The game commences

Every time I ask the Boy for a bloggery suggestion he says “Harrod”. Harrod (not his real name, but it’s what he answers to) is one of his chums, who Ned and I have just about come to terms with. Our early dealings with him caused us to refer to him as ‘The Lying Braggart’ – and it’s a shame, because he could be a nice enough lad. But he’s always been insecure enough to try to buy friends – and his parents seem to have aided and abetted him, by showering him with money instead of their time and attention. Basically he’s a nice enough lad (and even nicer now that his parents have moved to France) and he’s growing up.

We had a major run-in with him a few years ago when his mother phoned me one morning and gave me an ear-bashing for the state in which Harrod, the Boy and another chum had left their house (“there was nobody else there, he knew he wasn’t to have a party while we were away and he swears he hasn’t”). Apparently, and judging by the debris, the three of them had smoked about 300 cigarettes (the Boy and O.C. didn’t smoke) and got through two bottles of whisky, two bottles of vodka, a bottle of Southern Comfort, 9 bottles of wine, about 100 assorted cans and bottles of beer and sundry alcopops. Call me suspicious, but I’d seen the Boy and Other Chum that morning, and they were fine, and so I said I reckoned they may have had outside help. I asked the Boy where he had been on the night in question – “At Harrod’s party” he said. It took over 6 months for Harrod to get around to apologising to us for the haranguing I received from his mother. Ned subtly reminded him every time he asked him to leave our house.

But I don’t think I can blame him for tonight’s little upset. A couple of months ago I started making a small stuffed toy orang-utan to be a geocaching ‘Travel Bug’ courier. It didn’t look too bad – the face was a bit of a problem – and it was put into a plastic bag and left on the kitchen table till we got around to planning the next cache. I’ve been tidying the table in readiness for Wednesday’s upheaval and found this toy. Someone – and it has to be one of the Boy’s friends – has opened the bag and drawn a frown and Hitler hairstyle on it. I’ll have to make a new one now. I’m not best pleased. I wonder which of the little s***s it was?