Email from my brother: pirates, nether regions and lovely grapefruit

Hi Fay,

How is it going? I read that you've got a crease mark across your forehead from your scarf. Have you tried looking at some pirate websites? I mean actual pirates, not the ones that download illegal films and stuff? Because pirates wear a lot of bandanas so must have the same problem. Jack Sparrow for example never takes his head scarf off at all so he must have one hell of a crease. Just saying.

I started writing this e-mail in some discomfort. Due to the wet weather and lack of drying opportunities I'm down to my last pair of boxer shorts and those are the ones I received from Eva last Father's Day. They're gold with little rosettes and silver cups all over them. Inside each rosette is the legend "No.1!". Anyway the boxers are also about two sizes too small for me and so my nethers feel like they've been shrink wrapped. I've been wearing them all day, in some pain as I bent over and repeatedly stuffed all the washing into the tumble dryer so that I don't have to wear them again anytime soon. The boxers are so tight I feel like I've been flossing my bottom and all the rosettes on the back now say "No.2!".

This week Eva went back to school. Turns out they have four terms here instead of three so they have another ten more weeks before the big six week Summer/Christmas holiday. I'm trying to get back into the swing of making her packed lunches but to be honest I can't be bothered most of the time. I keep reading articles about super keen parents who make their kid's lunches up to look like characters from Seseame Street or Looney Tune characters. My solution is to make up a normal lunch and pop in a picture of Big Bird or something on top. You get the same effect right? Open lunchbox and see Road Runner, surprise! Eat lunch. She's five so will probably be just as happy. Tell me I'm wrong.

Sam got upset because his plastic grabber toy was found broken in the car. When he's strapped into his seat he likes to use it to grap the handle over the door but he can't grab anything now that one of the pincers has snapped off. I tried to explain that although he can't grab anything one pincer still works so he can still beckon things to come to him with it. He's just not happy with the concept for some reason while I'm astounded at the Zen'ness of the grabber vs broken grabber concept. There's a metaphor or something right there because the grabber is only a foot long where as your useful beckoning range is line of sight. I'm thinking I need more sleep. (Uses broken grabber in general direction of bed).

While I'm on the subject of Sam his new favourite word is "no". Or rather "nah". He babbles away and suddenly there's a clear as day "nah" like he's a bored teenager. "Do you want to read Postman Pat, Sam?", "Nah.", "Do you want to read Peppa Pig, Sam?", "Nah.", "Do you want to eat large amounts of unhealthy chocolate, Sam?", "Na....uh-hu.", "Well Sam ... NAH!". I don't know if it's the broken promise of chocolate that makes him cry or my doing a victory dance and chanting "Su-cker!" to the tune of The A-Team theme. When he learns to talk some more he can tell me.

We're back on the 5:2 diet where two days a week we limit our food intake to 600 calories. It's supposed to be healthier but the only thing that's healthy is my appetite. There's no weight loss either. The only thing I've lost is my will to live. We bought a book on the diet but it's been sat on the side unread for nearly two weeks now. It's like neither of us wants to read the book because if we do that we're going to find out we've been doing it wrong. Six hundred calories!? No, it should be five hundred. One calorie over and you might as well eat pies for all the good it'll do you. Six weeks of it now, brilliant.

I'm also currently brewing some grapefruit wine. It's going to be horrible, I know it, Sam knows it. He helped me pick the grapefruit from our grapefruit tree. No one likes grapefruit and yet it's the biggest fruit tree on the property. It must have a couple of hundred grapefruit alread hanging off it's unwanted branches. Anyway the grapefruit wine is going to be horrible because Sam helped pick them. He's a short lad so he thought it might be easier to throw some in that he found on the floor. Some rotten ones got in, I know it, Sam knows it. I'll send you a bottle when it's ready, it'll take your mind off your forehead crease problem. Everyone's problems go away when you're sh*tting through the eye of needle. Also the grapefruit wine is going to be horrible because it's made from f*cking grapefruit. QED.

Take care,
Love,
Mark xxx