Naturally Occuring Poetry

It started as good schoolday evening after a hard day at the coal face called racing that rat and coming second and hoping that the drug tests proves top rat may not be reliably consistent in his defence of accidental inhaling of herbal tea extract.

Daughter has done good, well..... bloody brilliant really.

After reading a poem out in class which is in itself embarrassing by definition, then to heap embarrassment on embarrassment. Teacher gobsmackingly, as they sometimes do,  said it was brilliant. If there's one thing being worst than being a teacher's pet, its to be a teacher's pet in poetry. Then miracles of miracles the kids applauded in "gettin' down in the Project" sort of way. Parental pride knew no bounds.

So plaudits all round, except there started the claim of inheritace of the gene.... yes the poet gene...was it a mummy thing ...or  a Daddy thing...eeny meeny miney mo was not settling this, coin tosses were not going to establish a winner, random luck was not in this equation because history knows the Pryce family can rhyme it with the best of  it. Paternal and Maternal bonds knew the bounds

If there was God-like genius in this Pryce family then  the parents were keen to place direct responsibility with a family or families as case may be, his and hers.

In an innocent aside, Pa Pryce forgot his manhood and beer drinking prowess credential, reeling off various schoolboy poems that were rated 8 out of 10, a mistake by Pa Pryce, I knew it as soon as ey-eight passed out of my mouth, as if it had two syllables. In between 8 and 10 is nine,...... and guess what? Ma Pryce laid claim to 9. Oh yeah. Minor squabbling over the source of genius was about to start as if we were....well teenagers.

Ma Pryce Grandmother was as near a Poet laureate without actually being a Poet laureate that any non Poet laureate could be. Oh Yeah. She had apparently won competitions with published magazines.  I had an opinion, not wanted, but given freely, but not really appreciated as a gift to the art of debating. I had seen the pictures and the words "Farmers Gazette" in the magazine title was in my opinion a give away that rhyming 'cow' with 'how' was not a sign of genius, but a lack of milking knowledge.

For my part, I let it be known that Pa Pryce Grandfather suddenly read books without pictures and with  a few rhyming couplets . Accusations were about to fly.  Threats were about to be thrown as if marriage was a javalin competition. A mixture of nouns and verbs, not normally associated with threats, are suddenly made into a threat by intonation of a voice and a willpower to overcome any Y chromosome deficiency, a condemnation of all things Pryce...... "I've met your family" is heard mockingly. Divorce is a likely option.

Now things were moving into larger families circles, Pa Pryce claims of distant relatives being that close to being Booker prize winners, cheated of their rightful place in literati  by a biased judge and resentful ink industry that jointly did not understand the beauty of crayons as the true combination of  art and writing form.

Ma Pryce claims to have  an extended family that suddenly included the non-mentionable black sheep, as if by virtue of a successful poetry recital were now cast in grey. It was, she implied by the medium of the the death-bitch-stare, a family that are such bookworms that early bookbirds probably have eaten them.

Desperation may have crept in as Pa Pryce quoting historical  family trees. Family trees that proved beyond all reasonable scientific credibility that Pa Pryce's family was linked inherently and genetically to poetic-ness, so incredible that it must be true. It was said in family folk-lore and probably just an internet search away was the paternal proof of a link to Beass ap FitzPreyce the Poet. Bayess or whatever his unpronounceable name was, was a Romantic poet heroes of the Early Ages, whose script would adorn scrolls that may now be dead and near a sea, and these scrolls rhymed too...in that they may be red and near a tree. Look, its a naturally occuring poetry.

A daughter surmises, a judge and jury and possibly practising her best parent, the maternal bond is strong,  she is thankful she is genetically a girl since the only likely DNA footprint I have passed on is hairloss to her brother.



I feel a need to admit there may be some poetic licence in the latter paragraphs, bar the last one, above.

Turning back the clocks

So the clocks went back and time stood more than still, but reality is that turning back time is for the fiction writers and the mad scientist types. Regrets are there and there is more than a few of why's and what's amongst the why not's and what if's, so call me the pessimist, but I know that I cannot turn back the clock, erase and re-wind, and soft focus the wrinkles and pick-up a toddler on shoulders.

So a large part of my time is gone, its there to be seen  in the out-sized belly, the greying hair, and not to be seen in the creaking bones and the forgetting the what's it my call it. So it is my time to advise the sharers of part of my DNA that life is for living. Make mistakes, and know they are mistakes, it happens, get it right next time, regret it enough, but not to try again.

Today I have a knowledge to be passed on whilst a daughter is having a rough time at school, for no particular reason than its another Monday not liked or is it Friday in love, or is it the colour of an eye-shadow, or a branded bag that others do not have, or is it a boy without a shine in his eye, or the embarrassment not shared with an older generation. Advice is as wanted as as a poster needs to list the support act. I am to be a bystander at this point in a life. And I stand by wanting the call, like  a sprinter awaiting a gun in danger of false starting.

I am to wait and watch as things go by and mistakes are to be made without my knowing. And regrets, we hope are few.

Dad's gone to home

A vacation, a visit back home and a culinary challenge. We are guests, that our hosts feel are somewhat anorexic, despite ridiculous level of visual evidence that 20:20 eyesight or even 1:1 eyesight should see. We are to be fed.

We are challenged to eat sausage rolls.We eat peas mushed to saliva-dribbling-good. We eat beans that are praised for their protein content and condemned for post-intestinal aeration qualities. We eat pickled onions as if bad breath can be solved by a mint polo, ho-hum. We eat chips saturated in fat by the chip shop owner and drowned in salt and vinegar by chip eater.We are back eating "Full English", that it needs to further words like breakfast.

Weight watching we can do, watching it go up and trouser-belt ratios goes up a notch.

Family and friends expect feasting and we are too polite to say no and too happy to say yes.

This is all a good thing, to count calories in large amounts and to tell jokes that are based on a mutual shared past. An ambiente has been created based on a cholesterol fest. Tales to tell, to exaggerate, to Billy-Bragg-it this is my UK. Good times to be had by all. The gym can wait. There are new shared mutual history to be made for next year's stories.

But, and double but, there are consequences when day becomes night, I am again called to share a bed with a lanky stick insect called my son.
I  am guessing the bed that I see before me is a probable sign of a long forgotten sibling rivalry that maybe associated with a my lack of sharing a Lego toy in '77. My brother introduces us, yes us, to a three quarter bed. Three quarters is not one double bed and we are two fully grown adults in size, if not in age. One fully grown adult in particular is known to be "XXL", my brother knows this, since my brother bought me a Christmas pullover that was "XXL" and I like to think I am "XL" going on" L". He was big on Lego in the seventies.

So I face a night of torment as he, my son, takes revenge for a childhood imagined injustices, he sets about to toss, to turn, to kick twelve bags of.... but at least we are talking bags and not sacks, if you know what I mean. Its not his fault, he was sleeping, he will say, I know he is avenging my mildly sarcastic tone about  him being lanky and sticky.

But I am impervious to his kicks I have fat, thanks to my hosts, as my body knows more than me I am XL going on XXL.

It's time to bring out the big guns, I will avenge, let the snoring begin. He will awake.  I will survive until breakfast is cooked in an English way. Ready defibrillators.

Fashionista - Zero

I feel obliged to admit that the following may be a wee exaggeration in the sense it may be a half truth, like it is a half truth to say the kids are stressing me out every waking minute, and I am then not counting the nightmares.

Tartan is apparently back as a teenage craze and my credit card is proving it better than any Pa Pryce rant at the children about the cost of  cotton and the higher price of cotton with three stripes on it. I have evidence in bottom line sums from a Bank. And Banks are honest brokers or at least they were.

As for me I have been known to don the odd shirt that could have graced a Scotsman's loins. But I recognise that in the past I may have been in tartan, but not exactly "in". But hey I like my tartan and have a few photographs that prove it. So if tartan is back, I am back, and what is money good for?

So if tartan was back, Pa Pryce was going to grace the teenager parent evening as "Daddy Cool". So tartan shirt was worn and I was back rolling  back the years again, expecting welcoming glances, admiring looks from the old folk called other parents that I am still cutting it.

I expected the teenager to applaud a father that could still get down with the kids.

Ho hums.

Next day I was faced with post-school admonishment of  me. A child, a daughter was none too happy that other children's parents had reported back to her friends, and even giggled at and generally hammed it up that a parent had attended the sombre event that is a parent evening and that parent was by all accounts mutton dressed as lamb.  I was told in deeply metaphorical tones that I was not a lamb, I was the mutton. She could not live this down allegedly, this was a catastrophe apparently, this was a tummy ache at school moment level of embarrassment.

Apparently tartan is cool if you are under 18 and have not got a pot belly that a tartan shirt just ain't covering.

On the bright side, this admonishment counts as the longest conversation with the daughter by several words since it was longer than  "D'er", "Fine", and the previous record holder of "I am doing my HOMEWORK!".

Fashionista - Hero

I am apparently back at the cutting edge Fashionista - why you may ask, although now I only respond to por quoi as I pret-a-porter it.

The kids are growing old and as part of this process they deciding whether to strive for an "ista" or an "ology", and "ista" is winning. Where once pink was the colour for at least one of the family, and Disney stores were as "must see" as must see gets, unless Toys R us were having a sale.

Now as teenage hormones kick in with overtones that  fashion takes on a key role in self expression.....well peer group expression.
As if by magic, the colours are multiplied and crossed tartan is back, its as if the "Bay City Rollers" were the true lost prophets.. There is more is more tartan than a Highland Fling could compete with in the school yard.

And I am rolling the clock back, a pendulum that rocks in years.

Never mind the sweat stains, never mind the wear patches, never mind the pot belly, I have tartan in the closet. I am cutting edge.

It time to be cool again.

Call of Duty

Teenager or not,  as an obliging parent I am called upon at the beginning of a school year to listen attentatively, well pretend to listen attentatively, well sit there; whilst a headmaster or a teacher impresses me the importance of doing French homework and they are right and I am wrong. Education, education, edu...wake me up Scotty.

But I am not the only one,as I sit amongst the throng of maternal and paternal do-gooders wearing sensible casual clothes as well as a patience wearing thin.  Then like an alarm clock, a parent's evening erupted to life as a teacher complained that a classroom cupboard was failing, and we all know a failing cupboard is a small step to a failing school.

She probably wanted a donation to fix it, but instead there was a rush of male adulthood to inspect said cupboard, all driven by a desire not to be sitting. The cupboard was not exactly the best thing in flatpack technology and looked as if it should have had a sell by date, since its laminate was so thin a good polish would have converted it into window feature.

The DIY boys gathered around,  fingering screwdrivers that appeared from pockets as if it was the norm, there was even a.... a feeler gauge! Do not ask me to explain. I am all for boy scouts, but a parent evening does not require (normally) a feeler gauge.

The boys were in their element, points were noted, repair strategies debated. Wives and mothers looked on, including the odd sad reflection of sitting manhood......me. But I know, we all knew...

And we all knew that all that was needed was a good roll of duck tape that could have made a hanging door into a silver wrapped ghetto-standard door in a matter of minutes..... and .if my mind runs perhaps to the dark side... probably could have cut short a few subsequent speeches with a threatening stare and finger point to the skin-to-ducktape stickability quality ratio.

A Person calls

The art of telephone message taking is not difficult in modern times given a 98% literate population, but this median probably takes account disproportionately of adults. Teenagers have probably been discounted from all known averages, as part of a known phenomena about the intelligent gene skipping a few teen years. I hope it returns before A levels or Arbitur equivalent.

I am deservedly bath-side of  teenage family ripping it up or chilling it down or whatever new-fangled word means having fun or playing it cool. I am taking in the soapy waters, after mulling a few things in a working day that deservedly were needed to be mulled. I am in my comfort zone, mulling over nothing much..... me , a rubber duck and a favoured CD playing.

A teenager interrupts there is someone on the telephone for me.

"Who is it?" I ask innocently enough methinks.

After due thought, a teenager ponders "A person".

Hoorah, evolution aside, we have successfully determined it was not animal or mineral.

I politely suggest he finds out, takes a message and  I carefully avoid my natural instinct for an argument based on irony and tendency towards sarcasm, for to win an adult battle may mean losing the teenage war.

Hell's bells, temptation wins,  I shout out he may need a pen, he may need a notepad and he may need to put the phone down after pressing the red button.

'Do you think I am stupid?'.

"Who needs to think".

Oops, a teenage war is lost.