My Dad





Its Father's day in the UK this weekend; another commercialised celebration giving everyone the opportunity to consume goods they dont need and feed those materialistic desires cultivated by the media. Yep, as far as i'm concerned Father's day is up their along with Easter, Christmas, Halloween and Valentine's day in the top ten of marketing marvels, and it seems that each year theres another new 'day' to add to the list.



My Dad (much to his disappointment but probably not to his surprise) will not be getting a gift from me but I want to take this opportunity to let him know just how much he means to me and that frankly a new fangled fishing knife, a book or CD would be a pretty poor show of my appreciation.



Many of my traits I can trace back to my father; my passion for reading, my love of the Rolling Stones and my basic knowledge of plumbing and central heating systems. And for each similarity between us there is a difference; Marmite for starters, I dont have a watch, shoe or trailer fetish and if I go to the rubbish dump I come back empty handed. And as I get older I notice a few more of my Father's traits in myself; I run around turning the lights out, tidy up before the cleaning lady comes and look for the yellow discounted stickers in the supermarket.



Behaving more like my father doesn't scare me - quite the opposite in fact. He is someone I'm incredibly proud of and have enormous respect for. Although we've had our differences, looking back on my childhood and youth I cannot fault him, quite the opposite in fact. Right from the word go my dad chose a path that many other fathers would have shied away from and he stuck with that path through some pretty shitty circumstances.



Today despite being geographically distance I think we're probably closer than ever. Its ironic though as when I was younger he and Yvonne didn't always have much spare time (they were busy working hard to provide for me & Hayden), yet now their retired and its me that's working my arse off with little time to play. Although Hayden maybe jealous of my lifestyle I'm jealous that as he lives just around the corner from Dad & Yvonne and therefore gets to hang out with them much more often than I do.



I find it hard to show my emotions and therefore hard to tell my Dad face to face just how much he means to me. If a plasma TV, Bang & Oulfsen stereo, swanky watch or shiny new trailer would cut it then I'd be having them gift wrapped as I type but as I said, they wouldn't even come close. So Dad, don't be surprised and please don't be disappointed this weekend. Just know that I love you very very much.




xxx