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Tom makes a quick escape after hurling one of daddy's golf balls at the neighbour's pride and joy, her brand new Mercedes.
And then, upon appearance of the horrified neighbour, in an instant and without a flicker of remorse, points the finger of blame squarely at me.
Evidence in hand, and betrayed by my own flesh and blood, I can do nothing to stop the look of guilt that quickly settles over my face.
We have a guy,'Bob', who comes round to wash our car every week. Now Bob's a nice guy and he charges us pennies for toiling away in the hot sun and removing a week's worth of toddler debris and half of the Caribbean's beaches from the back seats. The problem is, Bob bangs on the door every 5 minutes asking for more soap, water, new rags, to use the phone, go to the toilet, read my books, watch my DVDs, borrow my wife and so on, and so on, ad infinitum. Now, perhaps I'm being uncharitable, but on Sunday, the day after my hikeathon, I simply couldn't be bothered to get up from my armchair every three minutes for an hour to face his requests. Add to this the fact that I was wearing only my underwear. As is my wont (because it's damn hot here). So when Bob knocked politely on the door, I quickly turned the TV down and ignored him. I then smugly sank back into my armchair thinking he would politely disappear when he was suckered into thinking no-one was at home.
Mistake number one: I should have realised by now that one of Bob's more admirable traits is perseverance. He's a firm proponent of Hickson's maxim, "If at first you don't succeed..."
Mistake number two: I had taught Max how to answer the door last week.
The next farcical ten minutes went something like this:
[Polite knocks quickly escalate to banging]
Max: "Daddy..."
Me: "Ssssshhhhhhhh...."
Max: "DADDY....!"
[Banging stops; Bob's smelt a rat]
[Banging resumes and increases exponentially. Bob's breached the moat and and has deployed the battering ram]
Max waves bye bye Barney and makes for the front door in slow motion.
Me: Much flapping of arms and silent mouthing of "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Max: The look says it all. What's your problem Daddy? We always open the door when someone knocks.
I'm powerless to stop him because I'm crippled from yesterday's stroll. Max reaches for the door handle and I have two choices:
1. Stay seated, in my underwear, and face the music (Bob will be able to see me from the front door).
2. Hide.
I quickly decide on option 2 and crawl into the alcove under the stairs. The banging stops as the door creaks open.
Bob: "Hello. Where's Daddy?"
Max: "...." (Oh, now you've lost your voice, you little tyke...?)
Bob: "Hello! HELLO! HEEEEEEEEEEELOOOOOOOOOO!"
I'm now in a classic Catch 22 situation. If I reveal myself, Bob will know I've been hiding from him. If I don't reveal myself, Bob will join the rest of the neighbourhood in thinking we're neglectful parents because we leave our 2 and 1 year olds to fend for themselves. As I'm trying to come to terms with my predicament and think of a cunning way to extricate myself from it, Max quickly rules out the neglectful parent option. He comes back down the hall and he looks from Bob, to me and back to Bob. And then the finger of God rises and Max points towards my hiding place. Rumbled.
Out I crawl. Bob has a victorious smile on his face.
Me: "I was, er, just looking for Max's playdoh..."
Bob: "Want your car washed?"
Me: "I'll just get the bucket for you."
We all have moments when we question the wisdom of little things we do (such as the decision to have children...). But when those little things start mounting up, it's time to start having a serious think about sanity. I started questioning mine about 500 metres into yesterday's 20 mile hikeathon through Caribbean tropical rainforest. Luckily, I decided to leave reaching a conclusion until the end of the hike, because 10 hours of pain over rugged terrain in searing tropical heat later, I was too exhausted to think about anything. Here are a few of the more pleasant memories from yesterday:
Sadly, you can't wander around remote parts of our island without, er, security. With machine guns...
A typical example of my view for most of the day
A welcome break by a mountain stream
The trail takes us down to the coast
Paradise found and 20 miles of pain worthwhile
The real test comes today, when aching so much I can hardly type, it's my turn to look after the boys because Zoe has a portrait commission to get on with. Wish me luck...
It's 2:30 am and I'm out of bed. Of my own volition. I realise now that I've completely lost the plot. Agreeing to go on a 20 mile hike through tropical rainforest seemed like a fun idea after a few beers the other night. Right now, after 3 hours sleep, it sure as hell doesn't.
It's a long time since I did anything near a 20 miler, and I've never done one in the tropics. So if you don't hear from me again you know why...
Wow! Take a look at superblogger Oddybobo's photos of her boy wearing his new motorcycle helmet. AND sporting a new tatoo and buzz cut! RESPECT.
Max had a rather severe buzz cut of his own earlier this year. For Christmas I decided to try and build up some serious surfing credit, so I bought Zoe a weekend of peace and quiet at a luxury Caribbean hotel (yep, who's the greatest huband alive?). Trouble is, after a weekend alone with the boys (from which I still bear the scars), I managed to lose any credit I might have gained by accidentally shearing off Max's golden locks (#1 all over...). Zoe won't ever trust me with them again.
But forget all that - I WANT THAT HELMET!!
A lovely lady from work raised a painful memory the other day when telling me about her addiction to hockey and her devastation at having just been banned for swearing at the referee. For a whole year. Hmmm, in my experience, angry women with sticks don't restrict themselves to blue language when they're mad...
Womens' hockey is the most extreme, insane, violent, hateful sport out there. It's about as extreme as you can get. Believe me, I know. I learned the hard way. When we reached 15 at school, the school in its lack of wisdom decided to grant us a certain degree of choice. One particular choice we were given, and one that caused considerable excitement among my young friends, was the opportunity to ditch rugby in favour of hockey. With the girls. Most of the other blokes just scoffed. It was a no-brainer for them. Rugby was for blokes and where the road to popularity lay. Hockey was a girls' sport and not fit for boys itching to become men. How sorely mistaken they were.
Three friends and I, who were more interested in the girls in their provocative sports attire than in popularity or becoming men, decided to opt for hockey. This, much to the amusement of the other boys who called us a bunch of sissies, as well as a few other things I'd rather not commit to writing. We couldn't care less. We'd be leching over the girls while they were cuddling eachother in a maul.
20 minutes into the hockey session we were on our knees in front of the coach, pleading for our lives to be let back onto the rugby pitch. There had been no leching and no smooth talking. There had only been fear. Those girls were the personification of evil. We were young and naive in those days, but had been on this planet long enough to realise that 22 hormonal girls with sticks and a rock hard ball to smack at eacother spells trouble. Not a mistake I've made again.
I'm ecstatic today because Tom reached a crucial milestone this morning. Forget the usual walking, talking, toilet-training milestones. Swimming is far more important as far as I'm concerned. You don't need to know how to speak properly to get on the ASP (professional surfers) World Tour. In fact, it probably helps if you can't. And Tom took his first step towards the ASP today by happily de-clinging from his mum in the pool. He may have spun round in circles and starting sinking after a few minutes, but he's got his confidence and that's what matters.
Those pro surfers earn a packet and start early these days, so I'm thinking that if Tom is on the tour by the time he's 15, I'll be able to retire by the time I'm 43. Nice. I'm thinking Hawaii. Or maybe the Seychelles.
Today was my first miserable day back at work after a wonderful two weeks off with my boys. Moments after my boss broke the news that I was required to give up my Saturday night to go and meet some visiting dignatories at the airport, I came to the realisation that I'd far rather be at home teaching the boys how to belch and cleaning up vomit (usually in that order).
Until today, I'd always been secretly glad to have some time out at work. It was nice to have some adult conversation, get that brain into gear, and yes, I admit it, have a break from the kids. But today I really missed them. I mean really. And I realised, who cares about adult conversation? We've got a TV for that. And so what about the brain? I've done what I was put on this earth to do, so I don't need its 5th gear anymore. And as for having a break, yes they're hard work. But most importantly they're a whole lot of fun. And for some bizarre reason they seem to love me unconditionally.
So yes, Zoe, the cat's out the bag. I now know that being a stay-at-home mum isn't as difficult as it's cracked down to be and I would gladly change places. Even if it would mean sacrificing that new surf board I had in mind to pay for a maid. Because I'm not doing the ironing.
Yes, I'm definitely losing the edge. Hard to know why, but maybe something to do with old age (yep, turning the big three zero this year). Anyway, you know how after several years of marriage, you can stay completely focused on the ball game on TV and still manage to answer your wife's question without being fully conscious that she'd even asked one in the first place?
Well, Zoe says to me this morning, "Sorry for being so snappy with you lately".
"You haven't been snappy," comes my intsaprogrammed response.
What the...?!
A year ago I would have milked that for all it was worth ("Yeah, it's been tough around here, but I just took it coz I love you. But maybe I could go climbing with Dan this weekend to de-stress. Oh, and the boys are having a few beers on Thursday..."). I must confess, I'm at a complete loss. The disappointment in myself is complete. Any advice from the more experienced on how to reverse - or at least halt - the decline would be most gratefully received.
I may be the breadwinner in our family. I may be the only one who can surf, wakeboard, dive and hang off the side of a mountain (yet).
But anyone can earn a buck and anyone can learn how to surf. Zoe out-talents me by a million miles. Here's one of her works in progress.
Oh, and she does this at the same time as caring for thrashing the boys. Respect.
This really tickled my sense of humour. Outrageous. The haircut, that is...
Let's face it, while we love them to distraction, babies ruin your sex life, your social life, your sanity and, to top it all, the environment.
There's an interesting post on Daddy Types about new carbon-offsetting disposable diapers/nappies which allegedly "render the disposable diaper consumption of a child for 2.5 years carbon-neutral for just £10". "Great" says Greg, "if diaper-direct CO2 were the only concern".
As I commented, the environmental guilt factor led me into being suckered into purchasing an expensive re-usable nappy/diaper system which was supposed to have minimal environmental impact. It was a major pain in the butt, but we stuck with it, smug in the belief that we'd saved a chunk of rainforest the size of Spain. Two years later, new research showed that resuables had an equivalent environmental impact to disposables, due to the energy and detergents used to clean the @$%$ things!
I'm looking forward to seeing Oddybobo's photos of her trip to the Honda store to buy her little fella (3) a motorcycle helmet. I'm all excited with the knowledge there's a chance they make them that small!
One day recently (while Zoe was otherwise engaged...) I tried to teach the little monsters how to ride my Honda Fireblade (bearing in mind Max hasn't even mastered his trike yet). Talk about learning to get to warp 8 before you can crawl. Luckily - I suppose - Max couldn't quite reach the handlebars...
Father of three, Mark Inglis, became the world's first double amputee to reach the summit of Everest on Tuesday in an awesome feat of endurance. Mark had lost both his legs to frostbite in 1982 after getting trapped in bad weather (and, amazingly, surving two weeks in an ice cave with his climbing partner) near the summit of Mount Cook in New Zealand.
As well as an incredible personal goal for Mark, the Everest summit attempt was also a bid to raise funds for the Cambodia Trust and its Kompong Chnnang Limb Centre.
Visit legsoneverest to read Mark's diary and find out how to make a donation.
I am nowhere near worthy, and gladly cede the title of Extreme Dad to Mark.
Rare moment of contentment
Max's chum
Why you little....get back in that bath!
Match made in heaven
I was going to pretend that this didn't happen, but while, through years of practice, I can lie to my wife with the greatest of skill and ease, I just can't lie to you lot.
The truth is, we abandoned our holiday after 10 days. While fun for the first week, it was, well, just too much effort. It had turned from a holiday into just temporary change of scenery, and the house we were staying in quickly changed from rustic to basic to unbearably hot and dirty. We realised that while we could easily cope without the creature comforts we've come to rely on to make raising two toddlers that little bit easier, we just didn't want to. So we changed our flight and came home a week early. Pathetic.
The shame of it is that we love adventure travel and we, well I, believed we could take the little monsters almost anywhere. I had grand visions of climbing K2 with Max before his 3rd birthday. And of trekking across Alaska with Tom before he turns two. Now I know that's just not going to happen. Until at least their 5th birthdays...
It looks like my cunning plan has worked and we may have conquered Tom's fear of the beach. I say 'may' because I'm not counting any chickens - I'm reserving final judgement until tomorrow's trip. But today, by the end of the afternoon I had him running up and down the beach squealing with delight. And get this, he even ventured, albeit cautiously, to the water's edge.
OK, so it had nothing to do with my cunning plan. I was tempted to take the credit, but much as I'd like to, I'm afraid I have to cede it to icecream, and Mr Cornetto in particular. When we arrived on the beach it looked like we had gone back to square one, with Tom squealing like a stuck pig as soon as he caught sight of, shock, horror - sand. We tried the same technique as yesterday, eventually putting him in a little 'sand pool' Max and I had created through an hour sweat and toil ("You will like it, Tom..."). But Tom was wise to that trick and clung for dear life to Zoe.
That is, until an icecream vendor came along and one Cornetto was all it took for him to forget primal terror. Within seconds, the beach was suddenly OK. That one Cornetto may have cost the equivalent of a 15 course dinner at the Ritz, but it's the best 8 squillion Bolivars I've ever spent.
Ok, so Tom is making a tiny bit of progress on the beach. He's still not happy with it, but I devised a cunning plan yesterday to help him on his way. I bought him one of those little plastic blow-up swimming pools (only just big enough for him to squeeze into) and we plonked him that at the top of the beach. After 10 minutes or so, he was happily splashing around, and leaving him with Zoe, Max and I went down towards the sea, dug a hole in the sand and filled it with water. We then got Tom and plonked him gently into it. Cue much screaming. But after 5 minutes of gentle coaxing we managed to get him to sit in it. I wouldn't say he was actually having fun, but every now and then he forgot he hated it so much. We'll try again today.
Tom hates the beach. No, is terrified of the beach...We just can´t understand why because he has enioyed it in the past. But now, when I try to put him down on the sand he screams. A bit like the way he screamed when he had to have yellow fever and typhiod vaccinations in the same sitting.
Forget the long term ramifications of Tom hating the beach (I live for it), a two week beach holiday just isn´t going to be a great deal of fun if he does (there´s not much else to do here) . It´s now my mission in life to get him over this sudden and unexplained terror.
The flight to Margarita on a Venzuelan airline was, er, interesting. A little 19 seater job that probably took its maiden flight in 1928. I wasn't even 49% certain it was going to get us here, but Margarita is only 40 minutes away, so I gambled that as long as the pilot could get us to 22 thousand feet, we could glide the rest of the way if (or when) the engine gave up the ghost.
Amazingly, we arrived without too much terror, but the taxi ride from the airport soon made up for that. We're in a nice little house, basic, but adequate for our needs, a couple of hundred metres from the beach. What's really nice is that we're right next door to a Venezuelan family who have two little boys and little girl around the same age as Max and Tom. They're all best of friends already, so I expect Max to speak far more than my meagre 5 words of Spanish by the time we leave in two weeks.
My one complaint so far is about the beach vendors. Hey, I know they're trying to make a living, but these ones are persistent and don't take no for an answer. I swear to god, I counted how many there were this morning, and I had AT LEAST one every 30 seconds come up to me and offer, no demand I buy, everything from knock off shades to sharks' teeth. Ahhhhhhhhhh!! In the end, even Max was saying 'NO!' before I could!
Although incredibly hungover from last night's celebratory beers, I'm feeling supremely chilled out this morning in the knowledge that I don't have to go to work and that our flight to Margarita is at a very civilised hour. I went to the shops with Max to get some last minute stuff and for the first time for ages I wasn't in a hurry. Some woman actually overtook me in the car park and gave me a dirty look because I was driving at snail's pace. Chill out lady! Hey, and I didn't get stressed out when Max demanded some sweeties at 900 decibels in the supermarket (something that usually embarrasses the hell out of me and makes me want to throttle him, a la my hero, Homer Simpson). Why can't life always be like this?
In celebration of the fact that I've got two weeks of pure and uninterrupted beach time ahead of me, I'm heading out for a bit of a salsa session tonight. Well, when I say salsa, I use the term in the very loosest sense...Obviously after I've had 7 Carib beers I'm the salsa king, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my dancing rates somewhere between appalling and laughable.
I probably shouldn't have given poor old Max a lesson, because at age 2 he still thinks I'm cool and does his best to emulate me. Here he is wining (Trini dancing) a la dad, at his 'Carnival jump up'. His street cred at nursery must be in tatters...
Phew! Hectic few days at work (I didn't see the boys at all yesterday)...But it's all over now and we're going to Margarita,Venezuela, tomorrow for two blissful weeks (although I made the fatal mistake of giving my boss my cell number). And guess what? I didn't even get upset when Zoe said I couldn't take my kitesurfing gear. All I want to do at this stage is lie on the beach and read my book, build sand castles with the boys and have the occasional dip. Yeah, I know all that will change as soon as we get to the beach and there are 20 guys ripping it up on the water, but at the moment I'm just looking forward to spending some quality time with my little fellahs.
There is generally very little argument in our household, but when there is, it invariably involves me and a new hobby or upgrading equipment for an existing one. The lastest source of discontentment is my desire, no NEED, to learn to fly. A friend of mine started flying lessons a few months ago and now it's become my life dream...
I really don't know why Zoe is getting so upset about it. It only costs about 1/8 of my annual salary. So what's the big deal? There'll be plenty left over for things like school fees and food. Who cares anyway? That stuff is just dull. Flying is fun! But Zoe, like most women, is extremely cunning and completely outwitted me by actually asked me to justify my need for a privates pilot's licence. My response of, "It's 50 quid cheaper here than in the UK", just didn't cut it. She just doesn't understand...
I eventually had to cave in and promise her I'd sell my kitesurfing gear to pay for the lessons...Yeah, right, AS IF!
My little Tom has just had his first birthday. It's an important milestone as far as I'm concerned, because he's developing his character and I'm starting to form a picture of whether or not he's going to be up for paddling out with me to catch that early morning swell by the time he's 5.
It seems unlikley at this stage because he's far more wary than his brother. I was devastated the other week when I took him to the beach and he cried when I took him in the sea. I must have patience. He's only one for God's sake! But I'm not a patient person. By a long chalk. I want my little man to come surfing with me NOW!
He might not be a daredevil yet, but he is incredibly special. He never whinges or cries without reason and he's usually happy. He's just, well, chilled out. Added to the fact that he's also cute (in my very biased opinion), this makes him a babe magnet of note. So, so what if he's not into adventure?
What am I saying? Women over kitesurfing?! I don't think so somehow. It was that attitude that got me into this mess in the first place!
I'll give it another 6 months before I make my mind up about Tom's potential for extreme sports. That'll give him plenty of time.
Yes, I admit it. I'm an addict. I love the sports themselves, but I love the kit that comes with them just as much. Take climbing for example. There's no end of wonderful new toys to buy. I love the look and feel of a carabiner. And you may find this pitiable, but nothing turns me on more than a set of new shiny quickdraws. Don't even get me started on ropes, ice axes, rucksacks and $500 jackets...The same goes for Kitesurfing. Those kites just LOOK SO GOOD! I simply have to have them. And if it means running up the credit card to it's limit, well that's what its for isn't it?
Extreme expenditure on kit is what I should probably be most concerned about. For reasons of marital harmony I'm not going to let you know the value of all my stuff. But it's a lot. Nope, an awful lot. There are kites, ropes, boards, helmets, slings, control bars and oh, my latest acquisition, a 900cc Honda Fireblade sports bike. Which I bought here. In tropics. Where there's nowhere to ride it. BUT IT JUST LOOKS SO GOOD!
Cost aside (although cost is probably what I should be most concerened about - I could have retired by now if I hadn't spent so much on kit), the main problem is storage space, or lack thereof. Were we to pack all of my kit into our home, I'd have to evict one of my children to make room for it. While tempting, this isn't feasible because both my home and host countries have fairly stringent child protection laws. So my kit is currently spread between here, the UK and Tenerife, where my folks live. the upside of this, is that I don't have to lug climbing kit and surfboards half way across the globe. But I am reliant on the (very) goodwill of my folks and my mother-in-law.
Fingers crossed that they don't decide to do a spring clean any year soon.
Has anyone done any real adventure travel with toddlers? I spent a month trying to decide where to go for our annual holiday this year. I wanted to do something thrilling. Something we haven't been able to do since the birth of Max two and a half years ago. I started off with a trip up the Amazon, something we've always wanted to do. But the thought of trying to control two unruly toddlers on a small boat for days on end soon put paid to that idea. Then there was Peru and Machu Picchu. Somewhere else on the top 10 list of places to go. But I would have ended up carrying both boys and Zoe all the way to the top. And I'm NOT taking a train to Machu Piccu...
After Zoe batted another idea or two into touch, we came to an agreement to consider a Llama trek in the Sierra Nevada. Lamas only spit at people they don't like. Or so claimed the Llama Trek website. Much to my shame, this idea was eventually dropped too for various reasons, practical in nature, and all centring around being stuck out in the wilderness with a 1 and a 2 year old.
So where are we going on holiday next week? Margarita Island, off the coast of Venezuela. I musn't be blase about Margarita. After all it's a beautiful Caribbean island with Latin flavour. But it's just not adventurous. Its saving grace, however, is its trade winds, so the kitesurfing should be good. I haven't broke the news to Zoe yet that we're leaving Tom behind to make space for my 17m Carbrinha kite...
Zoe has said that she wants to go back to the UK with the boys this summer to stay with her mum for a month. I'm gutted. I'll miss them a lot. But YEAH BABY!!!! All the surfing, kitesurfing and biking I can shake a stick at! Wind and waves will be out of season by then, but I'll find some somehow. I have visions of weekend trips to Hawaii or Bali. A bit far from the Caribbean, but I can dream. It's just the fact that I could actually go without having to ask permission...
Yes, I'm convinced they do. I haven't been out on the water for over 2 weeks now. I'm child-bound at the moment because my wife Zoe is starting a portrait business and she needs to concentrate on her work. So when I'm not at work, I need to watch the boys while she paints. Admittedly this is mostly my fault. I encouraged Zoe to do it. In fact, I practically forced her. You see, I want to be able to retire before I get to 31 and Zoe's my pension fund.
But there's a problem. The business has been going for just 2 weeks and I don't think I can handle not getting out. The trouble is, my nearest reasonable surf break is at least an hour and a half's drive over rough, winding roads. So that's 3 hours to get there and back. If you're travelling all that way, you've gotta spend a couple of hours on the water. Minimum. So a surfing trip for me at the moment equals a whole day away from the family. I used to take them with me, but Zoe can't paint portraits on the beach. Or she could, but I'd have to look after the boys which would defeat the object of the trip.
So how does this lead to my friends hating me? Well I presume they do because they're doing their best to increase the suffering. One friend, a surfing buddy who has just bought himself a trail bike (Honda XL650) texted me last Saturday with, "What we doing tomorrow? Motorbikes or surfing?" How's that for friendship? Pure torture. Instead of going for a burn on my motorbike I ended up dragging the boys to the zoo in the searing tropical heat (which was fun too. Honest).
Then on Thursday, another friend (a good climber) returned from a trip to Bonaire and spent the morning raving about the climbing there. Apparently awesome cliffs above azure blue and crystal clear Caribbean seas. We had searched our own particular Caribbean island from one end to the other looking for a good crag, and eventually found a reasonable one at what we thought was a nice family beach, only 40 minutes drive away. But on a family visit to said beach just the day after our discovery, we found ourselves in the middle of a bit of gang warfare, with two of the north coast local villages having at eachother with everything from coconuts to machetes. We haven't been back.
So, withdrawal symptons have set in with a vengeance and I'm not quite sure if I'm going to make it through the day...
**Shameless plug alert**
By the way, in the interests of making my retirement dream a reality so I can give up work and go surfing when the boys are at school, please do order a portrait from Zoe. She's good and her site is www.artmarten.com
I can't be certain how it all started. I'm often surprised that it did. I was shy at school (still am, really) and was generally a complete chicken when it came to anything even mildly dangerous. I'd run a mile from a fight and thought playing marbles was risky. At the time, we were living in southern Africa where men were men and boys were doing their best to become men ASAP. It didn't pay to be a chicken. The chicks at pre-school didn't dig it. Still, much I was love in with young Rachel, I couldn't find it in me to enjoy hazardous things like rugby or riding a bike with no hands.
Then, somehow, at age 7 I made friends with the school nutter. It was a highly unlikely alliance, but Kim and I became firm friends. His folks had a farm and I used to spend weekends and holidays there. I think that's when I started to discover that danger was fun. They had motorbikes, a boat and a big workshop where Kim and I used to make weapons. Everything from Rambo knives to ninja throwing stars. I kid you not. At age 8! The weapons were cool, but you couldn't actually have fun with them without doing someone some serious damage and getting a thrashing from Kim's dad. The fun really started when I was let loose on Kim's monkey bike for the first time. I lasted 12 seconds. I panicked and accelerated when I should have braked, and ploughed straight into a wall. The monkey bike was hurt more than me. Kim's dad picked me up, dusted me off, bent the bike back into shape and put me straight back on it. In two weeks I had graduated to a Honda 125. When you're 8, a 125 can REALLY haul ass...
It was all downhill from there, really. I have fond memories of Kim's dad encouraging us to swim under some rapids one afternoon during a picnic on the banks of the Ruzawi River. "Just dive down deep", he said, as he sat on the bank with a nice cold beer. The following summer, we were staying up at Mana Pools safari park and spent a few days on the Zambezi River fishing. Kim's dad accidentally knocked his new fishing reel off the side of the boat. "Just swim down and see if you can find it", he said. Swim. In the Zambezi. No one swims in the Zambezi. Allegedly, there are about 300 crocs per kilometre of shoreline. Thankfully, Kim's mum was on board and put her foot down. Back in camp that same night, however, not having received our danger quotient for the day, Kim and I hatched a plan to catch ourselves a hyena for a pet. I think the plan involved putting a lassoo in a dustbin with a nice steak in the middle...It was all downhill from there.
While I never really doubted, it, I now have conclusive evidence that the boys are indeed my progeny. 
