Wilson's dilemma

Wilson was watching Sky News this morning and saw an item about a retirement home for elderly elephants in Thailand. 

W has a soft spot for elephants, and now he's in a dilemma about whether the proceeds from his Grand Charity Garden Open Day and the ticket sales from the Wilson Vermilingua OBE Museum of Old Stuff should go to the elephant retirement home or, as originally planned, to the Sloth Orphanage...

sTONY

Wilson has just finished installing the Easter Island Heads in the garden. Against all expectations, they don't actually look quite as bad as I expected… except that the grinning rock has been positioned in pride of place. Ugh! 

Wilson says the rock's name is sTONY, and he keeps asking my advice about sTONY's dental hygiene: should W brush his teeth, take him to the dentist etc. He says that he's asked sTONY, but he won't reply(!) He stonewalled him! Ha ha!

We strike a bargain

Before Wilson would promise to cancel his Readymix order, he asked me to agree to buy him one more garden ornament. 

I asked him what it was, and he scuttled off to the Stoneware section, reappearing a few minutes later carrying what I thought was the ugliest and most repellent thing I had ever seen in my life. It was a rock... with false teeth. My face fell.

'If I can have this, the Readymix is toast!' Wilson announced cheerfully. 

Well, it's horrific and it's ugly… it's hideous, horrible, frightful, awful, ghastly, vile, revolting, repellent, repulsive and repugnant. It's grotesque, disgusting, monstrous, misshapen, deformed and disfigured… but it's cheaper and smaller that six tons of concrete, and W likes it. I reluctantly nodded to the woman on the check-out and she rang it up. 

'Oh, thanks, New Dad!' W exclaimed as we pushed the trolley back to the car, 'This is well funny!'

Head time

To stave off the ennui and anticlimax following our holiday, we visited a garden centre for a look round and a cup of coffee. While we were there, Wilson spotted some very small Easter Island Heads. 

He examined them closely, while I held my breath, hardly daring to hope…

'These are cool!' W suddenly announced, 'and we'll be able to afford lots of them!' 

I wasted no time in loading several of the heads onto a trolley and whisking them off to the checkout. 

Before I paid, I extracted a promise from Wilson that as soon as we got the heads home, he would telephone Readymix and cancel the six tons of concrete. He agreed, on one condition…

Home again...

Home again, at last. Throughout the journey home, Wilson pretended he was flying a GAW (Great Ant Wars) fighter plane. Harmless, but the constant engine noises and Gatling Gun sound effects did get a little tiresome after a few hours.

W said he really loved the holiday, although he's a bit miffed he missed the Olympic Pillow Fighting finals, and he can't even find out who won.

I let him stay up to see the Olympic Closing Ceremony last night, so now he's still sound asleep in the tumble dryer, snoring gently.

Wilson's "I've Been To..." flag collection is growing nicely. He's very proud of them!

'Flying - it's in my blood!'

We visited the Cosford RAF Museum on the way home, and Wilson loved it! 

All the exhibits were protected by barriers and "Do Not Touch" signs, but whatever I said W just ignored them, shouting 'Flying - it's in my blood!' all the time. In the end I just pretended we weren't together and hoped Security wouldn't ask us to leave.

In the photo you can see W explaining to Antony all about his Great, Great … Grandfather, the legendary "Blue Baron", and his heroic exploits during the Great Ant Wars of 1921…

Sleepless in Ironbridge...

Wilson is very tired today - he had a disturbed night last night because Antony had nightmares about the Tar Tunnel and kept waking him up.

Had to return to Blists Hill again first thing today, so Wilson could say goodbye to the shire horses. In the photo you can see W talking to one of the horses, while keeping a very firm grip on a still-nervous Antony. W has formed quite an attachment to them. But he's still not having a pony.

However, the holiday is not quite over yet - on the way home I hope to visit the RAF Museum at Cosford. I know W likes that sort of thing, what with his ancestral connection to flying and so on...

Inside... The Tunnel!

Well, I have to admit that The Tar Tunnel was a great success. 

As the guide leaflet said, it is a low-ceilinged, brick-lined tunnel with tar oozing out of the walls - no more, no less - but Wilson seemed to love it, pointing out all the specially-gooey oozy bits to Antony. 

W did get a bit of tar in his fur, but the nice lady in reception said that happened all the time and cleaned it off. 

W was a bit disappointed that he couldn't buy a souvenir bottle of tar (or Bottle-o-Tar as he insists on calling it) in the gift shop, but he bought some postcards, a stick of rock and a badge instead.

For myself, I thought it was alright. But then, I had banged my head on the ceiling a lot more often than W had!

Wilson poses with Antony inside The Tar Tunnel

A dream comes true...

At last, we get to visit The Tar Tunnel! 

After so much anticipation I can't see how this can be anything but a huge anticlimax, but Wilson is so excited to finally be going. 

'I've dreamed of this day' he said, as we went through the entrance...

"I've dreamed of this day"

Wilson has his likeness taken

In the Victorian High Street we noticed a photographer's shop, and Wilson has had his portrait taken in the formal style of his ancestor, Great Great […] Grandfather, Alberto Victor Gutiérrez-López. 

The top hat was a bit on the large size, but the photographer fixed that with some kitchen-towel padding and some Gaffer Tape. Ouch ­— small bald patch in fur!

W says that his portrait is 'his proudest possession'. After Antony. And his OBE (which, he confesses to me, he seems to have mislaid). And his Polaroid of him with his mum, Mrs. Vermilingua. And, it gradually emerges, quite a lot of other stuff… 

When we get home, he says he will frame it and put it in pride of place on the mantelpiece.

'Horses are the Way Forward!'

While waiting for the beer delivery to be completed we spent some time at the Victorian Fairground. Wilson said none of the rides compared to The Big One at Blackpool… though I thought he looked a bit shaken as I lifted him out of the chair-o-plane!

Then back into the village for Wilson's horse and cart ride. W declared that this was 'the best thing ever' and that 'horses are definitely the way forward.' 

I can read Wilson's mind

We've had a brilliant day at the Blists Hill Victorian Village Museum in Ironbridge. In the picture you can see Wilson talking to the lady who looked after the shire horses. She told him he could have a ride on the cart if he came back later, after she and the horses had delivered the beer barrels to The New Inn pub round the corner.

W really liked the horses, and since meeting them has talked about them almost constantly. 

I know W quite well now, and I'm pretty sure I know what he's thinking. He's thinking that he should have held out for a pony, instead of getting bargained down to a goldfish!

Wilson is excited by a local attraction...

Wilson is still in a bit of a sulk that we've not come on a beach holiday, but last night he was sitting up in his bed reading some of the Ironbridge Attractions leaflets he picked up in Reception. Suddenly he called out to me, 'New Dad! Are you awake?'

'Um… yes,' I replied, waking with a start. 'What's wrong?'

'Look at this! They've got a Tar Tunnel! I want to go to the Tar Tunnel!'

He has developed an inexplicable desire to visit what is, even according to the promotional leaflet, an old, low-ceilinged, brick-lined tunnel with tar 'oozing out of the walls.' 

Who can predict what will float an anteater's boat? Anyway, I've promised W that we will visit, but I think we should leave it until later in the week, to give him something to look forward to.

Today we went to take a look at Ironbridge's eponymous Iron Bridge. W was a little bit underwhelmed, especially when I refused to let him climb up the girders, but he perked up once we'd visited the local souvenir shops and he'd bought himself an Ironbridge T-shirt and some Cheesy Wotsits.

Ironbridge!

Here we are in Ironbridge! During the journey up I was telling Wilson the history of Ironbridge, how the first iron bridge in the world was built there in 1781, made possible by a new steel smelting process etc when he interrupted me. 

'We're going to look at an old bridge?' he asked, a note of incredulity in his voice. 

'Well, yes we are, but it's much more than just…'

'An old bridge,' he continued. 'We have an old bridge in Uckfield that we drive over every day, yet we're travelling more than 200 miles to look at another old bridge.' He rolled his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. 'I can only say this place had better have magnificent sandy beaches. Wake me up when the Olympic Pillow Fighting starts.'

With that he sank down into his seat and went to sleep for the rest of the journey.

Off on our holidays!

So, we're all packed and ready to go. Wilson insisted on packing his bucket and spade and his Speedos, even though we'll be almost 100 miles from the coast. He's never been on holiday before to anywhere that wasn't a seaside resort; I do hope he's not disappointed. 

I've had to promise W that we'll listen to BBC Five Live Olympics on the journey up, as he doesn't want to miss the Olympic Pillow Fighting Finals — I don't know where he gets these ideas…

BTW, like the new car? Wilson chose the colour — he  thought it looked very 'boyish'!

Ironbridge, Here We Come!

The concrete delivery is postponed

Today I am feeling much better, thanks for asking. My tooth has more-or-less stopped hurting and I've had to to face the fact that tomorrow the good people from the Readymix Company are scheduled to pump six tons of concrety goodness (Wilson's expression, not mine) onto the back lawn. 

I could see no alternative but to tell Wilson about the surprise trip to the midlands. 

He was very excited, but rather than cancel the Readymix order has merely postponed delivery until we return. At least that will give me some time to think of something to distract him from his Easter Island Heads scheme... 

In the meantime, we're both busy packing.

Hi! It's me, Wilson!

Hello readers! New Dad is "too ill" to write his journal today, so I'm doing it for him! 

He apparently has "toothache" but he is being such a baby about it. We anteaters don't actually have teeth, but my mum, Mrs Vermilingua, knows many sovereign cures for toothache which she has passed down to me.

For example, a mouthful of live Fire Ants is guaranteed to distract anyone from the pain of toothache. I happen to have some live Fire Ants, but will New Dad try this traditional family remedy? No he will not! 

Instead, he goes whining to the dentist's receptionist… who told him to come back the next day. 

I wouldn't have New Dad treated like that, so I phoned the receptionist myself and gave her a piece of my mind. New Dad was soon in with the dentist being given two kinds of Antibiotics. Judging by the name, ANTibiotics, I'll bet this is just some fancy medicine made out of Fire Ants…

New Dad was a real baby at the dentists, but to cheer him up I did give him one of my "I've Been Brave at the Dentist" stickers. 

Wilson Vermilingua OBE

XXXXX

WTF?

One of Wilson's friends, Rob, ended a very technical post with the acronym AFAIK. W asked me what it meant but I didn't know, so we Googled it and found a massive dictionary on on-line acronyms.

Wilson has now decided that acronyms are the way forward; he can talk quicker and live his life faster by communicating in initials. This is very confusing, because most of them he makes up as he goes along. I then have to spend 20 minutes working out what he might have meant, while he gets on with his high-speed life. Or his H-SL as he now refers to it. 

He's just stuck his head round the door to ask me 'WYLICOC?'

'Y,' I replied, 'WICCC,P.' W frowned briefly, then disappeared. Whether my Cup Of Coffee will come With A Chocolate Chip Cookie, Please is anyone's guess… IHNI.

Coming soon: six tons of concrete

To take his mind off Antony's recent ordeal, Wilson has ordered six tons of Readymix for his Easter Island Heads project. The concrete is due to be delivered Friday morning. 

I must keep calm and think of something...

The Heads again...

Wilson has pointed out that with the demise of the teddy-bear-building robot, his donation of teddy-bears to the Costa Rican Sloth Orphanage will be entirely dependent on his upcoming Grand Charity Garden Open Day, so it is more important than ever to get the Easter Island Heads built. W is certain they will be a major attraction.