A Walk With Daisy and Jack

A Walk With Daisy And Jack

January 2014

It may have taken most of the morning to get ready but we’re finally under way. Daisy and Jack, our 22-month-old twins, have been bundled up against the winter’s chill with hats, coats and mittens. They sit side by side in their push-chair, pointing at birds, cars and many other notable sights which to most might seem inconsequential.

Their mum’s gone shopping with nanny today so I’m in charge. Ordinarily that would take the form of a day spent gawping at CBeebies, messing with building bricks or - if I’m feeling brave - scribbling with pencils and crayons. But the fresh air’s calling and the weather’s been so atrocious lately that I feel we need to take our chances and enjoy a stroll.

The sky’s a dazzling ceiling of unbroken cyan as we set out for our walk, although three regular puffs of cotton wool from our mouths and the slight tingle I feel at the end of my nose signal that it’s cold today in Portishead.

We’re a couple of hundred metres down the road before I notice that Jack’s lost a mitten, so I turn us all around and puff back up the hill to look for it. Jack peers circumspectly from one hand to the other, watching his ungloved fingers start to redden. Eventually he takes advantage of the situation and shoves his thumb in his mouth while I rummage in the undergrowth.

“Here it is!” I cry in triumph, shaking fragments of moss and dead leaves off the offending glove.

There’s a suggestion of a breeze as we approach the Lake Grounds, a man-made pool 100 metres long which sits in a grassy hollow just back from the Bristol Channel’s muddy coastline.

Portishead is a “secret” seaside town devoid of amusements, cones of chips and crab lines like its near neighbours, Clevedon and Weston-super-Mare. Thankfully this means that you can enjoy a bracing lungful of sea air here without losing yourself in the crowds.It’s so clear today that you can see right the way across to Newport. A long white cargo ship noses through the brown waves, a horn announcing its imminent arrival at Avonmouth.

As we near the path around the lake, Jack spies a swan and frantically starts pointing and making loud duck sounds. Daisy looks up at me and then at Jack, smiling conspiratorially. For a child whose second birthday is still two months away she seems so much more “in the know”  than she ought.

We skirt the lake, spotting Canada geese, swans and a few gulls as we make for the play area. All of the pointing now focusses on the swings. Daisy kicks her legs excitedly, her little red shoes clacking joyously against the push-chair’s footrest.

I think about how much our lives have changed since the twins were born. Natalie and I met at university in 1998 and after setting up home together in Bristol the following year it took us until 2009 to get married. I was 36 when Daisy and Jack appeared and looking around the waiting room before our hospital appointments made me realise that I was a little older than the average father. Some couples looked to be in their mid to late teens, and were old enough to be my sons and daughters.

But I’m so pleased that we waited until we were in our thirties to start a family. There was a sense that we’d had our fun in those footloose and fancy-free days when we lived close to central Bristol. We could throw on our coats and head out for the night on a whim. It felt right when we bought our first house together and then got married. It was unhurried, a natural pace. There was never any pressure from our parents to take these grown-up steps although they were naturally delighted when we walked back down the aisle as man and wife and again when we proudly rang them to tell them that they’d become grandparents.

Daisy’s straining at her harness to get out of the pushchair and into the vacant swings. Jack, meanwhile, watches a little girl whose mother is talking on her phone just outside the play area. The girl is straining against her reins, her bottom jaw grinding comically as she endeavours to drag her mother towards us. I take advantage of the woman’s absorption in her call to install both of my children into the two iron-framed swings.

I stand in front, grasping the front of each swing, and take a few steps back. Jack’s doing his excited sheepish smile. Daisy’s giggling in anticipation of that delicious moment of release. She claps her hands with a muffled thump.

Both children are now are now level with my shoulders, and I hold them there for a few more seconds.

“Five...four...three...two...ONE!”

They rocket away from me. Jack’s attention during the countdown had been caught by a seagull with its head in the litter bin and he doesn’t notice for a couple of seconds that he’s hurtling through the air. Daisy’s face is a picture of unfettered delight and she kicks her legs frantically, skewing the swing’s parabola from side to side.

I stand between them, pushing both simultaneously. I remember my own childhood, and that feeling of stomach-lurching exhilaration as you tuck in your legs and put your head down to whip back, before kicking them straight out in front and lying flat on the swing to swoop down again. The wind in your face and the coarse aroma of grass and earth all around. How valuable it is that this experience is unchanged, that I can share it with my own children!

For now they’re borne along by the ride, unaware that they can shape their bodies to alter it, to heighten that sense of...whoosh! But then, when they’re three or four, they’ll hit that sweet spot when they find that they can enhance the experience. It’ll stand them in good stead for a good few years, if they’re anything like me, before they hit young adulthood and they end up just sitting on the swing, idly dangling from side to side while chatting to friends. By that time this simple playground apparatus will have lost its magic and the Lake Grounds might just be a place where they can be whoever they want to be, away from school, and their mum and me. They won’t think of that simple joy while they’re taking their first steps in young love, maybe passing a can of illicit lager or a coughed gasp of a ciggie.

Daisy decides it’s time for her to get down. She’s had enough swinging for one day, and although he’s still looking keen, so therefore has Jack.

I remove them one at a time from the swing, then strap and buckle them back into the pushchair.

Jacks makes his uncannily accurate quacking sound, jabbing a finger in the direction of a goose as it swoops in and skims to a halt on the lake’s surface.

We head off along the path, over the little bridge which marks the edge of the shallower water. In the summer this end of the lake is full of small children in miniature pedalos, whose parents pace fretfully along the bank.

Most of the birds are at the far end, which means that Jack’s excitement is approaching fever pitch by the time we get near them. I reach into the compartment under the pushchair and pull out a polythene bag containing a few slices of stale bread. Lucky birds.

I tear a piece into smaller chunks and start handing it to them. It’s as though Jack’s arm is somehow spring-loaded: as soon as he feels a piece in his palm he flings it, shot-putt style from the shoulder in the general direction of the assembled waterfowl.

Daisy, meanwhile, is more considered. She examines each piece first, and I’m sure I see her nibble a little on one lump before regretfully tossing it at a swan.

Before they were born I always imagined that being twins Daisy and Jack would be very similar in personality and looks. But Jack has a close resemblance to me and his sister is a dead ringer for Natalie. If anything, having boy/girl twins emphasises the differing rates that the sexes develop. Daisy spoke first and is eager to understand the the world she encounters, whereas Jack walked first and is more physically adventurous.

Both have naturally gravitated to the toys you’d traditionally expect a boy or girl to enjoy. Jack’s into cars and dinosaurs while Daisy plays with dolls and miniature tea sets. We’ve never pushed or directed them to favour one sort of toy over another based on gender; they’re free to be who they want to be.

Having been in each other’s company for all but the first sixty seconds of their lives, our children are used to playing together which means that on the whole they share well. When they go to nursery or a soft play session they seem much better adjusted socially than most kids of their age. There’s no selfishness there, which is as heartening as it is endearing.

Already the bond between them is stronger than many brothers and sisters. They genuinely care for one another, rushing to comfort and cuddle if one’s crying, and looking bereft if they lose sight of each other. And they entertain themselves, often dissolving into fits of giggles through some silly noise, facial expression or just a canter up and down the living room.

Our arrival on the lake’s bank has created quite a stir among the feathered fraternity. Quite a crowd has formed around the pushchair as birds of all shapes and sizes jostle for a scrap of stale bread. Jack’s rapid fire technique is winning him an army of web-toed admirers while a pair of swans star at Daisy incredulous as she turns a crust over and over inches from her face. One of the Canadian geese gets a bit feisty and snaps his beak at my elbow and an old phobia crackles into life. Many years ago I can remember being pursued by a flock of them along the river in Stratford-upon-Avon. My mum managed a good turn of speed but Granny was nipped several times.

I shake the remaining crumbs out of the bag and turn the pushchair towards our route home, past the freezing empty Lido pool. Daisy eats her final piece of bread before I can stop her. Jack’s face creases into a red mess of grief and he starts bawling and pointing forlornly at the birds. He really loves feeding them. Daisy looks at him, bending forward slightly to look into his face. She puts a motherly arm on his shoulder.

“Never mind, Jackster” I say, stroking his head. “We’ll come back another day”.

I divert his attention by handing him a small plastic Tyrannosaurus Rex. Hundreds spent on Christmas presents for the pair of them and Jack only has eyes for a packet of dinosaurs we bought from a pound shop! He wipes his nose and eyes with his sleeve, sniffing back sobs. Then he chuckles and punches the figure up at me, his arm ramrod straight as he lets out a guttural roar. I indulge him, reeling back in mock terror.

And then we’re all laughing, an infectious bubble which sustains itself for most of the walk home. We’re all amused by one another, and passers by smile and turn as we pass. I don’t have to exaggerate our happiness, it’s written all over our faces. We’re three quarters of the family, a father and his children, out for a walk on a cold winter’s day.

This is life as it should be.