The last time I was here in the UK, I spent a small fortune on a range of new pyjamas for Joey. Despite this, Sandy felt there was still scope to get Joey more pyjamas, so she insisted we make a nearby Asda our first stop this morning. Asda’s George section has a large range on its website, but stores have a much more limited selection. I explained that the in-store selection would likely be limited, but the other side of that coin was that Joey couldn’t feel the fabric through a website. We reached a compromise—I would do exactly what I was told. I quickly gobbled down a couple of slices of toast, and we left for Asda.
We did come away from Asda with one set of pyjamas, but something told me the rest of this mission would be futile. I kept that thought to myself.
I wanted to keep the car as fully charged as possible, so we drove to that same MFG charging location we used the other day—conveniently next to Maccas…and a Greggs. Just as I was hooking up, a fellow electric car owner walked over and asked for help charging her car. Evidently, she was having problems getting the machine to accept her payment method. Each charging bay has a couple of different places to tap your card, phone, key fob, etc. One works for the key fobs and the other works for credit cards and phones. It didn’t take long to figure out she was tapping the wrong panel, and she was up and running in no time.
Since we were here anyway, and Greggs was beckoning, I figured it would be fitting to shovel a couple of sausage rolls down for my second breakfast. Delicious.
Once the car had charged, Sandy was still on a mission to find Joey more pyjamas, so we headed over to the nearby Tescos superstore. Despite a marginally better selection, there were precious few in Joey’s size, so we gave up and went back to JL’s house. Funnily enough, my prediction that this whole ‘find some pyjamas at the store’ mission would be a futile exercise came true, but saying so would have been hazardous to my health. Sometimes, my ‘just nod and smile politely’ policy is the best course of action. Well, it’s the philosophy that tends to have the fewest downsides for me.
Like me, Joey can get mentally overloaded by noise and overstimulation in crowded places. In these situations, we say that Joey’s bucket fills up—a useful metaphor common among people with neurodivergent children. Joey’s bucket can fill quickly when navigating the complex world of supermarkets, so he was about ready for some downtime to decompress. I would have happily joined him, but Sandy had other plans. She wanted to explore the Clacton seafront. Sandy felt it would be an opportunity we’d miss if we didn’t, and I agreed. It would also give us a sliver of time together, so that was well worth the effort. Sandy and I get precious little alone time, so opportunities like this are indeed worth pursuing.
Clacton is one of a dozen or more well-known, popular seaside resort towns dotted around the British coastline. There’s a small kiddies’ theme park, some nice beaches, a pleasant seafront walkway and a cluster of amusement arcades. Together with the obligatory fish ‘n’ chip shops, ice cream booths, and other tourist trappings, it all adds to the ambience of a traditional seaside town. It was pleasant enough, but it was early in the day, so most things weren’t open yet. Very few people were about. I got the distinct impression that Clacton’s better days were behind it. To be fair, you could probably say that about most seaside resort towns around the UK. Still, it does have its charm, and there’s nothing wrong with it per se. We parked the car and strolled down the seafront to soak it all up.
As a child, I always looked forward with gleeful anticipation to day trips to ‘the seaside’, including places like Southend-on-Sea, Clacton, Jaywick, Camber Sands and, on longer holidays, places as far away as Weston-super-Mare. I can still see how the flashing arcade lights, ice cream, and sandy beaches would fill youngsters today with that same enthusiasm, but somehow, it just feels like a bit of the lustre has evaporated over the years. Maybe the only thing that really has changed is me.
Despite my ruminations about how the draw of the seaside town has waned over the years, Sandy and I strolled down memory lane by wandering into a couple of the amusement arcades to blow a few pounds on the claw and penny-pushing machines. My £20 bought us about half an hour of distraction. Not a high price to pay in the grand scheme of things. After soaking up as much amusement as the time constraints allowed, we made our way back home. It was fun while it lasted.
Something we’d been planning for the past few days was a trip to ‘Maccies’ for all the kids. In our minds, this would be a chance to treat them and maybe take a little load off JL and Jay’s shoulders by not having to cook. Despite those best intentions, it also created logistical challenges getting all the kids to and from where they needed to be, so it probably added as much stress as it relieved for the parents. Not all the kids were able to attend in the end, so JL took some food home for them afterwards. Still, everyone who was there seemed to enjoy themselves, which is what matters. Since Sandy, Joey and I arrived at the restaurant first, we grabbed a row of tables, and I laid my jacket across a couple of them. I then sat and scrolled on my phone for a bit, waiting for the others to arrive. When they did, I looked up and noticed my jacket was gone. My car keys were in my jacket pocket, so this was more than a little inconvenient. Fortunately, it was just an overly eager staff member taking it aside for safekeeping, thinking someone had left the jacket behind. Phew! That was a bullet dodged.
Back home, and with the highs of the Maccas visit fading, the house was once again fully alive and bustling. I took the opportunity to turn my attention back to my broken website. My hosting provider responded, but with nothing meaningful to help. After some sleuthing around with my good friend Claude, we identified and rectified the problem. Apparently, the update failed because my VPS ran out of disk space, triggering a series of bizarre, inexplicable knock-on issues. Running a core Content Management System (CMS) upgrade is probably the worst possible time to run out of disk space. After tidying a few things up and redoing the upgrade, I finally got everything working perfectly and could upload the past few days of blog entries that had been queueing up for release. As an IT geek, I probably would have figured it out and resolved the problem on my own eventually, but I have to say using AI is an extreme time-saver in situations like this.
The routine pandemonium continued unabated around me as I stayed hunched over my laptop, sorting out my technical issues. Some of the kids were playing Beyblades with Joey again. He is having a blast on this trip. Fortunately for him, there is a lot of enthusiasm for Beyblades in the house here, so he is absolutely in his element. It has been a real pleasure to see such joy in him over the past few days.
After folding my laptop away, I brought out the stack of 20 or so puzzle books I had selected for the kids. I’ve created about 160 of these books, and I recently went through the list to pick a selection I thought kids this age would find most interesting. I spent some time with them, going through a few. Judging by their eagerness to one-up each other on solving some of the puzzles, they will enjoy ploughing through them over time.
Some of the kids who enjoyed playing chess came back for more, so we had a few games to while away the early evening.
It was another busy day here. As is so often the case, the adults were thoroughly spent by the time the bedtime routine was done, and the kids were tucked away. That left a bit of time for the grown-ups to chat around the kitchen table, recuperating from the day’s exertions. JL found a little relief from her daily stresses by tackling some of the kids’ word search puzzles. Like me, she finds solace and peace in doing something simple, non-taxing and predictable. It helps put you at ease. After a full-on day of life, you often just want a break. For some people, that’s doing a crossword, sudoku, or, as in JL’s case, a simple word search. Ironically, I find the same solace in creating puzzle books.
This evening, a scammer tried to get me to accept that they had purchased one of my 3D products on Etsy by repeatedly emailing me fake but realistic-looking purchase images. The idea is to get you to scan the QR code or follow the link to a fake website that skims your credit card details. This kind of scam is especially virulent right now, but so is my resolve to waste their time by engaging with them. I figure they aren’t scamming others while they spend time dealing with me. They gave up eventually.
Once my would-be scammer had stopped messaging me, everyone started peeling off to bed. I had just enough reserves to write up today’s blog notes before turning in.