Summer..?

So where exactly has summer gone?

Keep hearing promises from the weather boys and girls that the heat wave will return but then I remind myself there's a Bank Holiday just around the corner.

Good news for ducks I guess.

Dad

It’s almost twenty seven years since my father died. I swear that not a single day has gone by in all that time without me thinking of him. In a way, it’s like he haunts me. He was born in Malton, North Yorkshire in 1914 so if he had been alive today he would, of course, have been a very old man. And yet I still miss him.

When he died in 1979, the village church was absolutely packed for his funeral service. I tried to sing “The Lord’s My Shepherd” but my voice quavered with emotion, refusing to be reined in – so frustrating because I wanted to sing it out for him, clear and beautiful. Instead I heard this strange garbled version of the psalm emerging from my choked voice box.

He was a good man. He did so much for the local community – little unsung acts. He was a church warden. He was President of the cricket club. When there were national or local elections, he ran the polling station. He successfully campaigned both for a youth club for local kids and drove the campaign to buy land for a village playing field and sports club. He discovered that the village church had ignored the wishes of a nineteenth century landowner by selling fields that were intended to provide bursaries and scholarships for village children. He won the case and established an educational trust. As I say he was a good man.

I was the third of his four sons but towards the end we were like mates together. I know that he saw much of himself in me. We talked about injustice and books and people. He told me about his war years in India and about his teacher training in York in the nineteen thirties.

I was the last person in our family to see him alive. He was in hospital in Hull. He had already suffered a massive heart attack. He was heavily sedated and he stuck out his yellowed tongue, uncharacteristically requesting a double whisky. His eyes were like black pearls staring out at me. He was already not himself and the next morning he was gone.

Every day I think of him. He got us up in the morning. He put breakfast out for us. He took me to see my first Hull City match. I helped him to plant potatoes. He found me collapsed in a drugged up drunken stupor when I was seventeen. He gave me my first tie before I embarked on my first teaching practice. He gave me some simple rules for living that I will never forget.

It hurts that he never met my wife and children. It’s like a shadow in my life. He would have been the best granddad ever. He was my dad and I loved him dearly. I don’t even have a photograph of him to share with you. Instead, I give you the school badge of Malton Grammar School where he was boy.

Dolphins

I keep coming across this idea of things we ought to do before we die. In newspapers, I sometimes see stories about kids with terminal conditions being flown to Florida to either visit Disneyworld or to swim with dolphins. Swim with dolphins? I'd rather eat them with a rocket salad and sauted potatoes. Here's a typical "Ten things to do before I die" list, followed by my own alternative list:-

1. Stand on at least one mountaintop, even if you have to take the lift to get there.
2. Swim in at least one river, one lake, and one ocean.
3. Plant, grow, and use your own herb or vegetable garden.
4. Go camping in the real wilderness, away from other people and plumbing.
5. Travel somewhere far away by plane, train, and automobile. And boat. And bicycle.
6. Visit a country where you don't speak the language. Then eat something you've never heard of.
7. Eat a country dinner somewhere in Tuscany, preferrably prepared by an Italian grandma.
8. Drink fresh sangria on the riverside in Seville, preferably under the orange trees in bloom.
9. Walk along the beach, watching the sunset. And when the sun has set, enjoy how different the beach is at night as you walk home.
10. Learn how to say hello, thank you, and you're welcome in as many languages as you can. Then talk to foreigners when you see them!

My List:-
1. Clear out my drawers of socks and underpants I never wear.
2. Get rid of that damned "Virus Alert!" pop up box that keeps spoiling our visits to this computer.
3. Make a rear window car sticker that reads "Cheese on Board" (Not "Baby On Board"!)
4. Get the car professionally valeted.
5. Buy a pogo stick for adults to bounce on - mainly me.
6. Write "I Still Love Janice" in big white letters on the motorway bridge that connects the M18 with the M1.
7. Learn to do one of those high pitched whistles that involve thumb, finger and pushed back tongue.
8. Make a tray of homemade sausage rolls.
9. Learn to fasten shoelaces properly instead of making cumbersome rabbits' ears and crossing them over.
10 Get even with Brad the Gorilla and Reidski through devious plots that crush inflated self-esteem.