Look what I found.

I found these when I was printing out my blog so far.....

Monday, June 20, 2005

( * I highlighted this part because goodness me, how could I ever have known that this was to be his last fathers day with us?)

A good father.

Fathers' day. *I wonder why I haven't given to much thought to whether it ought to be a great day before. I somehow have always felt that fathers' day exists purely because there is a mothers' day..not because we ought to think particularly about Fathers but today I find I am thinking.*
I have a really, really GOOD father, he is a good man and he is a great father. I am told that he and mum consciously decided that for them, family and children would be their treasure and they would forego financial and material wealth in order to obtain eternal and lasting wealth in a family.
My dad is incredibly clever, he knows Math, he doesn't know how to teach it because for him it just IS. He looks at any math problem and knows what the answer is, he and his dad used to ( for fun) list rows and rows and figures in £'s shillings and pence and then race to see who would win in adding them up. No carrying numbers over in columns and then converting the pence into shillings and then into pounds for these 2, just whizzing down the page doing it in their heads. ( oooh fun!)
He can fix stuff and make stuff and would ( given the chance) organise all of our finances so that we never had a moments worry ( or fun perhaps, but that all comes with being so clever I have noticed)
He is probably the most loyal and loving man I have known and we 5 children grew up without even knowing that men could be philanderers or abusers, we hadn't a clue that some men went to pubs or gambled.( I wonder if it wasn't coincidence that all 3 of his girls married men so unlike him and were all stunned and sad to discover the hard way that not all men are good ones? Lesson learned, all 3 of us are now married to men very like him in many ways! ) Dad's were workers and they came home for dinner and were there. Whenever he was needed, he was there.
I went away with my dad when I was 7, I wore green slacks and a handknitted jumper and wore slightly worn pumps. We had a veritable treat store of mint yo-yo biscuits and bananas and I slept in the cab of the truck while he drove it from Newton abbot to Wales to deliver someone's furniture. It never occurred to me that a bank assistant manager wouldn't normally be delivering furniture, he was doing it to earn money for his treasure I suppose.
There was enormous jealously on the part of my siblings that I was to go on this adventure but to my dad I was the only one who could accompany him. As I grew up he used to do audits for the church, travel around our part of the country tallying up funds etc every sunday morning and he would leave at the crack of dawn. I so adored my daddy that the thought of him doing this on his own every week was intolerable, I was a worrier when I was little too and I somehow imagined that he would come to some kind of horrible accident and he would be all on his own, so every week I crawled out of my bed and went with him. I wonder if the other kids knew that on saturday dad would buy and hide sweets ( blackcurrant liquorice mmmmmm) in the glove box and he and I would eat them and we never shared them with anyone who preferred staying in bed to travelling with us. So, it was, of course, going to be me who went on the big adventure to Wales and to this day, 38 years later I can still recall the smallest of details on that trip and can feel that feeling of both exilleration and absolute love with my dad.
My dad isn't a demonstrative man and hugging, I think, is painful to him, partly, I imagine, due to being raised in a home where it was thought nonsense and perhaps boarding school didn't help. He doesn't talk about his childhood at all, I can't think much about anything much he has told us, his mum was older when she married her beloved Wilfred and she had her first son Barry, followed by my dad and I have no idea how or why my dad is as great as he is but hooray for the unexplained in this case.
It is said that the greatest thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother. How true this is......no memories of grand presents at christmas or designer clothes as we grew up could ever have come close to the memories of my dad writing " I love Peg" on the steamed up kitchen window and the friday night ritual of him bringing home a fish and chip supper on friday nights while other men were at the pub.
You can't beat a good Father...and mine is a gloriously grumpy, blissfully brusk, hug enduring man of such integrity that it would be hard to find a better one. Happy fathers day dad. I love you and I know you love me. Helen.

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Three score years and ten.

My dad is, has.
He is 70 years old today. It's a bit of a shock that my dad is 70...he still works part time for a garage that repairs body work on cars ..he drives the courtsey car to the customers and picks up their bashed in car. He still runs around after people who need him and is endlessly engaged in good works.
He still thinks he has to look after all of his children even though almost all of us now have grey hair....you would imagine that if your kid has grey hair you'd be safe in assuming that even if they aren't capable of getting things right they are more than old enough to live with the screw ups wouldn't you?
He is sort of impressed with my e.baying habits but is still a bit convinced that somehow it's all a bit dodgy and somewhere amongst the glorious fun and bargainess of on-line auctions there must be a catch or 12 ...so he settles for being impressed with my dealings and very, very occassionally when a thing is just too good to miss ( like the miraculous leg cream that will banish all cramps) he will call me and I'll bid for him.
He will do anything for his children, he perhaps won't be cheerful while he is doing it and he may even grumble after he has done it, but he'll do it because he loves us.
He loves my mum and we all know it, but he finds it incredibly hard to believe she knows what she is talking about. He knows when she is tired so much better than she does and has been known to stand up, turn off all the lights and tell her she needs to go to bed.
Funny how he knows when she is tired, even when she thinks she isn't, knows when she needs a doctor, ( or miraculous leg cramp cream) even if she thinks she doesn't, yet hasn't, after 47 ( or is it 48?) years of marriage learned that she is a bit feisty and gets really fed up when he tells her how she feels......
I think that part of why I married H is because he is so like my dad. If you can learn to accept and then live with, the fact that romance just isn't part of the deal, sweet and tender murmerings are only going to happen if you watch the Hallmark channel and turn the volume up at the slushy bits, accept that those off the cuff comments are more likely to make you want to choke him than make you choked with emotion ( such as saying "has someone been stripping paint? Why can I smell paint stripper?" when actually everyone else could smell delicious beef stew!! or " who's had the fly spray out?" after mum had just put on perfume) know that you can walk around in a bin bag and he won't notice ( or care)... then men like these are the ones to marry because they are so loyal and love their families with every ounce of their being ( they just have no idea how to say it!!) You can be sure they will be with you through thick and thin and everything they do will be because they think it is best for you. ( note I don't say because it is best for you, only that they think it is best for you!)
He tells us when our car needs taxing, our cars have round tax discs stuck in the front windshield as visible evidence that we have paid our dues... while I was taking the boys into school one day he noticed that my tax disc was a year out of date ( actually, in my idleness I had just put the new on in front of the old one. One of the boys had just switched them around when I wasn't looking!) When I went back to collect the car, his brother was outside, pointed the disc out and I switched them over and left..you have to drive around the block to get back to my road and when I turned the corner..there he was, in the MIDDLE of the road, gesticulating wildly..of course I knew what he wanted and rolled down the window, scarecely slowing down I yelled out the window " It's OK one of the buggers swapped it!" and drove by. I still snigger when I try to imagine what that must have looked like ( some mad old fart with road rage yelling and waving at a seemingly impatient woman intent on hit and run)
Anyway dad, happy birthday.
Three score years and ten...not sure what it means when you hit that landmark, is this counted as bonus time from here on in?
Thankyou for the ability you have to cheer me up....every time I get down thinking about my grey hair I think of you and tell myself that it could be worse because at least I don't have CHILDREN with grey hair!