Poofs, Parks and Pianos

This weekend was a quiet one, where the Holley family stayed mostly at home. But to prevent catching a vitamin B deficiency from not seeing enough daylight, we did manage to venture out on at least two memorable occasions.

To contradict the hypothesis that your life changes when you have children, all four of us went to a party on Saturday night. But those of you that have your finger reaching for the phone to alert the NSPCC of our irresponsible parenting, please refrain. This was not the type of party that I would have gone to a few years ago, where climbing over bodies on the floor was not a game of Twister but just the way that you had to get around. Neither was there a Police look out stationed in the front room in case an invite had reached the local constabulary.

No. This was a remarkably tame 30th birthday that had amongst its guests another baby, and an old lady in the front room that didn’t move out of her armchair. We were right at home with the kids with us, although as we are used to at the moment, we did feel like the unofficial entertainment. Where ever we go a crowd congregates to see the show, and I often hear people as they walk away expressing disappointment that they’ve seen better circuses.

It was a fancy dress party with the theme of the letter P, and after at least 2 mins of racking our brains Claire came up with the idea of going as 4 Poofs and a Piano. If any of you are aware of the barbershop quartet that feature on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, then you will know that they wear t-shirts with the picture of one of the guests that is being interviewed on the show that night. As the birthday girl was going as a Pink Pixie, we thought it would be clever to have a picture of a pink pixie on our t-shirts.

Not until I printed the pictures of a pink pixie off the computer did I realise exactly how gay I was going to look. Effectively a pink pixie looks, from a distance, like a pink fairy, although a closer inspection would show that a pixie has slightly more pointed ears and cannot fly as high. However, I could not assume that any pixie specialist would be at the party to defend my case.

This party was in the sunny village of Marple, and regular readers will be aware that this is the very same province that we are thinking of moving to. All of the people at the party were strangers to us, but not to each other. They all lived in and around the village, and knew each other like Jessica Fletcher knows corpses in Cabot Cove. So, anyway, we turned up to the party wearing our white t-shirts with a picture of a pink pixie attached in the middle of them.

It would have helped if half of the party had actually watched Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and had a slight inclination as to what we were dressed as, because explaining to someone that didn’t know the show that we were 4 Poofs and a Piano, welcomed the comment, “Oh… right!” and a raised eyebrow. Also, the 4 Poofs and a Piano thing only works if you all stay together, so once separated and asked the question, “So, what are you?” and you reply, “A Poof, from 4 Poofs and a Piano” this encourages even stranger reactions.

Adding also the fact that it is certainly the campest that I have ever looked, and Dylan can proudly say that the first party that he ever went to was as a poof, the whole costume choice was a disaster. It went down like the proverbial Lead Balloon. But at least we can now say when we move there…

“But, we are the only gays in this village!!!”


Blur’s popular song from the mid-90’s seems to have been written about us recently. We spend any time when the weather is dry walking around parks, in fact we have probably spent more time in a park than a tramp recently, and this is what we did on Sunday. It must be the thing to do as a new parent because the park is full of pushchairs and parents walking around like zombies. This weekend we went to a big park that had it’s own coffee shop in the middle, this was exciting to a regular park dweller.

The weather was sunny and the lake in the grounds was reflecting small flecks of sunlight on to the surrounding fauna. In simpler days it would have been paradise to find a spot on the grass, read a book and have a lovely chilled bottle of white wine. However, these days that we live in are not simple, and we managed to sit down for an ice cream next to the lake for approximately 5 minutes. Then we were on the move, walking around the grounds, pushing the cherubs to prevent them from crying. But, still, better than sitting at home.

Parks hold an enchanting, magical power on a sunny day. They have the ability to recharge you, and fill you with energy. You result in feeling lighter and refreshed, after you have had an opportunity to daydream for an hour. The age of most parks gives you a rare feeling of connection with the past. You can stare at a lake, or a landscape, from a bench and really feel that you are not the first person to have ever cast their eyes over the undulating scenery. You can get lost in your thoughts, and resolve any inner conflicts that you may have, because on a day like this the world seems to be in harmony with itself and you are meandering along on the stream of life. A stream doesn’t try to go through obstacles, but it gently moves around them and happily goes on its way. When you are sat in a park, on a sunny day, you feel like you can see the obstacles and you gently just move around them. Instead of wasting energy in trying to pass through them.