You may have woken up to instagram pics this morning, (#fathersday) of smiling, tearful dads, opening parcels of socks and slippers or craft beer if they have Hipster leanings. Here in the Sour Towers residence, we don’t much go in for Hallmark holidays. ‘I don’t buy into that bullshit’, I have been heard to utter. Last year, LSB was tasked with erecting some Ikea furniture, and a spot of light hoovering. There is photographic evidence to prove it.
The school, has however, indoctrinated the little ones well, and they have been beavering away making cards all week. Their granddad has obviously heard about my lack of diligence in this area, and when he came to babysit last night he came armed with sweets they could give, as a token of their appreciation.
Alas, this show of devotion for their dad was sadly misplaced at 6.55 this morning. I had been at a 40th on the Belfast Barge, where I’d danced the legs clean off myself, and LSB had been partying away at the Liam Gallagher concert in the park. Neither of us was happy at the early wake-up call. In they came, over and over again. I tried to block it out, but it’s hard when a small child doesn’t quite whisper in your ear, ‘I’m giving dad a computer game. And JELLY TOTS!!’ Their enthusiasm is touching, as is their ingenuity, but not prior to seven am on a Sunday morning, FFS.
When I finally made it down the stairs to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, I saw evidence of gift-giving. They had rifled through LSB’s belongings and parcelled them up with a handful of Maltesers and two Mars bars. The floor was littered with the wrapping paper I had squirreled away to reuse, covered in stickers. The ‘porridge’ was a hefty amount of oats with milk slopped in. It had clearly been sitting for at least an hour. I scraped it into the compost bin when they weren’t looking. LSB got the Dyson out to vacuum up the trail of oats on the floor. When he envisioned getting his oats this weekend, I don’t think that’s what he had in mind.
But we then hoover and tidy and cook lunch. My friend Alison has taken the girls to a birthday party in Funtasic, so we have the house to ourselves. LSB finds an alternative love songs list on Spotify, and wiping down surfaces while listening to The Guillemots and The XX is quite nice. I’m actually not quite sure how anyone copes without an Alison, or a Brenda, for that matter, in their lives. I’m quite sure that without the pair of them I’d be institutionalised by now.
My own dad didn’t fare much better when it came to the celebrations. They came up to go for lunch in Sakura on Botanic yesterday, which was less than relaxing as my pair of menaces frolicked on the spiral staircase and hashed with their food, when it was they who had requested the sushi bar in the first place. Since it was a birthday/father’s day outing, poor dad ended up forcing money into our hands, then came home and tidied my garden.
The Mothership didn’t get off lightly either. She wandered from room to room, aghast. ‘This is terrible, terrible,’ she said, shaking her head as she registered the state of chassis in which we exist. ‘Are you not ashamed to have people in?’ She took one look at my toilet and said, ‘I’m speechless.’ ‘No mother dear,’ I said. ‘You’re not. My mother, is rarely speechless. Off she went to get the bleach. The house, since I cleaned out my resources in work (blog post on the career change to follow) and organised the fashion stall in school, has seen a sudden accumulation of ‘stuff’. Chaos breeds chaos, and in truth, I know not how to impose order on the situation. Instead of dealing with it, I go for a run, or try to write or chat to a friend over coffee. But with my mum’s dark mutterings in my ear, I set to, and together we ironed and folded and then drank some tea.
As weekends go, this one has been a cracker. Perhaps all this Fathers’ Day BS has a point. Anything which makes you feel grateful or appreciative of all the good people in your life can’t be a bad thing. So a massive thank you to all those who bring sunshine to a Sour Wee Bastard, (especially, for the day that’s in it, to himself.)
