Saturday, May 07, 2005

I'm not the worst parent ever...

..am I? *

Today, Ewan decide he wanted to go for a ride on his interim bike.



He is supposed to be getting a new "gear bike" (mountain bike) for his birthday at the end of the month. Till then he has been riding Patrick's Mongoose. Anyhoo, it turns out he wanted a big ride. We didn't see him for a few hours, and it was starting to rain, yet still we weren't worried. That is until we got a phone call from some people about 15km(!!!) away saying that they had Ewan and he was a little bit (a little bit!?!?!?) lost.

They kindly brought him back to our place and then stayed for a coffee. All very cosy and civilised except that they spoke no english. Naturally, our fabulous adaptability came to the fore and we were able to hold up our end of the conversation in german without too many difficulties.

To cope with Ewan's trauma, I offered to help him to let off his smoke bombs** that he bought from the cool shop with his pocket money.



These are the offending articles.



I wish I could regale you with humorous anecdotes of woe and misery. Alas, we didn't end up blowing off any appendages (oo-er) and none of us received any degree burns. What a boring activity. I think that next time we need something more dangerous / interesting to blow up.


No sooner had we let off two of them, then the rain started - again - and we had to come in and get ready for tea. How bloody mundane!!!



In retaliation(?), a couple of the local catholics who thought we were announcing the new Bäretswil pope. They sent out their own smoke announcing that they too had elected their own papal representative. The upshot is that there is a town meeting on the second Tuesday of the month to allow for a definitive Pontiff to be chosen.

*Of course I'm not. It's a well known fact that ms. mac is the worst parent ever.
**What's the scoop with selling incendiaries to 7 year olds? I swear I will never understand this place!

7 comments:

Ms Mac said...

I am the worst parent ever but as one of my commenters pointed out, if we didn't know he was missing, he wasn't really lost at all!

Anonymous said...

Wait... that was before I realized poor Ewan is only seven years old! How CAN you POSSIBLY let a seven-year old child go on a ride ALL BY HIMSELF????

Ms Mac said...

He's nearly 8.

Anonymous said...

Oh. That's OK then.

Mr. Urs said...

Then it's ok with the incendiaries too, though.

Antipodeesse said...

Well I'm in the privileged position of having MET Master Ewan, and I can proudly say, he is one spunky kid! I'm absolutely not surprised that he did the sensible thing and arrived home safely. I'm considering asking the Macs to exchange him for one of mine.

Andrea Knapp said...

Finally a post! At least Ewan can speak the language so it wasn't too bad. Hey, I have kids. I understand. I only WISH mine would go that far! Nick told me he was running away once (I cheered and thanked the lord) and he promptly ran to the house across the street from us. Ooh, I'd say a good 100 feet or so.

Yeah, give me Ewan any day!