Dad day

Today was our parents wedding anniversary, 4th July.

The day I lost my independence, father would say, every year, without exception. It was also the day he died. Awkward, they had always really celebrated their anniversary in style. So much so that Cornflake and I chose this time of year to get married so we could join in the fun.

He would possibly have enjoyed that the pubs have reopened after lockdown on this day, he liked a good country pub, they were our family entertainment. Then again he did a lot of his drinking at home, home brew. It was potent. It and our father had a shared reputation.

He served it mostly in his shed and I’ve seen some terribly messed up people stumbling out of there, lying on the log pile like it was a feather bed, or asking who’d put them in the gutter while friends propped them up against a corner of the house, or crawling back up the garden asking for another after they had left once already.

If someone expressed the opinion that the drink was not to their taste, he’d say, the second is always better….

Many times when required to give my name in my home town, people would ask if I was any relation to my dad. Yes, I’d say, how do you know him? The answer was usually that, they/their dad/brother/other close relative/boss, had come to the house to, deliver something/fix something/collect something/sell something, had been offered a glass of, beer/elderberry wine/elderflower champagne (my arse) and had left several hours later pissed and got into trouble with the Mrs. Without fail, they laughed as they told the story.

So on the anniversary of his marriage and his death, here’s to the spirit of Mr T and his shed life.

It would be difficult to find a libation quite ghastly enough to recreate the full ambience of dad’s shed, so perhaps I’ll go have a cider and a pasty in the park instead, another favourite pass time of his.

Happy Dad day Frenchie.