My Family And Other Animals

I realise that I've banged on about heels on heroines and jobs that never pay but what I haven't done is tell you a lot about my immediate family. Why has it taken this long you ask? Well I couldn't tell you why I decided to wait this long but I just did. Live with it. Move on, and speaking of moving on...

We have eight people in the house currently, soon to be nine, and this means we have many characters, many laughs, many arguments, many flaws and even more virtues. I'll stick to the good stuff today because we all have bad days, we all have weaknesses and the number of people that can have a light shined on their inadequacy's and still smile are few and far between. Unsuprisingly.

To start off with we have @mamacrow, my partner in crime. She's fantastic and we have a wonderful relationship that grows, changes, deepens and yet stays the same each year. Its a strange concept to think that you can change AND stay the same, but you can. You can show each other the same amount of respect and love while still evolving your relationship, and I think that is what we do.

@mamacrow can drop a sci-fi reference right out of the blue. She can tell when I've had enough and step in before I cancel Christmas. She can drive, shout loud, kick a ball about, kick ya damn head off (Kick boxing and Karate student), make a crisis a game and turn a game into a triumph. All these things make her the wonderful person she is but the real thing shes done for us is bring sport into our lives and exist the way it does in our universe.

Before our relationship I didn't watch sport or compete in it at all. At school I was a very good long distance runner able to take that pain barrier and tell it to piss off. I hit a grove and I can stay there for a long time. I do it while labouring. I'm not the strongest there by far normally but if you want someone to go the distance then I'm your man. She on the other hand did tennis, Hockey and swam at a high level and probably could have at an even higher if she had wanted to commit to the training but it would have come between her and her love of horses. The swimming stayed high and didn't tip into godlike.

We watch the Premiership football league and tennis because of her and the enthusiasm she has for these fabulous sports. The gift of sport is one that we will always treasure.

Sauraus is 15. We home school and though he isn't very interested in an academic adventure he does posses a physicality which may well propel him through life to wherever he wishes to go.

Imagine sitting next to someone who can watch a sportsman on television and then replicate what they saw with some competancy. Given time they can replicate with a convincing accuracy, putting a bit of effort in they can replicate exactly. That's him. He started out playing football, using his balance, speed and never say die attitude to make waves in his local club. Not a natural goal scorer he was dumped up front the whole time when it was his passing and ability to find space that made him very good. Critisized for his lack of goal conversion he was sidelined. After years of fighting on the training pitch we decided to talk to him and we agreed the people he was training under were negative and that he needed to sever the tie. So at the old age of eleven he called time on football. It was very sad. He still trained and his skills coach told him he everything needed to become a professional.

He didn't lay down and die though. Nope. He shifted tack and headed into cricket and martial arts. He's taken that understanding of the physical aspects of the games he plays and has made himself a very good bowler. Not the fastest bowler you'll see but his accuracy, versatility and guile make him a star. He plays for the towns team for his age group as well as for the Sunday side, mixed adults, thirds and seconds.

In his pursuit of Martial supremacy he has taken himself to brown-black belt. One away from the main event. He was told he could do his black grading in July but he turned it down, he was doing his maths G.C.S.E and he wanted to give them both his full attention, aware that would not be the case he opted for a September grading. In the end he wants to be an instructor and sports guru. I think he'll get there because its something that he loves. Loves it.

Roo is eleven and is of course many things, but above all, he is a free spirit. He will say what he thinks, do as he says and refuses to play by other peoples rules. It could be seen as a negative but I think actually its an amazing positive. He will not be told he can't do something!

This freedom of thought and feeling expresses itself most obviously through his imagination. He draws vast pictures and maps and will label everything. He thinks, a lot, works things out, brings solutions to difficult problems and can be found investigating whatever is his current obsession with real vigour.

Take this one thing here, he uses his lego to design and build anything he's currently into. When it comes to music that means a chap-hop artists called Professor Elemental and when Roo gets interested he builds, reads and practically worships what he is investing his time in. He's been building steam punk vehicles, Lego blunderbusts, the Professor himself and anything in between.

There's more about him that's just marvellous but its his imagination and intellectual freedom that make him a special cookie.

The Wig is very much like Sauraus, he can replicate physical aspects, through sport, with what seems ease. He started karate at 2 and a half after watching Roo in classes. He could do all of the class and would, all over the house, so we asked if he could join. We were told he didn't normally take them before they were five but the sensei said he would allow Wig to do it. Well he did. All of it. Afterwards the Sensei said he'd never seen someone so young able to concentrate as well as he could. At three he was a red belt, he's eight now and is brown-white, two away from black.

In his cricket he could always bat but when we started him at the cricket club they placed a cone down on the floor and stuck the ball on top of it. Obviously they figured this was the easiest way to get his confidence up...oh dear, they just hadn't met the Juggernaut like Wig yet.

Wig watched the ball and refused to strike it, @mamacrow stepped in and asked the coach to just bowl the ball to him underhand. The guy agreed and BANG! Right over his head. He bowls another BANG! Same thing! We weren't suprised, but they were. You see Wig can do anything he wants to. If he decides he can do it and he wants to do it then he will do it. He can bat, he can bowl, he can do a flying kick, he can break boards with his tiny fists. His focus is truly scary and awesome.

Fluff is an enigma, a curly haired ball of energy that thirsts for technical information and raw information. It would be fair to say that we don't always get on, whether that's because we are very alike or because we are not I don't know, but we do clash. That's okay, not perfect but you have to accept that sometimes you annoy each other.

Fluff is a monster, a six year old with a genuine love of trains, engines, butterflies and general nature. He loves picture dictionaries, taking things apart to see how they work, watching and observing his surroundings and drawing. He's a great artist with a marvellous eye for detail, design and function. He understands why things look and act the way they do and if he doesn't know then he wants to find out.

He has a logical and analytical mind that kind of scares me. I want to know how things work but I can't be bothered to put the time in, he can and does.

Petal, well, she knows what she wants. She's as formidable a four year old as your likely to meet. Bossy, would be one way of descibing her but I don't think that does her justice. She does want you to do what she wants you to but she will try many ways of getting you to do it.

She not only knows what she wants you to do but it applies to herself as well. She does karate and ballet and loves it so much. From jumping up and down constantly to get the height that she can travel upwards higher to skipping through the rooms as a butterfly she is doing what she wants, so that she can get better at doing it.

Above all this though Petal is feircely loyal. She will stand up to anyone if it means making sure her little sister is safe, or that someone doesn't get away with a minor infraction then she will be there, fighting someone's corner for all she's worth.

Petal is girly, everything is pink and sparkly, skipping and ballet, hair and shoes...and yet the danger would be to think that she's not prepared to grit her teeth and fight teeth and nail...because she will.

Finally we have Dot. Dot is two and loves dressing up, running about and splashing in puddles. She isn't always a ray of sunshine but then she isn't always miserable either.She is a biter though. If you get in her way, take something off her, tell her off the she is likely to have a very strong opinion on the subject and if she thinks she's been wronged then BAM, she is on you.

That makes her sound feral, not at all, I think she is very direct and knows her mind. I think she'll be a very strong minded, very independant individual, and that's something I'm very happy about.

The gangs nearly all here. One more to come...and I cant wait to see what they bring to our family dynamic...bar chaos of course.