June 2008 Archives

MY ELDEST lad wanted a new pair of jeans at the weekend so naturally I was treated to around two hours of charm, which included tea making and general compliments.

When we went to look at the items in question they were black and seemingly made of cardboard...in fact, like the kind of jeans that I used to wear as a kid that stood up on their own.

Just one difference - the price tag of £60.

We decided against the purchase, largely because I refused to spend that amount of money on jeans that always seem to end up halfway down his backside, with his (designer) boxers showing.

God I feel old!

I DON'T know whether it's me getting older but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to get across the difference between right and wrong to my children.

It was hammered home to me when my two lads started quizzing me about the city council's ludicrous fining of honest law abiding citizens for the heinous crime of leaving their bin bags out too early.

MY older, wiser colleagues at work warned me it would happen.

When your children get to a certain age, your beer starts to disappear.

Sadly that time is now upon me.

BREAKFAST in bed, a bar of my favourite chocolate, the Coldplay CD and rare little kindnesses being shown to me all day...I wish every day was Father's Day.

Whenever a deliberate wind up began - something my three are experts at - one of them would remind the others 'not today., it's dad's day...leave him'.

It was as if an amnesty had been declared on baiting me and sending my blood pressure soaring.

I DROVE hell for leather deep into rural Warwickshire to watch Nick skipper his school cricket team on Wednesday night...and I might as well not have bothered.

ALEX, my 12-year-old lad, has always been the quietest of the children.

Unlike the eldest his attitude is that he doesn't feel the need to shout out loud unless he's got something worth saying.

He's cool, self contained, single minded and obsessed by his football...but because we hear little about school we automatically fear the worst.

STRANGE goings on Chez Bad Dad this week.

No pants have been left on the landing, T-shirts have stayed in their alloted drawers and we've had no arguments.

He's only been back from a week's holiday a couple of days and the eldest is off again, this time to the landing beaches of Normandy on a five day French trip.

"But Nick, you're dropping French for Italian," I moaned as I contemplated what I could have bought with the £150 it cost me to send him.

By my reckoning that's quite a few curries and beers.

He assured me the trip will be of great historical interest, but one little pledge the school made us make before he left keeps gnawing away at me.

We emerged bleary eyed from A&E at 2.30am after nurses armed with suction tubes managed to retrieve the item from Jess's lughole.

Memo to blog readers:
If you ever find yourself with an itchy ear after swimming, please refrain from alleviating the problem with the end of a plastic toothed hair brush.

And if you should scratch the itch in that way, try to mention it with a little more advance notice before a foreign holiday than just eight hours.

JUST back from a week's holiday abroad with all the usual rows, arguments over who packed what (or didn't), bickering on the plane and squabbles over spending money for the kids.

Through customs at Gatwick at midnight and got home shortly before 2am absolutely exhausted.

More tired than when I left, emotionally drained and still waiting for a 'thanks for the holiday dad'.

Why do we bother?