A Tale of Two Birthdays

Quoting Dickens when discussing a child's birthday is really too pseuds-corner to be true, but that's not going to stop me. Yesterday it was my son's sixth birthday party and to quote Dickens 'it was the best of times, it was the worst of times'. He had a fantastic time and thoroughly enjoyed every second, I, meanwhile, was prostrate with exhaustion and noise overload about five minutes in. However, I discovered something that surprised me: my ex can behave.

Rewind to last year. My son's fifth birthday party was a joint enterprise with a friend. We hired a steam train for the afternoon and chugged merrily up and down. The carriage was packed with excitable five-year-olds but the biggest child was my ex (or husband as he was then). He spent the entire afternoon with his portable radio headphones glued firmly in his ears listening to Leeds United getting thrashed. He was also morose, uncommunicative and downright rude. The scowl on his face was indescribable. Within days he was to announce that he was (a) having an affair (b) sodding off on holiday to Berlin with her instead of being home for our son's birthday and Reception class Nativity play and (c) it was all my fault. Hmmmmmnnn.

Fast-forward to this year. I had organised a party at a local bowling alley (the sort of activity he would have griped about last year). He arrived a few minutes late but almost immediately got involved in trying to stop six-year-olds dropping bowling balls on their own and their friends' feet. He then stood at the end on the bowling alley and helped the kids bowl for the whole afternoon. There was no scowling. There was no petulance. He congratulated me on how well the afternoon went. Heck, there might even have been a smile lurking below the beard. The biggest shock was discovering that my staff do this Friday clashes with his friends' wedding and he was willing to forgo the wedding so I could go out. If I were a cynical sort I'd say that he'd come to realise that I'm really not going to divorce him any time soon and so the only option left would be to kill me via giving me a major shock. I was fairly startled that he was doing something - gulp - altruistic. What the Dickens?: he's stopped acting like a dick.

But that's a Tale of Two Birthdays: last year was the worst of times, this year is starting to feel like the best of times. Roll on the staff do, I'm ready for a bit of mountaineering.

Climb ev'ry mountain

Oddly, for someone who is completely terrified of heights, I am obsessed by mountaineering. I have an online repertoire which goes Facebook > personal email > here > work email > MountEverest.net. I know vast amounts of ridiculous knowledge about Everest and if allowed to could bore your bollocks off with rabbiting on about the Khumbu icefall, the Lhotse face, the Hillary steps, the South Col, the yellow band and theories about whether Mallory could have free climbed the Second Step or not. And I swear I typed all that without looking it up. I know Everest is variously called Sagarmatha and Chomolungma by the peoples surrounding it and that it's significantly easier to climb than K2. Indeed, my mountain geekiness extends to knowing the names of a lot of the other twelve 8000+ metre mountains (Annapurna, Gasherbrun I&II, Kangchenjunga, Nuptse, Lhotse, Ama Dablam, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Nanga Parbat, Pumori). Ok, I'll stop now.

Why on earth am I fascinated by the fourteen 8000+ metre mountains? I will never actually be able to visit even the base of any of them because even the trek to Everest base camp is too frightening for someone who had screaming ab-dabs on Hadrian's Wall. No, really, I did. I'm fascinated by them because I'm frightened of them. Anyone who has the guts to take on an 8000+ is a brave soul, especially as the statistics aren't great. Over 200 people have died on Everest and the mortality rate is dreadfully high on K2 and Annapurna. But people still do it just, for a fleeting five minutes, to be the highest person stood on earth. To be able to see the curvature of the earth. To know that the coming back down is more fatal than the climbing up. It's fascinating.

I've climbed some mini-mountains this year. I've learnt to deal with being a single person; I've started going out and having a life; I've even ended up being better friends with my ex than I've been for many years. I'm not ready to be in a relationship yet and I don't really want a boyfriend.