Dear Diary. I'm taking my family to Rookery Park, the local park in Erdington, which is the town where I was born. Erdington has a sense of decrepitness and decay about it. The local pub has several letters missing from the sign. So instead of saying "The Lad in the Lane", it just says "Ldi". Now they just need one extra L and they could reopen as a Lidl.

The pub has a car park but the entrance to the car park is barricaded by concrete blocks. There's a clothes bank in the car park and there are dirty grey clothes strewn around on the floor outside it. The clothes are covered with leaves and sweet and chocolate wrappers. The pub seems to be closed permanently; this is one of the oldest pubs in England and it's shut down.

Next to the abandoned pub is a block of flats. There are some steps that go up to nowhere; they just lead to a patch of overgrown nothing full of sharp spiky plants. There's broken wood from a cupboard. There are bin bags containing a seemingly random assorted of things: leaves, plastic bottles, cans, sheets of newspapers, coffee cups, and plastic bags.

The streets are strangely quiet. There's rarely anyone walking around. There’s a sign that says "Alcohol restricted area. The police have powers to restrict drinking in public in this area."

Entering the park is a relief to the battered senses. There are open expanses of brown and green grass, there are trees, and brown decaying leaves on the path. There are fewer signs of humanity here. But there is a litter bin overflowing with empty bottles and chip wrappers. My sister Lisa dislikes this park. She says it's full of gangs of local youths. But I think it's the only good part of Erdington.

So here are the actual contents of a bin in a park in Erdington:

• a shit-smeared nappy inflated with urine (I can see the poo)
• empty bottles of Polish beer
• glass bottles
• food wrappers
• empty bottles of energy drinks
• empty cans of Dr Pepper and Desperado
• empty coffee cups
• a metal spoon
• two tiny bin bags, tied up, contents unknown. I'm tempted to open them but Girlfriend's nearby and no doubt she'll tell me off. She's always ruining my fun.
• tissues
• a single leaf which has fallen in by mistake from a tree overhead

The smell of the bin is a bit like a zoo. Specifically, it's the smell of shit in the elephant house. I think it's the poo from the nappy, it's the smell of that.

Our trip to the park is cut short when 4-year-old slips from a bench and falls about a foot to the floor, hitting his head on the concrete. He immediately starts crying. Girlfriend checks his head and puts her hand on the back of his head and there's blood on her hand and his head. He keeps saying that his head hurts. 4-year-old wants to ride on my back so I give him a piggyback all the way home. Along the way, he keeps saying that his head hurts, "My head hurts a lot". I shower 4-year-old to wash his head even though he's reluctant to get in the shower. Girlfriend bribes him with the promise of a Peppa Pig ice cream if he takes a shower. After the shower, my dad takes a look at his head and says that 4-year-old has grazed the back of his head and has a little cut or something. I can't deal with any more of this. I'm outside sitting in the chair feeling drained. Looking after children drains me.

4 pm

Oh, man. Is this meant to be a fucking holiday? I'll need a holiday after this holiday. This is worse than being at home, this is like an anti-holiday. This is the opposite of relaxation and fun. Staying in my dad's house in Birmingham, where he lives there's nothing to do within walking distance. I guess you have the town centre of Erdington, which is just shops. Then you have a shopping centre nearby and then the park.

We've spent most of the day indoors and spent the last hour reading books to 4-year-old. My head feels like I've been spun around on one of those NASA training machines that spin you around like 700 miles an hour so you can't think anymore. I didn't even bring my laptop with me so I can't do the normal things I do to relax like write or work. Even work is preferable to staying here and doing nothing. The reason we've come to Birmingham is to visit my family but every member of my family is fucking annoying. They're all annoying in their own special ways. My older sister Corryn seems nice at first, but she's dumb as a fucking box of bricks. My youngest sister obsessively wants to see 4-year-old all the time. My dad is a manic depressive with anger issues. And his house is messy and disorganized and I hate mess and disorganization. And we've chosen to stay here for two weeks.