#KidologyQuotes 16:
As Venus rose, thinking of missed opportunities, Jim wondered if he might after all be over-reacting, but then Noah – always an early riser – emerged through the French windows (-doors, thought Jim, they were doors!) and tottered toward him, nappy bulked, gurgling with glee. Jim rose with a smile.
“Hey Noah - hungry?”
Noah nodded: Jim led him to a vegetable patch beneath the leylandii. There were nectarines and plums, foot-long courgette, garlic so feathery and pale you could eat cloves like tangerine-segments. Jim plucked tomatoes from a vine, still warm from soil touched by sunlight the day before, and which tasted like the perfect spheres in London supermarkets didn’t - the standardisation of tomatoes under the Maastricht treaty had had a profound impact on Jim.
It was still cool, clouds overcast, storms loomed; there was a quiet moment as they chomped tomato. Jim was struck by their solitude, their insignificance in a universe that wasn’t even uncaring: just another nameless father and son on an endless plain, surveying the horizon. But what struck him more was that despite their insignificance to that outer universe, his personal universe was beside him, a soft fleshy package filled with Jim’s hopes, fears and dreams. He wanted their child to be happy and healthy, naturally, but more than this: he wanted Noah to always be. He wasn’t over-reacting about the pool: he was doing all he could to keep his progeny safe from harm.
As he was revelling in the pleasing selflessness of this thought Noah began hopping up and down with a hand on his bottom, from which emanated forlorn mallard-noises.
Now Jim remembered: no nappies.
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