MEL: Your favourite uncle's coming to your party.
TRAVIS: Rory?!I cannot describe to you the swell of emotions I felt when Mel told me that. The fact that I then missed his party is beside the point.
I'm his favourite.
When I arrived, Travis immediately recognised me- a miracle in itself- and knew my name without prompting. Later in the day, he occasionally would call me 'Tommy', the name of Mel's new man, but I've learnt to take what I can get.
He immediately dragged me upstairs to show me his room and play a version of catch wherein every action he took won him a point, as did anything I did. There was no way for me to get points, but I evidently still had a tally on his mental scoreboard because:
MEL (From downstairs): Who's winning?
TRAVIS: Me! Travis!
ME: I think she can tell our voices apart.
TRAVIS: No!
When I protested the game wasn't fair, he said he was tired and didn't want to play anymore. He'd make a good politician.
Later, Mel had to go to lunch with her new beau and her new beau's father, so I heroically took on the role of babysitter; this mainly consisted of blowing bubbles into a spider's web, which was strong enough to hold them but not to pop them. I thought this was a beautiful metaphor for the ephemeral nature of parenthood and youth, Travis thought it made them easier to pop. I think the spider thought that ragnarok had come.
After this, we played 'Guess Who' and I taught Travis about the process of elimination, which he described as 'cra-zy.'
Mel eventually returned and Travis wanted to do some crafting, and there were pipecleaners. Maybe it was just Ironbridge, but when I was younger, pipecleaners were a rare commodity- a treat of the highest order, akin to eating orlotan or holding a baby panda. I remember when Blue Peter used to call on us to have pipecleaners, they might as well have asked us to make sure we had our gold filigree ready.
But lo and behold, there was an entire pack of them in the house and better yet, Travis wasn't interested in them, so Tom and I went a little nuts:
 |
| Cthulhu and Fu Manchu, teaming up at last. |
If young Rory could have see the way I was wearing pipe cleaners on my face, he would have thought I was some kind of hedonistic millionaire.
After crafting, we watched Moshi Monsters, which had to be the laziest film I have seen in a long time. At one point, one of the characters proclaimed something to be 'monsterrific', which confused me no end since we don't call things 'humanrific'. At another, some characters were described as 'voodoo', which obviously meant they ate people. And then one of the half-rendered blobs quoted Mae West and I nearly lost it, because leave Mae West and her beautiful amorality out of your deplorable excuse for art. Monsterrible.
And then it was time to go. Despite me being his favourite uncle, Travis didn't seem to really regret my leaving. When I went to hug him, he hid beneath a towel and instructed me that this meant I couldn't touch him. I know he's only five but his callousness still stings a little.
Sadly, I didn't get to speak to Mel too much this time, as Travis was so full of beans. But, we got a couple of quick conversations and some hugs in and I'll hopefully get to see her again before I go. To paraphrase David Nicholls in One Day:
"Another big day in the life of a godfather."
