I first discovered that I was old during that heady summer of 1995. With Pulp’s Common People proclaiming a class war which was generally lost on us middle class fanboys and Blur battling Oasis in the charts just as John Major battled John Redwood in the corridors of power, but with more distasteful slurs about life threatening diseases – as far as we know, anyway.
I wandered into the living room as my brother was watching an episode of Children’s BBC’s long running, goody-two-shoes magazine programme Blue Peter which was revealing details of its latest competition. This was before the days of cat name-gate but, even so, the opportunity to win a badge that guaranteed entry into various heritage sites still held no interest for me – we were middle class, remember, we’d be fine. My head was filled with thoughts of Britpop and formulating cunning ways to be successfully served weak lager in pubs despite only being sixteen; I no longer cared for Blue Peter.
However, one piece of information stopped me in my tracks; the upper limit for entering a Blue Peter competition, the television proclaimed, was fifteen. I didn’t want to enter the competition but I also didn’t want to be unable to enter a competition that I didn’t want to enter either. I may have been desperate to be an adult, sheepishly requesting pints of Carling in a succession of back street boozers and blithely pretending to understand what Suede songs were about but, even so, the revelation that I was not a child any more was scary stuff.
Elsa has experienced similar this week. Well, almost. I know it’s been a while since I blogged but it’s not quite been fifteen and a half years. This week she finished the baby sensory class that she has loved so much but, at the grand old age of eleven months, she’ll be too old to continue for the entirety of the next term. The limit of thirteen months, as arbitrary a limit as you will ever find, means that we are not allowed to book her in for any more. She’s over the hill, she’s past it, she’s an ex-baby sensory-er.
I don’t think there’s enough bandwidth even on this fancy new site to detail all of the changes that have occurred since I last got my bum in gear to write some ill-planned scribblings but, to précis, she’s crawling all over now so we’ve had to move everything out of danger height, we’ve learnt to embrace the film Frozen which stole her name and she is very much enjoying pointing, clapping and waving which I think essentially qualifies her to take part in the YMCA.
We’re discovering CBeebies together too; there’s not a lot I don’t know about Mike the Knight and the Koala Brothers (two separate programmes by the way), I’ve accepted that Postman Pat has a child (don’t break your brain by thinking about it) and I’ve discovered that the Tombliboos are small enough to fit in the Ninky Nonk. One for the In The Night Garden fans.
I’ve also realised that soon Elsa will be watching Blue Peter and, sure enough, she’ll have grown out of it before long too. You know you’re old when you’re over the age limit to enter a Blue Peter competition – you know you’re REALLY old when you have a daughter who is too old to enter a Blue Peter competition. I think I might be getting a little ahead of myself but you get the point.
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