Now he’s six*

 This picture was taken at Umngazi River Lodge.  Oliver caught one more fish and that was that.

Oliver is now schooling me on music.  I like his music.  

There were challenges that we weren't aware of.  We may have been at the time of the writing.  Nevertheless he rose up to them.  

October 29, 2013

And doesn't care much for AA Milne or Michael Bond. Clearly we aren't dealing with the average six year old. This six year old is fixated by Star Wars, Harry Potter, Slug Terra, Ninja Turtles (this afternoon brought us Karate Kid). Not only is he fixated but he is the neighbourly expert on each one with his friends coming round for playdates and being encouraged to adopt a character from one of those shows and play along. Should they wish not to comply then Oliver will happily play all the characters on his own. He willingly imparts his extensive knowledge on the subject to his unsuspecting family members and anyone within earshot, even his brother.

It's been a big year for Oliver. His first year in big school has been a great challenge for him, one that he has absolutely relished. He's exposed to so many varied activities and has given a lot of them a good go. Karate seems to be the one that he has really latched on to. He was given a black belt by the Traillmeister (or Sensei Steve) who is a legitimate black belt and so he now has something to aspire to. On top of this he's become very adept at J-boarding, cycling and swimming. We've been told by an independent source that he's actually quite a bright little boy and we have seen little flashes of brilliance in the strangest places. On top of this he's also very rule bound – believe me intelligence and rules don't work well. We were coming back from a trip and I was pushing the trolley out of the airport. I asked Oliver to climb on the trolley because it would have made it easier for me. "I can't Daddy". Huh, why? "it says on the handle". Lo and behold there is a small sign on the handle telling us what we can and can't do and one of the things is NO CHILDREN ON THE TROLLEY!

Sadly our long talks on the way to school have ended. We now drive to school and his mother does most of that. I miss those interactions and will now have to look forward to walking James to school when he starts in a few years' time. I would hate for some of our stories to be forgotten so I'm going to go over the nature of our chats and stories. It worked like this. Oliver would request a story as we left home and then would set (read dictate) the structure and nature of the story. It would go along these lines "Daddy tell me a story about a flying dinosaur, Lunar Jim, Spiderman, Asterix and John Lennon (the latter are added in by me for diversity)." OK – you see Spiderman was walking…………… "No, you start with once upon a time". OK - Once upon a time Spiderman was walking near a flying dinosaur………. "The flying dinosaur needs to be my pet". I see - Once upon a time. And so it went. As the story developed or regressed depending on my mood Oliver would add in other little features and effectively hi-jack the story. One particular story sticks in my head. This one involved Spiderman, Batman, Batdog, Spiderdog, Batcat, Spidercat and Batstrich and Spiderstrich. All these characters were of Oliver's making, the latter two being ostriches. Oliver's favourite fluffy toy was an ostrich that his grandmother had given him when he was born. We call it Mr Strich.

Six brings more responsibilities and adventures. He's already proved to be a loving elder brother (James adores his brother), a great friend and the perfect eldest son. He's more independent than ever and his confidence grows in leaps and bounds. He is very loved by his family and makes us prouder of him every day. Happy Birthday dearest Oliver, these last six years have been the best of my life.

Let us not stray from tradition.  This year's Peter Green track is taken from an album of Fleetwood Mac outtakes during the Green era.  I have attempted to cover this song at an open mic evening.  For those who which to cover it the Then Play On version is in open D

 

17 - Fleetwood Mac - Showbiz Blues [Alternate-Take]

This track is taken off the Warts and All live album.  There is not much decent listenable live Patto stuff around and this is about as good as you get.  Mike Patto's voice was a little damaged and so he doesn't sing the whole set.  Ollie sings a number of tunes during the gig.  This track is actually called "How's your father" and Ollie wrote it.  He does a pretty good job on this version.

06 - Patto (live) - Air raid shelter

This is for Oliver.  It would seem that our musical tastes are now tangential.