I booked tickets to take Davies and Scarlett to see the Michael Jackson film ‘This is it’ about 3 weeks ago, it opened today at our local cinema. I wouldn’t class myself as a MJ fan particularly but my brother liked him when we were kids so there have always been his albums around, Ady saw him perform at Wembley probably about 20 years ago too and I think we had at least 2 of his cds around. I remember going to see Moonwalker when it came out. I guess he was just always a star from my earliest memory. Sadly he is probably the most poignant example of the dark side of celebrity really and was clearly very messed up :(. In the aftermath of his death when his songs were *everywhere* Davies and Scarlett, like many other kids I suspect (well I know actually from listening to children) got into his music, have been watching Moonwalker and Scarlett bought her first cd with her own money and chose Bad (so that will be a question she answers for years to come). So when the film was announced I thought the kids would enjoy it. I booked it so far in advance it would have been annoying to be asked daily ‘how many days til…?’ so I just didn’t tell them.
This morning when they asked what we were doing today I said we needed to go into town to look round charity shops for material for the Halloween costumes they want (we’re going to a Harry Potter Halloween party – Davies wants a school jumper and cloak to go as HP himself, Scarlett wants something white and fluffy to be the owl) but then I decided I was doing them out of some excited anticipation so gave Davies the tickets which he read out to Scarlett and they both jumped around the room for a bit :).
We had an early lunch and drove into town. Parking was interesting – everywhere in the town centre is short stay only and we needed up to 4 hours. There is a NCP car park right next to the theatre/cinema but when we pulled in and checked the price it would have been £7.20 for 4 hours!!!! 😯 so we parked a further five minute walk away for £2.20 instead.
There followed a rather frustrating hour of the kids just being a bit dozy. We don’t go into town very often any more and I remembered why – it’s busy, boring and full of people smoking – I was shocked at just how many people were outside shops holding fags at kid height. We bought some sweets from the market – the woman was selling shallow plastic trays with lids filled with sweets for £1 each which I thought was pretty good and meant we’d get reusable containers too so they chose a tray each, but faffed about in doing so. We then went to Poundland which must be newly opened and was heaving. I got really fed up with the kids asking for stuff in every shop and being gormless about not getting in people’s way – very possibly more about me being intolerant than them being annoying but I was getting irritated just the same.
We got to the cinema and I booked tickets for Up on Friday – it’s loads cheaper than the nearest big cinema, less distance to travel and we get to book specific seats – by all accounts I’ll need to wear waterproof mascara though. If you book online you pay for having the tickets sent to you so I saved the booking fee as we were there anyway.
The film was okay I thought. Davies enjoyed it and sat singing along and taking it all in. It didn’t hold Scarlett as much though, although she liked the actual singing and dancing bits she got bored of all the inbetweeny bits and was fidgetty. At one point she knocked her can of drink over and it spilt in her tray of sweets and she was just irritating. On the way home they started squabbling and being generally noisy and silly in the car and I really ranted at them when we pulled up at home about being ungrateful and annoying and acquistive. I left them to clear the car out of all the sweet wrappers, sticks and other stuff they had strewn across the back seats and marched in the house to put their tea on. As always my crossness never lasts long and by the time I’d cooked some pasta, put the chickens away and made myself a cup of tea I was fully recovered.
The kids had gone upstairs when they came in and I assumed they were (rightly) keeping out of my way for a bit but when I called them for their tea they presented me with an envelope inside which was a card with the following written on it and signed by them both:
“To Mummy, wr sory abat wot we did today los of love Davies & Scarlett”
We had lots of cuddles, I assured them that I was being grumpy too and 99%of the time they are superstars and that was the end of that. Cunning children ;).
Ady came home and I read stories – we had Ruby by Colin Thompson, The Rainbow Bear
Then they went off to bed for a fairly early night for them, I had a bath and cooked a medley of sausages, bacon and roasted veg and we watched Is Anybody There? which captured Ady so little he went off to bed and I possibly only watched to the end because I couldn’t be bothered to get up and turn it off.