At the Barlows' 2016
Newton-le-Willows, Saturday 2nd July 2016
After a year off the regular summer (if possible) Merseyside mayhem mash-up due to the birthday and anniversary extravaganza (a page for this may eventually be done, but who knows), normal service was resumed and we convened in Newton-le-Willows at approximately 1.30pm for what is affectionately, if inaccurately, known as Kids' Day. (Note that I, correctly, have included an apostrophe. Yes, it does matter...)
(At the time of writing, the previous Kids' Day from 2014 is not yet on this website so please bear with me.)
Despite being much more confident with extended family members in social situations, Gregory did have a bit of a wobble when he first arrived at the Barlows'. It was a little understandable as everyone was already there and congregated in the garden. However, a bit of Peppa Pig on my phone, as well as close accompaniment by his trusted Elmo, he felt comfortable enough for Nana Sue to approach with a penguin as a present.
Aunty Katie posed for a picture with Daisy, who looks a bit disconsolate or thoughtful but I think was just distracted.
Here are some champagne-drinking conversationalists, although Nic is neither holding a drink or looking like she is chatting.
Over in shirt-buttoned-up corner, Mark caresses his glass, wishing it was a bottle of beer.
Here is the arena of war, the bubbling cauldron of good times and slippery surfaces, the gaming centre of the Kids' Day universe. The homemade table tennis table, ready for action.
But never mind that; it's time to open another bottle of bubbly. This cork's gonna fly!
Or maybe not. (You can see it in his hand.) It's perhaps a nice metaphor for a man growing old (as indeed I am, we must not forget).
The starter banquet, infamously mistaken for the main course on one once-hilarious occasion, had been stripped down to a sequence of sharing platters. It was still lots of food, of course, but not quite as much as usual.
The cold meat selection offered Daisy, inspired by Uncle Matt's panting dog impression, a chance to go for the parma ham mono-brow and goatie combo, a classic if ever there was one. (Lynne was fairly unimpressed on viewing this photo a later point in time. She is very much against food-on-face antics, it seems.)
Here is the little cheeky rascal, with a nice toothy grin, and rarely without a self-inflicted wound from scratching himself, mostly whilst asleep it seems.
The bucket barricade was in danger of being breached by the intrepid junior duo. It's not clear whether Matt is policing this or encouraging it.
There was a worry that Gregory would help himself to the fish (or something), but he tends not to meddle in that kind of way. They had a good look with all their chaperones present.
Memories of Kids' Days past as Gregory and Daisy were encouraged (by their Uncle Matt, to anyone's lack of surprise) to hug the large bush.
At one point, Matt, Gregory and Daisy re-enacted a scene from the Benny Hill Show, if you replaced all the characters in it with Matt, Gregory and Daisy. He chased his niece and nephew (there should be a combined word for that - niephews?) round the table tennis table as I then arranged for Mark to play the Benny Hill theme music through the Bluetooth speaker and videoed the resultant chaos. I figured it was bound to end in tears, but it was Matt who tripped (only slightly, over a lose bit of matting) and ultimately got tired out by the whole thing.
Talking of accidents, here is the aftermath of Mark's slip during a live game of table tennis. The layer of moisture that had formed on the sheets did not prove conducive to fast competitive cornering. I rushed to take a photo (which explains my hand partly obscuring the view), but even then I failed to capture Mark on the ground. Graham is saying a prayer, however. (Or perhaps smoothing down the offending sheet.)
Here Lynne waits patiently as Mark and Jordan occupy the table, getting in some valuable practice.
A typically bonkers mid-game scene.
Oh look, it's Jordan and Mark getting in some valuable practice again, this time watched by two avid audience members, Daisy and Gregory.
Here is a really bad picture of one of the indoor games: Cock In Ring, I think it was called. It was a new game (as were in fact all the indoor games we played this time, if I recall correctly) which involved throwing a shuttlecock through a hanging ring of metal. However, it proved very difficult to score in (except for Matt), as it was difficult to get the trajectory high enough but under the lights to make it to the ring. You can't really see much of that here, but hopefully you can peace it together in your own mind.
Uncle Matt in the great niephew pick-up.
Continuing the theme of games using slightly-rude-words-when-used-in-conjunction, here is the Balls In Small Rings game. This proved quite enjoyable (for me anyway, as I fluked the top score despite not knowing the rules at this point - yes, I took a photo, but I didn't actually read them). (Matt later picked up that Graham had missed an apostrophe here too - what is it with these people? - on the DONT. In fact, that whole bit: Bounce Out treated as plural and an ugly apostrophe in Bounce In's. I'll need a moment.)
This game I \would have enjoyed, as I have in the past. It is a staple of Kids' Day. But we didn't end up playing it.
However, we did play this, which doesn't really sound all that rude for a Graham-invented game. (I guess you can get to something vaguely rude if you really think about it, but I don't think that you should just for the sake of it.)
...as you can see here. Gregory and Graham stand by as ball boys. Well, ball boy and adjudicator. It was very trusting to let Gregory hold golf balls in this kind of enclosed environment, but he was quite well-behaved.
Look, here he is fetching one of the golf balls.
On to the next page or back to the Secret Portal.