I dash across Birmingham's black streets, slick with rain, my shopping bags banging against my legs.
MadFather and I have started the Christmas shopping early, because MindReader is away tonight, and I was feeling festive and (dare I say) energetic and begged.
"So," MadFather says. "It's November, what's your plan?"
We do this every month. September's plan was to be able to go to a pub if I rested the day before and the day after. October's plan was to be able to go to a pub
every day if I wanted. I now resemble a human being from about 6pm every day, so October has been successful.
I open my mouth to say that I want to be sitting up all day by the end of November.
And then other responses get tangled in my mouth. I remember reading
Things I Want My Daughters To Know in the bath, a wet patch of black ink on my thumb. The mum dies, leaves her daughter a series of letters which I devoured on my side in bed, being spooned by MindReader last night, my eyebrows raising further and further as I thought -
This could be my book.
And so it has occured to me: if I do not write it soon, someone else will.
These are, I think, the last months of my illness, and then, food shopping and clients and dinner parties will take over and it will drop further and further down my list of recent documents, eventually dropping off altogether.
"Well it's National Novel Writing Month," I say to MadFather. "So who knows."
Labels: Dad, illness, novel
I read the passage over and over.
I was still in the baby fog when Jennifer came, bless her, and whole months passed in a blur. And still, there were people around all the time - Donald, his mum, other mums with babies and toddlers the same age. But it was different with you. It was just us, the two of us. ... And it was just you and me and the midwife - and she slipped out and left us alone. It was so quiet. You didn't even cry. No fussing, no noise, and no interference. No one else wanting to hold you. You were mine, Amanda, all mine. And I loved you so much.
Elizabeth Noble - Things I Want My Daughters To Know
I read it three or four times. And then I read it out to MadFather, who puts his beer down, his blue eyes looking directly at me.
"Is that what it's like?" I say. "Is that what a mother should feel?"
"It's supposed to be," he says, and his expression becomes so wrinkled and pained that I don't ask any more.
Labels: Dad
"Ooh," I say to MadFather in the supermarket. "Do you think I can eat a chocolate orange?"
"Maybe," he says.
I pick it up. "sugar... emusifier: soya lecithin - oh - wheat flour. Damn."
"Oh dear," he says. "Do you need any cereal?"
"I would like some Alpen. I miss Alpen."
"How about this," he says, picking up a purple box of muesli. "Made with... er - millet flakes."
"No thanks," I say. "Ooh, do you think I can eat wheatabix?"
Labels: Dad, diet
"Could you indicate to me which items are gluten free?" I say to the waitress.
"Of course," she says.
"How you feeling?" DoctorSister'sHusband says, and I am touched.
"Well," I say, and I take off my glasses, because only these people around me matter.
We eat three courses. And then move onto a bar. As the nasty disco music thumps through my core I finally feel like a human again.
It is about time.
Labels: Dad, illness
"I'm going to bake an apple pie," I say to MadFather. "And - bake my
own pastry."
"Fucking hell," he says, following me into the kitchen.
We do it in three stages, with lying down time for me. And let me tell you, it is very stressful to have to leave a disaster to go and lie down.
But I digress.
The breadcrumbs stage goes okay. If you squeeze the "breadcrumbs" it does become dough but we can't all be perfect can we?
The adding eggs does not go so well. I do not understand the term gradually, and my chronic illness hasn't, as I'd hoped, taught me any patience whatsoever. At the end of the egg-adding (which by the way took lots of concentration for me to add the yolk and not the white) the dough is so sticky that when we put it into the fridge to 'chill' it sticks to everything and when we get it back out again - oh dear God - out come mustard pots and jars of jam IN THE DOUGH.
Cue rest.
Rolling dough obviously does not go well. Dough that is consistency of chewing gum does not "roll".
Am supposed to roll out pastry until twice the size of baking tin, drape over and pat down to form a case.
Just like that.
This reminds me of when my year nine art exam said "draw a person and be sure to get the proportions right!"
I got 29%.
Pastry rips whenever we pull at it. Obviously it does not form a sheet. So. We cut out four rectangles and STICK THEM WITH BUTTER onto the insides of the baking tray. Then we make a base.
Cue rest. And deep breathing. And a text to MindReader which reads "PS. If you mention that I attempted to make a pie today I will deny all knowledge."
The filling stage goes (relatively) well. Soak sultanas in orange juice (?) until plump. Soak them for two hours longer than it said. Sultanas not plump. Nevermind.
Apples which MadFather chopped in advance are VERY brown and resemble CRINKLE CUT CRISPS. Add them anyway.
Time to make a LID for the pastry. Roll out remaining pastry. It is still like chewing gum and does not roll.
I rip up the half-rolled-out "lid" and begin to stick it in lumps and clumps all over the top of the filling.
"What are you doing?" MadFather says.
"I think it is called LOSING MY SHIT."
Labels: baking disasters, Dad, illness
"I sat on my glasses," I say to MadFather, pouting.
He takes the glasses off me and bends the arms for a while. "Any better?" he says.
I put them on again. "They're less crooked," I say, "but for some reason I can't see very clearly out of them."
"Oh," he says, taking back the glasses and fiddling some more. "Now?" he says.
"Hm," I say. "They feel totally normal but everything is blurred."
MadFather's face cracks into a smile. "Do you have your contact lenses in Billygean?"
"Oh," I say. "Maybe."
Labels: blonde moments, Dad, embarrassing
"Am having a blog-related nightmare," I say to
MadFather as he walks in the door.
"Oh?"
"One of my more - um,
persistent - readers has found out my real name," I say.
"Oh dear, how?"
"He won't really say."
"Is he going to
out you?"
MadFather says.
"Well," I say, "I've told him I might get fired and to please not..."
"You might get the sack anyway,"
MadFather says, "if you can't break your addiction to the sofa."
Labels: Dad, illness
"Wow," MadFather says, stepping into the room in his work suit. "Long time no see."
BalletFriend is here. We used to attend a sort of military, ballet themed training camp when we were teenagers; in other words, ballet school, with all encompassing foot bleeding, stomach crunches, and bunions.
"I know," she says.
"What have you been up to?" MadFather says, handing her a cup of tea.
"Got a 2.1 in business administration, marketing and human resource management," she says. "And now I'm a marketing assistant at a multi million pound company."
"Wow," MadFather says. "You enjoying it?"
"Nope," she says. "I hate it. I want to be an actor."
Labels: Dad
"That was AWFUL," MadFather says, walking in the door and shaking rain drops off his head.
"What happened?" I say from my bed on the sofa.
"I sat in traffic for HOURS," he says, "and then I got there LATE so the security people chased me around the supermarket asking when I was going to leave."
"Oh no," I say, my heart twinging as it does every time MadFather turns on the sympathy.
"And then I couldn't get the things on your list, I couldn't find any nectarines so I thought to myself, 'I know -'"
"Do you think like that?" I say.
"Like what?"
"Like, 'I know, I'll do this.'"
"Well - yes," MadFather says, looking hurt. "Why?"
"Because this way my readers will know it's not
my dialogue that's shitty."
Labels: blogging, Dad
I tear open the letter from Jay Jay frantically, my eyes scanning the words on the page.
"Diagnosis:" it reads, "post viral fatigue."
Well, we knew that I think, scanning the rest of his words.
"I have assured the patient and her father that fatigue and exhaustion following a viral infection is common although frustrating and," I gasp, "I fully expect the patient to make a full recovery in the coming months."
Tears of relief prick my eyes as I tie my shoe laces. I lock the back door behind me for the first time in months.
The sunshine warms my skin and the slight breeze dries my newly washed hair.
It takes 200 metres for me to begin feeling the pin pricks of dizzyness, exhaustion, symptoms so tiny that only someone who knows her body very well could detect them. As I turn towards home my phone rings.
"Hi," MadFather says.
"Hi," I say excitedly. "I'm NOT IN THE HOUSE."
"You what?" he says.
"I was feeling better so I'm on a - very short - walk," I say.
His pause is so long I check whether he's hung up.
"If I'm not knackered from doing this tomorrow I could do it every day," I say. "I would no longer be housebound."
"This," MadFather says finally, "is the beginning of the end."
Let's hope so.
Labels: Dad, illness
"Well I hope you had fun," I say sarcastically to MindReader.
"Mmm," he says. "I love being questioned about whether you have heatstroke. Which you don't."
"See you tomorrow," I say, my very sunburnt face in his neck.
"Shall we go?" I say to MadFather. We are off to reflexology. Because it is Working.
The car drives up a hill, the lights of the city shimmering pinpricks below. The sun is setting; low in the sky casting blood-red rays over the roads.
I see someone in a car behind us, bright blond hair, sunglasses, one arm effortlessly resting on the steering wheel. I stare at him.
Until he waves, and I realise it is MindReader. "He's so pretty," I say, although I admit I may be biased by the fact that we spent the afternoon half dressed in the garden together.
"Get over it you lovesick person," MadFather says. "I am very jealous."
Labels: Dad, illness, MindReader
For some reason today I can't even lift my head off the pillow.
I huff and lie back to paint my newly-grown finger nails. The paint slicks on, a glossy wet line along my nail.
And that's when I see them.
One on my ring finger. Three on my arm.
Two on my other arm.
Bright pink spots.
It's nail varnish, I think. Until I see them on my back, my shoulders.
My mind is surprisingly clear as I walk into the kitchen for a glass, roll it over the rash, watch it clear as day underneath the pressure of the glass; spidery suns under my skin.
***
The woman on NHS direct is not as calm. "Call an ambulance," she says. "Now."
I still do not think as my fingers dial 999. I think of the only times I have seen these numbers - on horror films and dramas, shouted as buildings explode and people collapse.
I crumple on the phone to MadFather and MindReader. The reality of that word -
meningitis - so different from the
glandular fever that rolls so easily off my tongue even in the dead of the night.
"I'm on my way," they had both said, dropping work colleagues as money quickly lost its meaning.
The paramedic is trying to distract me from the ECG sticky thingies on my arms and ankles, my pulse (125!) echoing around the ambulance. He touches my rash and goes slightly white. He chatters to me about conveyancing, his wife's will, whether I'd sue him if it hurt when he tested my blood sugar levels.
"I need to not sit up, in the waiting room," I say, wondering when I got so bed-ridden. "I know I look fine but I actually can't."
He nods as my phone jingles, interrupting the rhythm of the heart monitor. His eyebrows reach his harline and I place a hand on his arm. "It's my phone, not my heartrate," I say and he visibly relaxes.
He hands me over to the Accident and Emergency team and I feel strangely lost without him in his green overalls.
I am poked and prodded for a further hour. A junior doctor looks confused and says I look too well for meningitis. The registrar comes in (complete with GIANT grey beard I would like to put my hands in) and SCRATCHES at my spots, shrugging casually. A consultant comes in last.
"Taken any antibiotics lately?" he says abruptly.
"No," I say. "I know amoxycillan can cause this rash with glandular fever."
He raises his eyebrows. "I'm a Googler," I explain.
"I see," he says.
he makes me take my pants off and wear a gown. Then he pokes and prods at my buttocks (why?) and pushes his stethascope INSIDE MY BRA.
"We think you have low platelet counts, because of the mononucleosis," he says.
"I knew that," I say. "Does that mean I can go?"
He nods. The room is still spinning. I walk out into the car park. And then.
Relief.
Labels: Dad, illness, MindReader
"DoctorSister," I say from my bed of pillows in the living room (a way of sitting up without expending energy, you have no idea how happy this makes me), "my inner ear's bleeding."
"Really?" she says, concern on her face. Not, of course, for my ear, but because of my hypochondria even though I already HAVE an illness.
"Yes, look," I say, showing her the blood on the duvet.
"It's probably just where you've scratched it in your sleep," she says, for I have been asleep most of the day. What can I say? The Grand Prix was on. "You have long nails now, after all."
I smile as she leaves the room to make more tea.
"Okay baby?" MadFather says.
I give him a naughty smile. "My ear itches because I scratched it with this," I say, brandishing a metal nail file.
"Idiot," he snorts. "I use a pen lid."
He pauses. "I have a special pen lid I keep for scratching. It's covered in ear wax."
I wrinkle my nose. "Where is it?"
"In the kitchen," he says. "Obviously."
Labels: Dad, illness
MadFather is, I suspect, slightly pissed. Since I only drink
echinacea tea and orange juice, the bottle of wine and
MadFather are left to their own devices.
The Heaviest Man In The World (my antithesis, if you will) is on the television. It really is disgusting. He is dancing, sat down, his man boobs jiggling. It is not funny.
"That's the
second most disgusting thing I've seen this week,"
MadFather announces.
"Oh really," I say. "What was the first?"
"My friend's jeans," he says.
I look at him questioningly. He swigs his wine.
"Well," he says. "I was in the changing rooms at squash and I could smell
fish. I hunted around and around the changing room for a fish and came close to this guy's jeans. They
stank of fish."
"That's not that gross," I say.
"
Billygean," he says. "I had to wash my
nose."
Labels: Dad
"Hey!" I say to MadFather as he turns my film off.
"This is important," he says, fiddling about with the remote controls while I huff.
"That," he says, turning Sky Sports on, "is Mario Ancic."
"Okay," I say slowly, watching the two tennis players.
"He had glandular fever and was in bed for 6 months," he says.
I stare at the screen in awe. He effortlessly runs across the court. All 6 foot 5 of him.
There is a close up suddenly of his face. His dark eyes look back into mine.
"It's funny," I say slowly, "to think he's been to some of the darkest places I've been."
"And look where he is now," MadFather says, a hand on my shoulder.
"Mario Ancic," the commentator says. "Almost back to full fitness. He's also resumed studying his law degree."
I smile.
Labels: Dad, illness
I smile inwardly at a text from MindReader.
"I have left a urinary sample bottle in your car!" I had text, meaning I had forgot to take it.
"Thanks," MindReader had replied, with a wink.
"Look after him," MadFather says, looking directly at me.
"Huh?" I say.
"What you and MindReader have," MadFather says, sipping his whiskey, as the late-night rain pounds the black windows, "it's fine, and rare."
I smile proudly. "Thanks," I say.
"If I had to sum it up," MadFather says, and then, "hang on a second."
He pads out of the room, his new belly hanging slightly over his trousers.
"Hemingway said," he says, sitting back down, "that his best work was a short story of just 6 words. He said 'For sale: baby shoes, never worn'."
I nod slowly.
"Mine would be 'still searching for a soulmate,'" he says.
"That's 5 words," I say, ever the lawyer. "Soulmate is one word."
"Okay. Still searching for a purple soulmate."
Labels: Dad, MindReader
I walk across Nanna Billygean's living room, my finished Chinese takeaway plate in hand. I reach across DoctorSister's Husband and grab DoctorSister's plate too.
We are in Newcastle visiting an assortment of my very extended family and MindReader's very extended university friends.
The hallway is silent as I move through it. I pause at the kitchen door, slightly ajar, for no reason.
"So do you think this one's The One then?" Nanna Billygean's
geordie voice says.
"You never know," MadFather says. "She was in bits over Spring. But you should see her with MindReader. They're so happy. They laugh almost constantly."
I feel as if I am smiling from head to toe as I burst into the kitchen, and Nanna Billygean's eyes are damp.
Labels: Dad, MindReader
"How was Mum's?" MadFather says as him, me and DoctorSister reconvene in the kitchen for post-Christmas-at-Mum's deconstruction.
"Mushy veg," I say, sipping my tea.
"Melt in the mouth," DoctorSister says, leaning against the counter.
MadFather wrinkles his nose.
I shrug. "We only complain about the veg because we don't like her."
"Totally," DoctorSister says. "If Billygean made mushy veg she would have tried hard. If MadFather did it would be funny. If I did, we wouldn't speak about it."
MadFather tuts. "Why would it be funny if I did it? I'm a good cook."
I smile. "It's because you're scatty."
"I'm not scatty," MadFather says, leaning against the counter.
He peers into the toaster suddenly.
"What's up?" I say.
"I just found some toast."
Labels: Dad, Home
MindReader and I are canoodling. He has been here a matter of moments and somehow his clothes are all over the floor. What? Oh shut up. You all do it.
I hear
MadFather's footsteps across the landing and my eyes widen.
"
Billygean?" He says.
"Bit
busy," I shriek in a voice that
MindReader has taken to imitating.
"Okay,"
MadFather says, a hint of glee in his voice.
MindReader is bright red, his face in the crook of my neck. "I've been here ten minutes," he says. "Your Dad's going to think I'm a bastard."
4 hours later
"
MadFather," I say, quite unable to look him in the eye.
"Yes?"
"Can you drop
MindReader off at the station?"
"I'm a bit
busy, actually."
Labels: Dad, embarrassing, MindReader
"I saw that Friends episode the other day where Monica tells Chandler her friend from work is the funniest person she's ever met," I say to MindReader.
"Oh right?"
"Would that bother you?"
"Why?" he says, a smile appearing.
"Because. That's your thing! Being funny."
"And handsome," he says.
"Yes."
"No I don't think it would bother me."
--------------------------------------
"Oh here's David's speech," MadFather says, waving a DVD in my face over dinner.
"Who's David?" MindReader says.
"My cousin. It's his best man speech."
"Born comedian," MadFather says.
"Mmm," I say. "He is literally the fun-"
MindReader's blond eyebrows hit the top of his forehead before I can finish my sentence.
Labels: Dad, Home, MindReader
"Well," I say, surveying MadFather's new living room carpet and breathing in the new carpet smell. "It looks good, doesn't it?"
"Yep," he says, his bare toes curling into it. "It's very soft."
"Mmm."
He pauses.
"Want to roll in it?"
"Okay," I say.
MadFather laughs as we roll about on the floor. "This is
exactly how I imagined living with you."
Labels: Dad, Home
It is 9:40pm. I drum my fingers on the table.
My phone rings.
"Hello," I say to MadFather.
"Hello," he says, sheepish.
"Do you know what time it is?" I say, well aware I sound like a nagging wife.
"Yes."
"You said you'd be home at nine. I've been on my own all day and I'm hungry. I waited to cook because I kept thinking you'd be home any minute."
"I'll be twenty minutes," he says.
"So you'll be home an hour late," I say. "Great, I'm starving and I wanted an early night. For God's sake."
"I got takeaway."
"Oh really? What type?"
"Curry."
"That makes up for it," I say. "No, really."
"Oh! Okay then," he says, surprised.
"I'm very shallow."
Labels: Dad, How to
"So," he says, rolling his shirt sleeves up and sipping a pint. "What does your law firm specialise in?"
I roll my eyes. Must we talk law on our course socials?
"Corporate."
"Oh really," he says, his eyes lighting up. "What areas?"
I slide my hand up and down my wine glass, fiddle with my hair. "
Erm, banking, debt finance," I say in a tone that means THIS IS BORING AND CAN WE PLEASE NOT TALK ABOUT IT.
"Oh right," he says. "Mine does equity mainly. So, contentious probate but also some transactional commercial work."
I look at the clock.
"Great," I say.
My phone beeps.
Sender:
MadFatherI lost my car keys this morning so haven't been to work! Just got new keys cut, found old keys on top of the burglar alarm in the downstairs loo! Love you xLabels: Dad
"You have to compartmentalise your mind,"
MadFather is saying as we drive along in the night. "That's what I do in times of stress."
"Right," I say, ever the cynical lawyer. "And how do I do that?"
"When you're with someone you don't want to be with," he says, "for argument's sake let's say your mum," a smirk, "you are doing 90% of the same things you'd be doing if you were with - say -
MindReader."
"Right?"
"So when you're with
MindReader you're eating and drinking and talking, and you're doing the same things when you're with your mum."
"Yes," I say. "So I just - imagine I'm with
MindReader?"
"No. You have to compartmentalise."
"How?"
"It's..." he says, a hand gesturing in front of his face. "It's... well, it's
coexistent states that have bamboo walls."
"Thanks."
Labels: Dad
I open my eyes a crack.
And then close them again.
And then open them.
MindReader and MadFather are in my room.
"Wha?" I say, confused, patting down my morning hair.
I sit up, and almost heave.
"How's your head?" MadFather smirks.
"Bad," I say. "Why...?"
"What do you remember?" MindReader says, sitting on the bed and handing me a glass of water. I take a small sip, grateful that the liquid stops the sawdust feelings on my tongue.
"I remember..." I think hard, my hands weakly clutching the duvet. "I remember trying to draw a judge in pictionary... and DoctorSister said it looked like Mum."
MindReader laughs. "Anything else?"
"And then I remember everything went really dizzy."
"Yes," MindReader says. "You said you thought you needed to go to bed."
"And then," Madfather says, jumping in delightedly, "I said you were going to be seeing hellicopters tonight."
He pauses.
"Because the room was spinning."
"I got that," I say.
"Well," MindReader says, gently, but still ever so sarcastic. "When I came upstairs..."
"... Yes," I say.
"You'd got your passport out for the hellicopter trip."
Labels: Dad, embarrassing, Home, MindReader
MindReader's little car smoking and puffing its way to Nottingham and finally breaking down right outside an RSPCA shelter thus keeping me entertained whilst he tended to the car.
It is Sister's Husband and MindReader smirking at each other as Doctor Sister and I discuss bath products in intense detail.
It is me, drunk on two mouthfuls of wine, playing pictionary whilst crying with laughter as nobody had any idea what I was drawing.
It is Norfolk, skipping with MadFather down country lanes as Doctor Sister shakes her head and MindReader raises his eyebrows. It is hiding from frisbees thrown on the beach, crouching behind MindReader as he and MadFather and Sister's Husband kicked a football around, walking off in search of ice creams for everyone, and a moment of solitude amongst the sandunes for myself.
It is a deer safari, feeding goats and chickens from the palm of my hand, MindReader and MadFather collectively not allowing me to buy another sheepskin rug.
It is a three course meal, the flow of wine and of conversation from the serious to the silly, MindReader's eyes catching mine shining with both affection for the silly moments, and understanding of the serious, of the obscure things I know that no one noticies.
Labels: Dad, Home, MindReader
"I've been reading your conversations with
DoctorSister on
Facebook,"
MadFather says proudly.
"I am ignoring the fact that you are on
Facebook," I say.
"Yes. Read all about how
MindReader beat you at scrabble and your angst about the doctor's."
"Oh right," I say.
"And about aqua
mirabilis and bathos."
I smile.
MindReader says bath products from Lush are mentioned a disproportionate amount in conversations between
DoctorSister and I.
"Yes, we love those," I say.
"So are they medical or legal terms then?"
Labels: Dad
"So, how was your week?" I say, cross-legged, my nose itching from my sunburn.
"Bit slow," Doctor-sister says. "GP land is a bit dull and there's only so much you can do on facebook, isn't there?"
I raise my eyebrows. I seem to waste entire days on facebook.
"Any interesting patients?" I say, always on the look out for new diseases.
"Had an interesting ECG," she says, tucking her thigh-length hair behind her ear. "I thought she had long-QT syndrome -"
"Pardon?"
She picks up a pen, drawing some spikes on an old envelope on MadFather's coffee table. "This bit here of the wave, between the Q and the T is often too long, which means you faint a lot. But she had a long bit between the P section and the R section, and there's a delta curve here," she says, underlining part of the wave.
"So she fell over?" I say.
"Yep, loads. It's a funky syndrome. I tried not to be too excited when I thought she had it."
"What happens then?"
"Well, usually, the sino-atrial node moves in and goes - yeahhh and releases loads of stuff at like 300 beats per minute. The atrium slows this to like 80 and sends stuff up the bundle of hiss and the Purkinje fibres, making a smiley face shape," she says, drawing wild shapes in the air. "Here, the timing's all wrong, so the atrium says 'go again' and the sino-atrial node says 'fuck off, i'm busy!' and they all have a massive fight in the atrium - like, a brawl - and you fall over."
She is standing, suddenly, and sits down again, smiling.
"So we sent her to the cardiologist," she says, as if this behaviour is perfectly normal.
"Billygean would you like a toasted sandwich?" MadFather's voice says behind my ear.
"I'm fine," I say, distractedly, not turning around.
"Are you sure?" he says slowly, and there is something in his tone that makes me look.
"Hi!" he says, waving manically. He is wearing a bright yellow reflective vest and a builder's hat.
I love coming home.
Labels: Dad, Home
"They're doing a 5km run at my new work," Mad Father says, sipping his celebratory
Billygean-is-not-thick-
after-all-and-I-have-a-new-job pint.
"Ooh, are you going to do it?" I say, remembering when I tried to jog to the post office and genuinely thought I had an
embolism.
"Maybe," he says. "It's to raise money for things like township in Africa and-"
"Township?" I say.
He looks at my face for a moment.
"Yes," he says. "So they can get to work and reduce their carbon footprint."
"Oh."
I am silent for a few moments, sipping my wine, thinking it through. You can, according to
MindReader, see the cogs.
"So, this boat..."
"Yes," he says, fiddling with a beer mat. "Basically it takes a load of people to work. Since it has a sail it works on wind power so it's better for the environment."
"What if the wind's blowing in the wrong direction?" I say.
"Well, then they use tacking," he says, demonstrating the
zig-
zag movement with the beer mat.
"Oh, I see. What about people who need to get to town, but don't live near the sea?"
"They're all on wheels, none of these are
waterboats. That's why they're called townships. They have
sandyachts in flat beaches in Britain so you can still use the boats when the
tide's really far out," he says.
"
Ohhh," I say. It all makes sense really. "Well, these townships are good then, aren't they? A good idea," I say, nodding wisely.
I have since
wikipedia'd township.
There will be words in the morning.
Labels: blonde moments, Dad, embarrassing, Home
"So it says in my contract that I need a better car," my Dad says.
"I know," I say, feeling smug. "I read the contract."
"Hm," he says. "Obviously I'm not just going to go and buy one so I bought these," he says, holding up some wheel covers.
"You're pimping it up then," I say.
"Yep. And this," he says, holding up a giant yellow mitt.
"Is that to distract them from your shitty car?"
"Yep, that's what it's for."
Labels: Dad
"Good morning," my Dad says, poking his head around my door. "How was your night?"
"Good," I say, stretching and taking the coffee from him. Honestly I have grown to
love being at home. "After I got in I tried, but couldn't sleep again so watched a film."
"Oh," he says pouting. "All on your own?"
"Yep," I say. "It felt
very grown up."
I have indeed reverted to being a child at home.
"Although," I say, sipping my coffee and trying to control my bed hair. "I didn't really watch the film because there was a spider on my chest halfway through."
"Which coin?" Dad says, for this is how we measure spiders.
"Only 5p but right on my pyjamas!"
He smiles at me somewhat disdainfully.
"So," I say, "I spent most of the film flapping around the living room. And then went to bed but woke up twice on the other side of the room, frantically brushing down where the spider had been."
"Yes," he says. "Very grown up."
Labels: Dad, Home
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I stand stock-still in the supermarket.
"Are those
real?" I say to my Dad, gesturing to the STUPIDLY FAKE carcasses in the STUPIDLY FAKE butchers.
My Dad smirks. But I do not see this. "Yep," he says.
"Wow."
I stare a bit more. The butcher catches my eye. He stares for a while. I eye him back.
It's been way too long now to look away.
"Don't worry love, these aren't real," he says, bashing one of the carcasses with his knife. It sounds reasonably plastic. It swings as he bashes it again.
"You
fuck," I hiss at my Dad.
I smile at the butcher politely. I then cease eye contact.
But it's too late. Dad has walked over. I reluctantly follow.
Butcher hands me the carcass. It is definitely plastic. And also
much smaller than a cow.
"Thanks for this," I say. Very red.
"Did you really think they were real?" Butcher says.
No.
Obviously I just felt like embarrassing myself because I don't do it OFTEN ENOUGH.
"I bet loads of people think they're real, don't they," my Dad says.
"Most of them aren't 22," I say, instantly regretting it.
Butcher stares at me. "I thought you were about 14," he says.
I huff.
Dad folds his arms.
I huff again and pick up some mince. Butcher wraps it for me.
"Don't worry," he says. "This is real."
Labels: blonde moments, Dad, embarrassing, Home
I stir the turkey (NOT CHICKEN) into the sauce.
I am at home now. Although still cooking, this is a less dangerous place for me to be. I will revise every day for 3 weeks and return to Birmingham not hungover or feeling guilty, with perfectly tidy notes and all the cases in my head.
Well, I can dream.
I walk over to the cupboard and try and locate rice amongst my Dad's stashes of cookies. There is no rice.
I walk upstairs where he is wiring my computer up.
"No rice," I say.
"Oh no there's definitely rice," he says, albeit vaguely.
We walk back downstairs and he pulls a beaten packet out of the back of a cupboard.
"Is beef rice ok?" he says.
I stare at the fragrant thai curry and back to the bright red beef flavoured rice.
"We can do beef rice," I say.
It's nice to be back with someone exactly like me.
Labels: Dad
I am in the bath. On the phone, as usual.
"So I found a condom under my bed," my Dad says.
I gasp
slightly. How does one respond to this?
"Oh, really," I say.
"Yep. It's either yours or Suzanne's."
"
Ohh, right." Not blushing. Not blushing.
"Suzanne thought it was mine!" he says.
I laugh. "Was she there at the discovery too then?"
"No." My Dad pauses, which is when you know something completely inappropriate and usually untrue is coming. "I posted it to her."
*click*.
Labels: Dad
"So I have to give the College of Law £350 for my LPC," I say to my Dad.
"Don't Law Firm do that?"
"They say they'll reimburse me. They are paying the £11,000, I don't want to push."
"Ah."
"And I don't want to say I've spent their grant on pretty dresses and am almost at my overdraft."
"Aaah," he says. "Don't worry, I will transfer you the money."
"Are you sure? I'll transfer it back when they reimburse me."
My Dad sighs. "Can't you just go on the game?"
I pause.
"Thanks, I didn't have any blog material until now."
Labels: Dad
"And how's Dating Direct?" I say, resting my feet on the taps above the bubbles.
"Oh, I've resigned from that," my Dad says. He's such a diva.
"Why?"
"I've sent more winks than I've received."
I shake my head. Winks? It's bad when your father's more hip than you. And when that makes you use the word hip. "How many?"
"Sent six, received three."
"Right, what did they say?"
"One say, thanks for your message but I've met someone now, which is like a total blow-off."
"No it's not," I say. "Maybe she has er,
met someone. That is the idea of the site."
"I don't think so," my Dad says. "Anyway, the second said, look at my profile and see what you think."
"Without prompting? This is well good. You're in there. What's her name?"
"
Bev."
"
Bev. Not a great start."
"No. And she's not got a photo."
"Well," I say. "She might not have a digital camera. plenty of people
your age don't."
"
Tuh," he says. "Thanks. Anyway, she's put that she's slightly overweight. So that's a no-go."
"Dad! She is fifty! What do you want,
Claudia
Schiffer?"
"Actually Claudia's a bit on the dumpy side."
Labels: Dad
One of my Newcastle Unlces passes me the gravy.
"And how is, er..." he says. "The fella. I will remember, hold on,"
I open my mouth to say "Mike."
"George," my Dad says.
"Ah, George," Newcastle Uncle says.
"He's fine," my Dad says as I open my mouth again. "Got on a graduate engineering scheme."
"Jolly good," he says. "And will you see him for Christmas?"
"No, I say. And by the way it's-"
"Speaking of Christmas, what're you cooking for everyone?" Newcastle Uncle says, turning to my sister.
The conversation moves on. They all think I'm dating a George.
"I am putting you in a HOME" I hiss at my Dad across the table.
Labels: Dad
