Dear Gypsy

Gypsy Rey Casey,

As I’m writing this your mother is sitting on the couch feeding you a bottle of formula milk. Mozart is playing in the background. You were so frantic when hungry, as though you hadn’t eaten in days, yet it was less than an hour since your last bottle. You would be fine, smiling and gurgling, then POW! flailing your arms and legs about, sticking your fists in your mouth, throwing your head around so much we were worried it would fly off and bounce across the carpet. Then, when you’d consumed your fill, you’d be milk drunk. Head flopping. Eyelids drooping. An expression like a boxer who’d taken too many to the temple. We’d hold you in our arms and burp you and a look of profound bliss would come across your face. A sigh of relief from the both of us. We would gently put you down in your Moses basket so you could doze in complete contentedness. It is thirty-three minutes past nine in the evening on the second of January, 2020. You are exactly thirteen days and three hours old.

Your first three days were spent in the hospital with your mum. I was there most of the time too. Obviously. Your first night, knackered from being born, you slept like an angel. The next two nights were quite contrary to this. On the third night I wanted your mum to get some much needed sleep and you would not sleep in the uncomfortable hospital crib so I stayed until five thirty the next morning with you in my arms so you and mum could both get some sleep. That long sentence is as exhausting as it was trying not to fall asleep myself with you in my arms because I was terrified that then I would drop you.

The hospital was awful. It was so hot that you were always uncomfortable. I sat at night shirtless to save myself from stinking. But you were only there for three days because when they said they wanted the two of you to stay for two more days your mum said, “Hell to the no!” ans they checked you out then and there.

As soon as we got home you settled down immediately. A wave of Zen-like Buddha-ness descended on you like an angel’s veil drifting lazily from Heaven (if I may mix my theologismsisms).

It lasted a few hours at best.

While my mum said she kept my brother and me inside for six weeks after we were born, you were out and about in the first three days. After we left the hospital we stopped at Nanny’s work where a whole load of people cooed at you through the backseat window of the car. We didn’t want any contact because of the germs that might be on their tunics. On Christmas Eve we were at Nanny Sue’s and then on Christmas day we went off to your grandad’s and then back to Nanny Sue’s where cousins Lydia and Ollie, aunt Ali and uncle Paul, auntie Cheryl and uncle Chris, Nanny Sue and of course mummy and daddy all spent Christmas together. On New Year’s Eve mummy and daddy stayed home and watched scary movies - ‘It’ chapters 1 and 2 - and then went to bed.

The first week or so we noticed you had a white tongue. We laughed because we thought it was from the milk you’d been guzzling, but then I mentioned that it looked the same as when a resident in work has oral thrush. It was oral thrush, so we had to get some medicine to clear it up.

Your first shot was a BCG which they don’t do in the UK anymore but because your dad is from South Africa you had to have one - just in case an uncle or someone comes over with tuberculosis or smallpox or possibly Ebola. You were so brave; you hardly cried at all. The next shot mummy took you too and you cried like mad because mummy was crying too. Daddy took you to the next few. The BCG shot got infected and mummy noticed green goo coming out of it, so we took you to the doctor and you got an antibiotic. A few weeks later you needed an antibiotic for an ear infection. But through all of it you were constantly smiling as though nothing was ever wrong. You were always so happy.

Anyway, I'm rambling on a bit, and you’re only going to be reading this in probably sixteen years time. There are going to be so many more memories.

Lots of love,

Your Daddy.

New Year's Eve (1992)

We were in Hermanus, South Africa, and I think it was Greg, me, Rob Dekenah, Lee Dicks, John Gilbert and maybe someone(s) I’ve forgotten about. We were camping just outside of Hermanus in a place called Onrus but were kicked out of the campsite because Lee sat on my sunburnt back and I freaked out. I think it was just an excuse to get rid of us because we were quite wild and the campsite owner was a bit of a grumpy old bastard.

Anyway, a few days before new years’ eve we got booted out of camp and found a place to sleep. It was just off Hermanus beach and to get there you had to either wade through the waist-high water and climb up some rocks or climb under these massive tree-like bushes. The bushes stretched for ages and getting to the place that way you had to drop underneath them and crouch through a maze.

But the small clearing was perfect. We had privacy to smoke and drink and lie around in the sun all day. We kept six-packs of beer cold by stashing them under rocks in the water below. The rocks you had to climb up were about one and a half stories high. We’d jump off them into the water below. It was amazing.

On new years’ eve night there was a great party on the beach - hundreds of people - and the stretch of sand was dotted with bonfires all along. Every fire had a boombox playing whatever music was big in 1992 (Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Eric Clapton, BoyzIIMen, Michael Jackson, Guns ‘n Roses). John Gilbert and I, for some weird reason, pretended to be foreign. I pretended to be Canadian saying my name was John Sonner (A Canadian skateboarder, I think) and John put on a bizarre German accent. We were probably a bit drunk, but in reality we were a mite strange anyway.

The beach party was broken up when the residents in the houses along the beachfront complained and the police arrived. I remember seeing them standing in a line in the parking lot above the beach. They must have thought there were far too many people for them to arrest or chase off by conventional means, so they fired teargas into the crowd.

I was sitting talking to a guy who was telling me about his time in the army. I remember the sound of the teargas cannisters being fired - whoomp - and they fired a few of them. A cannister landed next to me, it looked like a can of deodorant, and I was too drunk to realise what it was so the guy grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. I ran up the hill in the direction of the bushes, thinking I’d find my way back to camp, but got to the top of the hill and smacked my head on one of the treelike branches and rolled back down the hill. I ended up sleeping behind a restaurant on the boardwalk.

The teargas cleared the beach, but we learned later that there had been a guy in a wheelchair on the beach and his wheels couldn’t move in the sand so he’d had to just sat there. Teargas isn’t fun, it’s very, very painful.

Rob, John and Lee - when the teargas hit - had been wading through the water back to our makeshift campsite holding their clothes above their heads. A massive cloud of teargas rushed towards them across the top of the water and they did the only thing they could think of. They took a deep breath and ducked under the water. The gas settled on top of the water and when they ran out of air they burst out and gulped a lungful of gas.

It’s funny in retrospect, but at the time it must have been terrifying.

We went back to Hermanus the next year because there was another big beach party. I remember sleeping on the beach that time too. I think we just figured we’d save the cost of a campsite and spend the money on beer instead.

The Punch (1984ish)

Now that I think about it, my dad was always my hero.

I know that sounds trite. A cliche. But I remember thinking and saying to him that with his glasses on he looked like Clark Kent and with them off he looked like Superman. I also used to think he looked like the actor Roger Moore who played James Bond, but I don’t think now that he really did. I suppose back then I thought he looked like all the heroes of the day. At a push I’d say he had He-Man’s haircut but that’s not much of a compliment.

Anyway, my dad and I used to do this thing where he would say, “Go on. Punch me as hard as you can!” and stand with his hands on his hips (the classic ‘Superman pose’) while I (at the age of 7) would make a tiny fist and punch him as hard as I could in the stomach.

He didn’t even flinch. I was amazed. He really was Superman.

Until one day when we were at my mother’s cousins’ farm (the Kosters - they bred horses) and a group of us was standing looking out at some horses running in a field. I can’t remember if my father was standing with his hands on his hips, but I saw him standing there with his belly exposed and I made a tiny fist and hit him as hard as I could in the stomach.

What I had never realised before was that my dad would (obviously) flex his stomach muscles so that the small punch from my seven-year-old fist wouldn’t even register.

But today he wasn’t prepared. Today my tiny fist slammed into his stomach and knocked the wind out of him. He folded over wheezing and everyone turned around to see what had happened. I don’t know what they must have thought. That I was some violent child psychopath, probably.

I don’t think we ever played that game again.

Nineteen Weeks (1 May, 2020)

Today Gypsy is nineteen weeks old. Nineteen weeks is the same as four months and eleven days. Even though that doesn’t feel like a long time, at the same time it feels like a lifetime. And I suppose it’s Gypsy’s lifetime up to this point.

This week she rolled from her front onto her back for the first time. According to Google that’s at the good end of the advanced spectrum. It can be as early as four months, or as long as five to seven months. She is also getting so close to rolling from her back onto her tummy. Lucy and I cheer her on every day.

Last night she slept really well. We put her down at seven and she slept all the way through to two thirty the next morning. She had a nappy change and a bottle and then slept through until seven.

Poor Lucy and Gypsy have been stuck at home for weeks because of the Coronavirus lockdown. If you don’t know what that is then they’re not teaching it in history class. Anyway, Lucy and Gypsy hadn’t left the house other than for a walk when the weather lets them and we had to get some shopping. So they came for the ride and sat in the car while I got the food and toiletries.

Exciting stuff. Maybe I’ll write about the Coronavirus lockdown sometime.

So I know this isn’t the most exciting blog post in the world but it seemed like a good start because it’s about you and this is for you, Gypsy. At the moment it’s just you and you don’t have any brothers or sisters - and maybe you won’t when you read this - but I’m writing these collected memories for you. When my dad passed away my brother and I realised that we knew very little about him and I wanted to leave something for you. So you can look back on my life, my triumphs and my mistakes, and if they impart any wisdom that’s great but if they just give you something to do on a boring train or plane ride that’s good enough for me too.