I was gigging in Bristol yesterday, so spent the night at my folks. Which in turn meant I got to stay for Sunday lunch on the weekend when the British Summer finally turned up. So we ate outside, dad cleverly adding his decorating table to the end of the garden furniture to create an eating surface that all the family could sit around. Though admittedly the decorating table was a bit wobbly and so all my gravy ran to one end of my plate. But by constantly turning the plate I was able to ensure blanket gravy coverage at least for the stuff around the circumference.
My amazing mother (who only bares a passing resemblance to the young and alive Bobby Robson) did us proud as always, making an incredible roast dinner followed by a choice of five puddings. It was almost enough to make me forgive her for that time she grabbed me when I was trying to jump off a barge and ended up trapping my foot between the boat and the canal wall. But not quite. By the way I was 28 years old when that event occurred.
Mum seems to think I big my dad up a lot in my work and never say how great she is. Though I only say the occasional nice thing about dad because I spend so much time mocking his inability to say Doritos and his proclivity to eat lip balm. Mum rarely puts a foot wrong (and if she does it's my foot between a barge and a canal wall) so there is no need to laud her (and let's face it, my dad buying KFC a quarter of a century ago sticks in my mind, which suggests that generosity was not a regular occurrence). Mum is always there, making us dinner and an impossibly high number of desserts and worrying too much about what disasters might fall.
Today was like being a student for me as I had brought all my laundry home, as we don't currently have a washing machine. There are launderettes near our house, but I'd rather carry my washing 120 miles and do it in the familiar surroundings of my childhood home. Mum did wash and hang up the first of the three loads (I don't know how I have accrued so many dirty pants in two weeks and suspect I may be incontinent without knowing it myself), but I did the rest. I haven't had access to a washing line in a long time and just as I enjoyed the novelty of tidying my flat a week or so ago, it was fun pegging up my socks and T-shirts in the summer sun. A direct connection to my childhood when I would play hide and seek around the washing line as my mum hung up the sheets, put bras on my head and pegs on my nose and generally slow down the whole process.
Having my clothes dried by the sun rather than a spin dryer or a radiator felt both rustic and luxurious. Sun dried clothing. If I ever open a launderette I am going to offer that as a service and charge a fortune for it, even though ironically the sun is free.
I hadn't realised how depressing all the rain and greyness had been until I got to sit in this green garden with the sun on my face and sticky toffee pudding sticking to my stomach. I am very lucky to have the faintly ridiculous family that I have, we lightly mocked each other, taking it in turns to laugh at each other, but all enjoying the banter.
My dad thinks I should pay him for all the jokes he has provided for me. I disagree. Though today he came up with another one that is largely unusable in any context (other than this blog, which I will happily donate 20% of profits from today's entry to TK Herring). My brother-in-law is called Dick Edmonds, but my dad, not being as young as he was, is prone to calling us by the wrong names (I do the same thing), so often calls me David, or mixes up the nephews or refers to himself as my grandad. The usual stuff that you're used to from your parents and grand parents.
At one point today he started to refer to me as Dick Edmonds, realising his mistake and stopping halfway through, which meant that he called me "Dickhead". It was presumably an accident, though there's a possibility he just saw an opportunity to let me know how he feels about me knowing he can get away with it by pretending it was a mistake of memory. There is little as funny as casually and lightly being called a Dickhead by your father, seemingly by mistake. It's funny because it's true.
I intend to spend all the money I have made from my father on building a massive statue of him, carrying Kentucky Fried Chicken, eating lip balm and falling into a pond which I will erect in Cheddar once he is dead. It will replace the market cross.
