez…………….. ffffffn^*n^**……………………. ?>?b*!>nf*av!h

……………………….. rrrrr&z=**m6&$£zzxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ……

Woah!…………………. that was a big one……….. feeling really bad now………… head hurts ………………..  dizzy………………. who are all these people? …………………… Well at least it’s over now, I can ………………….. go……………………. vvvvvhhhd&***** gg%fff£gid? ………….. aaaaj$??!nngeee ………..???????????????????????????????

*************

Where was I? Back in the hospital? Damn, think I missed out on the ambulance ride again.

Head really hurt this time. People poking me and prodding me, I wished they’d all just leave me alone, I was really tired. Some funny looking woman with a frowny face kept trying to talk to me, didn’t know who she was but she wouldn’t leave me alone. Slept for a bit. Woke up. Lot’s of people talking all the time…. didn’t they know I had a headache the size of a Renault? Some talk about medicines… Eppy-lippy-something-or-other………. then something about the fact that they shouldn’t have fiddled with the dosage…….. worked perfectly well for 8 years………. put it back as it was……… blah, blah, blah………. on and on and on………

I don’t know what it was all about, I was drifting in and out of the conversation but it was really boring anyway. As soon as I felt well enough I made my usual fuss and I was out of there. A day or two later I felt absolutely fine and back to my normal routine: broke a few things, sat on the cat, flooded the bathroom, the usual stuff. Took me a couple of days to get my appetite back but I’ve more than made up for it since.

But people are still behaving a bit funny around me.

As if they’re expecting me to explode at any moment.

I fell over on Saturday. Twice.

Smiley & Frowny took me for a walk in the woods… well I just wasn’t in the mood so was having none of it. Normally I quite like a walk but that day I had other plans… ok they were a bit unspecific – even I didn’t know exactly where I wanted to be, but I knew it definitely didn’t involve walking in the woods. So every time they got me out of my chair I turned round and headed straight back towards the car. They tried putting me back in the chair and pushing me further into the woods in the hope that when they got me out I’d have lost my bearings but hey, I might be ‘slow’ but I’m not stupid.

Anyway twice I was building up to a sprint when WHAM!… down I went. Those tree roots are a genuine health and safety issue. The second time I banged myself up pretty badly, took a lot of the skin off the palm of my hand and walloped my wrist.

When we got home they cleaned up the graze but the wrist was pretty painful. As you all know I’m not one to make a fuss so didn’t say anything about it, but it took them until Sunday evening to notice me still cradling it and decide a trip to Casualty was in order.

Now I really like hospitals. There are endless corridors to run down, doors to bang open and slam shut, taps to turn on and off, loads of stuff to interfere with, people everywhere and best of all, smooth surfaces to run on with no tree roots to trip over. Last time I was there I had a really bad cut on my foot, which was handy because it made it easy to keep track of my route with the trail of bloody footprints on the shiny floors and the men with mops following me around.

This time Smiley walked me up to the desk – at first there was a bit of a queue so I amused myself by looking in people’s bags and playing with their hair, but then they all seemed to remember that they had somewhere else to be and we went straight to the front. The nurse presented me with a long form to fill in which I treated with the contempt it deserved. Honestly, just who did she think she was dealing with here? Isn’t that what parents are for? There was far more fun to be had in exploring the waiting room.

Smiley was holding me pretty firmly but he got distracted when I licked his eye so I set off for a wander. I spotted one young woman who looked very miserable, sitting there in a dressing gown with her head in her hands, but just as I was about to cheer her up the nurse announced that we should go straight through to the children’s department. I was a bit annoyed about this but I quickly got over the disappointment when I saw all the new people I could introduce myself to. But once again, before I could make any new friends, they told us to go into a little room behind a curtain. Well I took one look at the room with its little bed and its plastic chair and decided it was completely rubbish compared with all the excitement outside, so I flopped to the ground and took off on my hands and knees under the curtain. Smiley gave chase and tried to get me back on my feet but I can assure you it’s surprisingly difficult to pick someone up who doesn’t want to be picked up.

Those of you paying attention might have noticed that the wrist wasn’t slowing me down much. The doctor lady who had magically appeared at my side must have been thinking the same thing – to tell you the truth in all the excitement I had completely forgotten about it. Doctor lady was very nice so I let her prod and poke me for a bit. Frowny seemed a bit flustered and tried to assure her that I really had been holding the wrist all day but the doctor didn’t look convinced. No swelling, no bruising. She didn’t actually say “Why are you wasting my time with this” but I’m sure we all knew that’s what she was thinking. She suggested painkillers and to come back in a couple of days if it was still a problem.

And so we left… bummer! A potentially excellent night out ruined by an efficient National Health Service.

As soon as we got back in the car I remembered my wrist was still hurting so I went back to holding it again.