Landmark birthdays require special celebrations. Parties are good. Destination restaurants tick the box. City breaks provide unbeatable memories for a lifetime and so on. So what have I planned to mark turning 50? I am at CBeebies Land in the rain queuing up for the privilege of taking a spin around the In the Night Garden Magical Boat Ride. As the Talking Heads song said, “And you may ask yourself: How did I get here?”
How I got here was this. I married late, became a dad at 47 and then again just three months before my fiftieth birthday. I’m neither moaning about this or recommending it, just presenting the facts. I have a nephew (my oldest brother’s oldest son) who has children roughly the same age as ours and one day we were watching television together with our kids when an advert for the as-yet-unopened CBeebies Land at Alton Towers came on. “We should go there for my birthday,” I joked. A week later, the tickets and hotel rooms had been booked. It seemed like a funny idea at the time.
A few months later I’m not so sure. My three-year-old (let’s call him Thing One) is desperate to go in and get going. My nephew’s oldest needs the toilet. We get wet and wait. And wait. Once inside, the queues are long, the rides are short and there is the added pressure of my nephew wanting to go to the Alton Towers theme park proper and try out some of the adult rides.
An advert for CBeebies Land came on TV. “We should go there for my birthday,” I joked. It seemed like a funny idea at the time.
It is, like any day out with four kids, chaotic and unpredictable. We lose each other more than once. We seem to spend more time trying to decide what we should be doing than actually doing anything. And Thing One has got seriously obsessed with a) the map of the theme park, which he calls “my mat” and b) an umbrella, which he opens and closes constantly regardless of what the weather is doing. It is a long day and by the time we get back to our adjoining rooms at the Alton Towers Hotel we are all (the adults that is) well and truly shattered.
When I told work colleagues what I would be doing for my 50th birthday, many asked what I was really doing to mark this event. I justified the CBeebies excursion by telling them that god had given me lemons so it seemed only right to make lemonade. Let’s face it, there was never going to be a raucous party and no mini city break with two children under three was going to be any kind of break at all. So my fiftieth birthday passed and everyone was too knackered to notice.
I am Sad Old Dad but I am secretly rather happy about it.
