It is Fathers’ Day.
That is to say, it was Father’s Day when I wrote those words, by the time you are reading them it will not be Fathers’ Day any longer.
We did not realise at all that it was Fathers’ Day until I switched on my computer as I was going out to work tonight, and discovered some mildly embarrassing photographs and affectionate messages for Mark from Number One Daughter. The other daughters had all sensibly saved themselves some faffing about by agreeing with her, which is one of the very useful things that you can do with Facebook. Number Two Daughter said that it was very tiresome of Number Three Daughter, the lodger, who can normally be relied upon to remember such events and save everybody else the bother, but we just took it as a signal that she has settled in nicely enough to behave like all the rest of them.
The general niceness of it all made Mark a bit tearful, anyway, which is one of the endearing things about him. No matter how rascally and irritating our large collection of daughters might be, he still thinks that they are all lovely.
Therefore, despite its lateness, I would like to take the opportunity to wish my own father a happy day for yesterday because he does not do Facebook, and also has never become drunk on camera with his daughters. He does not celebrate Fathers’ Day, because he says that it is an invention of card manufacturers to encourage you to share your money with them. This nobility is a definite pecuniary advantage, and is one of the things I wholeheartedly admire about his parenting choices.
On the whole I think that he has done a jolly good job of being a parent. It would perhaps have been a bit better if he had brought me up to be wealthier, and some thinner genes would have been appreciated, but apart from that I think I can safely say that he has been a fine example of the species. Over the years he has helped me out of any number of otherwise appalling disasters, mostly without very much complaint, and usually at some considerable inconvenience to himself and my mother.
Have a happy day yesterday, Dad, and please note that I am very grateful indeed for your eternal patience and support. Happy Fathers’ Day.
I was not sorry that we are not the sort of family that goes in for cheery Fathers’ Day celebrations, because somehow I seem to have been in a terribly grumpy frame of mind today.
I think that this might, in part, have been being caused by a lack of sleep. This does tend to make me see the world through a veil of black-heartedness, and we have become a bit overtired lately.
So much so that when we finally stirred this morning, encouraged by some uncomfortably full dogs, we realised that it was not in fact, morning, but half past one in the afternoon.
By the time we had drunk coffee and emptied the dogs and tidied up the debris from the previous night, it was almost four o’ clock, and too late to start on any meaningful activity, so we didn’t.
We tidied up the garden a bit, which actually meant putting Number Two Daughter’s canoes into the shed. It is a very small garden, and two massive canoes could not have been described as inconspicuous. Mark shoved them into the woodshed, and I cleared up the debris from the heavy rains last week, after which it was time to go to work.
I thought quite hard about the grumpy feeling. I do not like being out-of sorts, and so spent the rest of the evening trying to ease myself into cheerfulness again.
I am trying very hard to cultivate a state of mind in which I do not wish to growl at people for the misfortune of being either incompetent drivers or drunken idiots or in possession of poorly-thought-through political opinions.
I had one of the latter in the taxi last night.
He was going for miles and miles, had been drinking just enough to be belligerent, and believed that we were having a debate.
The debate was roughly of a standard that you might expect if you were trying to explain the British legal system to a chimpanzee.
All the same, I thought wistfully afterwards, that it would make my life much better if I could listen to people like that, sigh gently and accept that it Takes All Sorts to make a rich and vibrant world.
I did not feel like that at all. Actually I had to bite my tongue in order not to make some very insulting remarks, and then spent the return journey thinking of more, and wittier, insulting remarks that I could have included.
My drug book has been telling me about how pharmaceuticals can be employed to make us into kinder and nicer people, and points out, sensibly, that this might be a more economical activity than putting one another in prison. I have concluded that if I could be made into a nice person by eating drugs, then presumably also I ought to be able to become a nicer person by trying to think better thoughts.
So far I have not been terribly successful.
I tried very hard to think tranquil and accepting thoughts about the person last night, who, presumably in a state of advanced intoxication, emptied all of the village litter bins all over the pavements. I imagine it was the same person who stole the large pot plants from outside the cafe and reassembled them in the middle of the road.
I tried to feel gently amused and tolerant, and also to understand that some people have got some very difficult Issues corrupting their sanity, but I am sorry to say that I failed completely. If they had got into my taxi I would have taken them straight to the police station and then called our twerp of an MP and asked for the immediate reintroduction of capital punishment.
This is not the road to contented joyfulness.
I am going to go to bed now, and try and catch up on a bit more sleep, to see if it helps.
If I can manage just another few hours, maybe by tomorrow I will be feeling like Pollyanna again.
I do not at all like being grumpy.
