the roaring silence

Kids, and especially the four of ours, fill the house with noise. From the moment they get up to the moment they go down, the noise and 100mph activity in the house is best described as a monkey's tea-party on amphetamines. I suspect this is what the households of the future members of Hawkwind where like.

The three girls all play piano and a typical day in our house would have you hear an array of classical tunes, all played perfectly, and all played at TOP volume. Occasionally I'll take the guitar down and play along, or let them hear an old song from the before the war (e.g. Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Stones) in the hope of giving them a solid foundation on which to base their own musical tastes, gently guiding them away from the 3-minute "Pop Stars" you get nowadays.

I've no idea what they listen too, but they know not to come near the computer with their CD's because I refuse to pollute iTunes with their cruddy muzak. But that's me turning into my dad again ...

So with the rest of the family still in Ireland, I've got three weeks of solitude ahead of me. In a house that's always busy, to get to spend time on your own is a luxury that not many parents get to enjoy these days. And you know what - it's not all fun. Sure, the first week is great: you get up when you want, go to bed when you want, eat what you like and do what you like because there is no one there to slap your hand out of the cookie jar, no one to take to the park for a kick-about and no pre-teen to comfort when her friends are horrible to her.

But after a while, you begin to notice something. Without the kids, the silence in the house is deafening, like the roar of a record after it's just finished playing. They fill the place like nothing else, physically, spiritually and emotionally. Everything else is background noise.

So today's Blip was taken in a corner of the house where all the musical activity takes place. But today the piano is silent, and the guitar accompanies only myself.

One day down, twenty to go.