Fatherless Day

Today is Father’s Day. Normally a day for celebration and much eating of rich food in this house. Indeed, I would normally go and bake a soda bread, or perhaps some scones.

Not today. The reason is simple – work.

My dad doesn’t get a chance to do overtime all that often. In fact, it hardly ever happens. But finances are so tight in this house that when he does, he grabs the opportunity.

So, instead of this morning being a nice relaxing family gathering, with the gifting of cards and – for this year, anyway – some very good presents, instead the whole thing will have to be delayed till this evening.

Bit of a shame really – though I suppose I am fortunate that my dad will still be here anyway. Others, for whatever reason, have nothing to celebrate today.

Father’s Day is much lower in our society’s priorities. You can say what you like about anti-female sexism of the past, but, let’s face it, the Christian calendar on which Britain’s secular society is mostly based only has room for a Mothering Sunday, but not a male equivalent. We only invented Father’s day to bring in a bit of balance, but mostly to make some money for the greetings card business.

I also know this having worked in a card shop. Mother’s Day was almost as big as Christmas. Father’s Day was about half the size. That’s quite some signficant gap.

Is it because fathers are just objectively not as good as mothers? Or is it because there are fewer fathers worth praising? Knowing my dad, and knowing what a good one he is, I’d have to reject the former. But I think the latter must definitely be true. We hear so many stories about absent fathers that it feeds into a certain sense that not everyone has a dad worth bothering over.

Meanwhile, my dad is toiling away this morning in work, trying to earn our family some more money. Money that just gets spent on clothes, food, etc. He finds that extremely disheartening, when he looks at his online banking only to see the money just draining away. Occasionally he gets to put £50 in his savings account. Otherwise, it’s like a huge hole at the bottom of the bucket. Not so much a drip-drip, but a floody-floody.

But I appreciate it. One day I may even be able to earn enough money to contribute to living here (how many times have I said that?) so that he doesn’t feel the pinch so much. That would mean a lot, I know. It might also alleviate my guilty, scrounging conscience.

He does a lot for us, and asks for almost nothing in return. I don’t yet think my brothers and sister realise it. In truth, it’s one of those things I think you only come to appreciate by living away from home for a while; when you begin to appreciate the task of how to run an independent existence.

I’ll just have to make up for the lack of baking this morning by making some muffins later. I suspect he’ll enjoy that.

Thanks, Dad.

What A Difference A Friend Makes

I post this morning from the living room of my friend’s flat in Hull. On Monday I got an excited text from him, and others, asking if I’d be available for a visit this weekend. I haven’t seen him or any of my remaining friends in Hull for almost a year.

That has now been corrected, of course. I arrived here on Friday after an extremely long National Express coach journey, something that I will be repeating early this afternoon. It’s been a very good weekend, full of banter and getting back up to speed. Because, no matter what the internet offers in terms of keeping in touch with people, it just can’t compare to talking face-to-face.

On Saturday we wandered around Beverley market, something which I’d actually never done properly before. It was excellent, and I’m really envious. The variety of wonderful food on offer was just fantastic. Where else in the country will you find a shop dedicated to the baking and selling of scones? The smell when I got in there was just heaven, and the bewildering choice, from orange and lemon to ginger spice had to be experienced to be believed. And as someone who has baked many scones in the past but never achieved anything as wonderfully light and sweet as the scone I ate from there, I was even more jealous than before. I wish I had a way of bringing some home as my dad would have loved it. They just wouldn’t be the same though; the one I ate had just come out the oven. Even better.

So the market was explored and then we moved on to one of the many local pubs to play some pool. That was a success, especially because I actually won a game. I also felt like I was improving too. I need to remember to play with a longer bridge – it seems to improve my game.

Then we went out for a meal in an Indian restaurant. That is somewhat traditional now between my friends and I as we are all great fans of the food. That was also excellent, if a little too filling. I still feel stuffed this morning. But that’s why I love Indian restaurants. You always get enough food to eat, and the price you pay is similar if not cheaper than any other restaurant.

Overall though, the big lesson to me from this trip has been that I’ve dearly missed having friends around. My life would be so much better with them. There’d be more things to do and people to share it with. It’s made me seriously consider moving back here. I never thought I’d say that about Hull, that’s for sure.

I have to get my life in order. If I can get my PC sales business to take off, then realistically I can live anywhere in the UK. It wouldn’t matter as I’d be doing everything through the internet. I need a break, somehow. I just wish I knew what would do the trick – cos I’d be prepared to spend good money to achieve it.

Mother’s Day

When you look closely at a word, it tends to seem more and more ridiculous the more you pay attention to it. “Mother” is  a fine specimen of this genre. It looks stupid. Maybe because it contains a flying insect. And maybe because the addition of “er” at the end of “moth” somehow changes the pronunciation of the O vowel. English is weird.

Of course, the purpose of this post wasn’t to criticise the English language, but to stop for a moment and pay a little tribute to my own mother. Here in England, yesterday was Mothering Sunday. But since we’re not religious any more, we know it as Mother’s Day. We haven’t yet got to “Mum’s Day”, and maybe we never will… perhaps it’s a step too far.

So we tried our best to make sure the day was as good as it could be. There were presents, and much celebration, and I baked a celebratory huge sodabread. It was gigantic. I never intended it to be so huge, but it was… and it was perfect. I tell you, there’s no finer way to start a Sunday than to come down to the smell of bread baking in the oven and fresh coffee being made in the coffee machine. We were able to treat my mum to that yesterday.

Sadly, though, there was a little disappointment, as I realised that the presents I bought for my mum were an extraordinary rip off. I was foolish to think that this was more than just a thin face cloth. Somehow I misread it and thought it actually smelled of strawberries too. I wouldn’t have bothered paying so much – I could have bought a pink flannel down the market for a fraction of the price. And then there was the box of pink hearts… I thought they’d be bigger than they were. The picture makes them look huge. Don’t be fooled.

So mother’s day cost me nearly £15, and there wasn’t a single decent present off me. I felt rather bad, so I think I’ll go and buy a bottle of wine or something to make it up. But not today, it’s too windy…

Anyway – so my mum got lots of nice presents (except mine) and lots of attention. She seemed pretty happy. She then went out for a meal with her mum while we sorted the house out. I did all the washing, lots of cleaning and even ironed the school uniforms for my brother and sister. She was very happy with that one.

I’m sometimes a bit too impatient with my mum. She’s a little slow at times… and it gets me frustrated. But I do love her. She’s kind and patient, warm-hearted and caring. And, to be frank, she’s gone through a lot of shit in the past 30 odd years bringing up her five children, and coping with the stress of becoming a grandmother at the age of 36 (courtesy of my elder sister). And, the thing is, it doesn’t seem to be getting any easier as the years go by.

That’s why I do my best to help out around here, because she needs it. I often wonder that if I moved out this house would go to rack and ruin. One day I will have to move out… it’s just too cramped here.

But for now, I will carry on honouring and loving my mother in the best way I can. Thanks for everything, Mum.

Simmering

Life has taken on such a rather intriguing state at the moment that I think “simmering” is the best word to describe it. It’s that state of being gently on the go… but at any moment the right sort of pressure will turn that into major action.

If only. I keep getting little jobs for work, helping fix computers here and there, but nothing major. Yet, I sense that there is a breakthrough just around the corner. Maybe this is more hope than expectation, but I really think that now I actually have a computer to sell, and a business model revolving around shifting cheap computers, we might actually be getting somewhere. The test now is to see whether Google Adwords really works…

Meanwhile, the football season draws to a close. It’s not been a good year for my youth team, they haven’t won a match yet. They’ve drawn a few, but they just don’t seem to have the bottle to see them out and get the win that they deserve. It’s not that they’re rubbish, well there are a few who are, but I think it’s been so long since they won that they just don’t know how to any more.

But this season has been useful for me. It’s given me a number of ideas for how we can go forward. And now I’m at the helm of this humble organisation, I intend to make a lot of changes to make it bigger. So there are some exciting times ahead. We just have to get around the sheer incompetence of the FA first, who have deleted my dad’s record from the club systems because they thought he was the same person as me. Thanks for that. And now their system has been broken for over a week.

So that one’s simmering along too. At any moment, it could burst into life.

Oh, if only it would. If only I had lots and lots to do. But then again, I’m not sure having lots to do on the youth football is necessarily a good thing. After all, it doesn’t pay me anything. In fact, if I were to use my A-Level business studies for once, I could even say that it has an opportunity cost in terms of the time I no longer have to pursue my business interests.

Not that there’s much to do right now. But, oh, there could be!

There’s even talk that one of my former customers wants me to get involved with his business idea. Well, they always say to have a number of irons in the fire. I could well do that too. I have the time for it. After all, these days I get up early every day, around 6:30am… and the mornings seem to drag if there’s nothing to do.

But if there’s nothing to do, I generally find something. And, in the theme of the subject of this post, it is almost always cooking of some kind. Yesterday, I baked a so called healthy flapjack. Healthy meaning no butter/margarine, no syrup and low sugar. I used two bananas and raisins, skimmed milk and an egg to stick it all together. And it tastes pretty good actually – very much like one of those breakfast cereal bars. Or like a Tracker. I haven’t had one of those for years.

My talent really does have no end…

Let Them Eat Cake

Since Christmas I have really taken to the idea of baking cakes and various unhealthy items. This has been something of a surprise for me in truth because I normally have an allergic reaction to making food from scratch.

But it seems that with the passage of time I’ve realised just how simple it is. My latest creation was the easiest and yet the best thing I’ve ever made, a microwave golden syrup sponge with custard. Oh yeah. The family enjoyed it, most of all my dad who, despite being very thin, likes anything cakey, biscuity, chocolately, etc. Must be where I get my sweet tooth from. My dad won’t have a cup of tea unless there is something sweet to go with it. Weird.

I don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to make any use out of it. I could, maybe, use these recipes in school when I’m a teacher. But then again, that’s probably unlikely given the outrageously packed national curriculum, which generally regulates every minute of a teacher’s professional life. Hmm. Maybe I’ll have a think about that one.

Meanwhile, my mum is back from her working holiday. It was very interesting to compare notes with her from the time I worked in a summer camp in the USA. She was one of the seven staff there to oversee the school Year 8 holiday to Barcelona so she had a similar experience to me in terms of dealing with homesickness and keeping children entertained. Though they had it easy because there was an itinerary all planned for them. I had to make it up as I went along!

While we talked about this I did feel like I’d missed out again. Really, I should have been back in the USA again this summer. Though this is not yet 100% regret. Maybe by the time this holiday is over I will feel I could have used it much more effectively. To be honest, I would say that is very likely. Right now, I’m not doing enough to justify taking the safe option of staying here.

Naturally, too, there was one other thing that I’d missed out on.

Cake. And food in general. Because out in the USA they looked after us staff extremely well. Lots of food, and lots of dessert. Oh yeah. I put a whole four kilograms on while I was out there. And all that while I was hiking mountains virtually every other day. Perhaps I did overeat a bit. Then again, having M&M thick pancakes (not like the crappy thin British pancakes) for breakfast as well as cereal every day, it wasn’t exactly difficult to overeat.

Anyway, enough reminiscince. I missed out. My fault. I have to make this time here count for something. I’ve not yet worked out what I should do with it. I thought I’d have a job by now, but the good news has not yet arrived from my Contact Who Often Provides Work. If I earned a fair old stack of money then I could feel like I hadn’t wasted this opportunity of lots of free time.

Perhaps I need to get my thinking cap on and see if I can do something more productive with this long summer, probably the last one I’ll ever have.