Bit of fun and Les’s your auntie
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MUCH as I would like to be pounding the streets and banging on about the Stonehaven Half Marathon again (it’s next Sunday – sign up now), a change is as good as a break; and a break is what the massage therapist (my mum) ordered.
What I will briefly say, for those who have been following my progress over the past few weeks and therefore know about the knee injury, my assumption that I’d be back running last Saturday proved utterly delusional and I have spent most of this week with my knee on ice, praying that it will be fit in time for the race.
Like the credit crunch, there is no quick-fix solution for a crunched knee. Indeed, the urge to get fit quick and train beyond my means was what crunched it all up in the first place. I just have to cut back on the training and hope my fortunes change before it’s too late.
Mercifully, I’ve had the welcome distraction of nephews and a niece to keep me occupied this week, and off the streets. Having planned to work, run, visit the family and take advantage of my mum while in Stonehaven, it seemed sensible that I should stay put and substitute running time for rest, more massage and plenty of knee-free horseplay with the bairns.
My three nephews are Huey, Duey and Luey. The first two are brothers, and the third, their cousin, is younger brother to my niece, Daisy. Huey and Daisy are five and in P1 at school, Luey is nearly two and Duey is 10 months. And in case you think I’ve gone a bit Donald Duck, I have changed their names – for fun, and in case they sue me.
So I’ve been baby-sitting Luey while his mum, my sister (I’ll spare her the Disney moniker) teaches her fitness class.
This usually involves games of hide and seek, making a mess, drawing all over things with crayons and singing the theme tune to Bob the Builder, repeatedly. Luey is the most joyous little bundle you’re likely to meet, and what he lacks in consonants and clarity of speech he more than makes up for in charm and enthusiasm.
COUSIN Huey is a wee rocket whose obsession with Indiana Jones is matched only by his former obsession with Star Wars, and Spiderman, and Bob the Builder. For one so small, Huey has remarkable powers of recall and relays details of his favourite films, books and computer games volubly, and without pause.
Fortunately, I share most of Huey’s interests, and loquaciousness, and the pair of us whip each other up into a froth debating the comparative merits of red, blue and green light sabers, and how Star Wars and Indiana Jones Playstation games compare with the films.
On this point, we do tend to differ, mainly because I am rubbish at computer games and Huey is brilliant and has the manual dexterity of a concert pianist – though his hands are still too small for the controller.
Huey’s cousin, Daisy, delights in reading Roald Dahl books and singing Ivor Cutler’s What’s Your Favourite Jam? (Traffic Jam) with her Auntie Les. Thanks to Daisy, Auntie Les gets to indulge her lifelong love of Dirty Beasts, The Twits, The Enormous Crocodile, Revolting Rhymes and the rest of Dahl’s mighty canon all over again – and again, and again, and as many times as her darling little niece might care to hear them.
Daisy also adores a game of hide and seek, but manages not to take it too seriously. Which is just as well, because she cheats, and her brother, Luey, has yet to grasp the rules of the game, or how to count, or that hiding and seeking are not the same thing.
HE CAN cover his eyes and make counting sounds, while peeping through his fingers, like his sister, but once you find him a place to hide, he shouts, “eddy nonot ee ah duh” (which roughly translates as “ready or not, here I come”) and runs to find the seeker.
Played this way, hide and seek is far easier and much more fun than playing it seriously, or with the TV licence man. In fact, it occurs to me that most of the stuff I’ve been doing with the nephews and niece this week would appeal to my “grown-up” friends (a term I apply loosely – to myself and to them).
Sure, actors have a certain licence to behave in a juvenile way because the job so often requires it – and we can’t afford to live like adults. But most of my non-actor friends are also pretty childish, and though we have never played hide and seek, we’re rather fond of dressing up, going to the park, doing rubbish gymnastics, that sort of thing.
I reckon everyone has their childish side, but whereas some are petty and prone to tantrums, others just have a brilliant sense of fun.
Strangely, when I try to explain my job to Huey and Daisy, they find it very hard to understand. They know about playing and pretending, but just can’t believe that constitutes “work” (few can).
Last weekend, I took part in a screenplay reading for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and tried to explain to Huey what I’d be doing. He seemed unable to grasp that actors “play” characters but are not one and the same, or part of a computer game.
Moreover, being his current obsession, Huey views everything through the prism of Indiana Jones and framed his brief inquiry into the nature of my job as follows: “Are you doing an Indiana Jones film?”. No. “Have you ever done any Indiana Jones?”. Ahem, no. “Have you been on TV?”. Now and again. “Was it in Indiana Jones?”. No. Never mind.
As for baby Duey, whether he will grow to love Roald Dahl, Bob the Builder or Indiana Jones only time will tell. At 10 months old, he is a great listener and pretends to understand me perfectly. Like me, he can’t yet run around, but must bide his time until his chubby little legs are ready. I hope he doesn’t beat me to it.
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