To all our dads!

Here's to you Da... no one understood me much in my early 20s, they thought I was just plain mental, with all the funny faces and silly walks, till they met you and went "Aaaaah there it is!" I miss our language only you and I could speak during the really competitive family games of pontoon! My da almost died two years ago, he had massive surgeries and has been all clear for about a year now, and he's back hill walking and shooting and fishing again. We often have hellish rows but that's cause we're just so alike. Cheers Da, I'd text you today cept you'd get so confused you'd drop the phone down the toilet or something! My family never did celebrate mothers day or fathers day, mostly cause they ran a pharmacy and saw how commercial it is, but they like the acknowledgement anyway.

I wanted to share something I wrote for my blog when I was 20 years old (11 years ago)... I think I'll have to share it with my dad later if he remembers how to read his emails.


THINGS I LEARNED FROM MY FATHER

The best way to get yourself in trouble with my mother is to make a
series of funny faces.

The most deadly weapon known to man is a plastic bottle of tomato
ketchup.

The best musical instrument is a long cardboard tube. The best place
for making strange noises through the said cardboard tube is across the
whole valley from the front doorstep, in or around midnight.

"Going out to play with my little car" means: "going out to rev up,
speed away, break down five miles up the road and ring to be towed
home, in my little car".

If you let the dog sneeze on you, you'll get quabie-quabies.

An Assenbutter is a breed of German Labrador dog.

John Player untipped cigarettes made his hair fall out.

Icecream made his hair fall out.

2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner made his hair fall out.

The Zippo lighter my ex gave him for Christmas is not only good for
lighting cigars, but also small fires, and he's up on three accounts
of arsen as a result.*

He once had a daughter called Lulabelle, who wouldn't eat her dinner,
so he killed her and buried her in the flowerbed.**

"Hairy twine" is the most versatile material known to man.

It's fun to jump out from behind the car to surprise the horses.

It's even more fun to sing and dance around the house with a four
stone Labrador across your shoulders.

If your image-conscious teenage son brings home some friends, ask
each one in turn "Who's little boy are you?"

When your daughter brings her boyfriend home, threaten to dump him on
the side of the main road with a cardboard sign tied around his neck
reading "Take me to the bus please".

Never throw stones at your brother-in-law, even if he isn't looking.
If you get caught throwing stones at your brother-in-law, blame it on
your youngest son.

If a rented video tape gets eaten up by the machine, just cut out the
mangled piece and sellotape the ends back together. Similiarly, if
you happen to drop a television onto your daughter's boyfriend's
Playstation game, glue it back together and hope for the best.

Never turn your mobile phone off. He likes to ring just to make sure
you've got it switched on.

It's all fun and games to dress up in fur coats and balaclavas,
parading up and down the driveway and greatly upsetting the dogs -
until someone sets the dogs on you.***

If a small yappy dog barks at your car, roll down the window and bark
back.

Notes:
* My father isn't up on any accounts of arsen! Apart from the tree he
set fire to at twelve, but he never got caught for that.
** He never had a daughter called Lulabelle! In this day and age you
have to be careful - say that too often and we'll wake up one morning
to find the police excavating the flowerbeds.
*** I didn't set the dog on him, it was my brother. And luckily the
dog recognised him at last second, so he wasn't savaged.