"Yum! Jesus!"

‘Daddy, how do you make your body move?’

‘Your brain sends a signal to your body, like “move your arm”’.

I moved my arm as an illustration.

‘And when you walk, your brain tells your arms and legs to move and it tells your eyes to watch where you’re going.’

'OK Dad.'

Aurora and I marched on the spot for a minute. Jocasta came and joined us – but opted to skip.

My eldest daughter is going through a very inquisitive phase – needing to know how everything works.

‘What about people who walk without moving their arms Daddy?’

‘If they are not technically disabled darling, they are not to be trusted and are best avoided.'

‘OK Dad’.

Aurora resumed her marching on the spot. I saluted her and, sensing a break in her line of enquiry, made to ‘about turn’.

‘Daddy. What about the people at church?'

I raised an eyebrow and waited for my daughter to elaborate.

'Well, you know the way Jocasta puts her arms up and runs around screaming when you take the croissants out of the oven. Her brain says "Yum! Put your arms up!'''.

'Yes.....'

'Well What about the people at church who raise their arms and close their eyes while they are singing?’

This question did not entirely surprise me. I had seen Aurora scanning the congregation during services.

‘No arms yet Daddy,’ she’d whisper. Aurora has inherited her mother’s ‘stage whisper’ and can usually be heard by all present.

‘That’s a slightly different thing, sweetness. The people who raise their arms at church are having a special spiritual moment and they are trying to get closer to Jesus.’

‘So they are, like, saying "Yum! Jesus!' They’ll not actually reach him though Daddy, will they? I mean, you’re tall, but I don’t think you’d be able to actually reach Jesus.’

‘No darling – I didn’t mean that they are actually trying to touch Jesus. They are being moved by Jesus and raising their hands in his general direction.'

‘A-ha!’. Aurora’s face showed great revelation.

‘So their brains aren’t moving their bodies. It’s Jesus’s brain and he’s really messing about.’

The book what I wrote

I once worked for a ‘literature development agency’. The agency developed literature with a select bunch of favourite writers and rarely allowed any words in that had been written by a stranger. I used to take the calls to manage the disappointment of outsiders. A typical call would go something like this:

‘I’ve wrote a book.’

Never an auspicious start.

‘Well hello, nice to hear from you.’

I would begin in this way to sugar-coat the news coming later in the conversation that the caller – or ‘writer’  as they preferred to be described – couldn’t actually write ‘fuck’ on a dusty blind.

Other calls would come from disgruntled writers who had received a small commission or some crumbs of writing workshop work in the past - but had fallen out of favour. One such call from a poet who called himself ‘The Strolling Geordie’ began in a regrettable fashion.

‘I DON’T NEED ANY FUCKING ARTS ADMINISTRATORS!’

I resisted the urge to ask why, in that case, he had taken the time out to call one. He had clearly been drinking and had succumbed to high emotion when he probably would have been better served by going out and ‘strolling’ for a while in the fresh air.

Another aspiring writer took time out from preaching about Jesus at the foot of Grey’s Monument to recite his poetry at me in the office.

The organisation was housed in a theatre. Our small office had been created in what had once been the gents’ toilets. In Health & Safety terms the space would legally accommodate 2 people, 2 desks and a filing cabinet. In truth it was home to 2 regular staff, a portly Labrador, a sofa, a louche public school boy theatre director and a hot desk for various unkempt actors and indolent ‘Project Managers’.

Being in a theatre meant that we were surrounded by creative people who had a whimsical approach to security.  Actors and writers needed to be in and out at all hours – as their various muses took them. They were also inclined to sleep in the building if they were entrusted with a key. The Fire Door, therefore, was always ‘on the snib’. Once a street poet knew how to get in, the territory was his. Especially if the street poet was a former Gulf war soldier with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and an instinct for invasion.

‘I hope you don’t mind, but this is my new poem.’

Peter  would just appear in the room. He had very clear blue eyes and a piercing stare. He was a little volatile, so I was in the habit of making him a coffee and listening intently.

'Ring of Fire'

We had a barbecue on Saturday. Friends and babies milled around the kitchen. The babies took to the floor for a crawling competition and created the added bonus of an assault course for adults moving to and from the barbecue on the terrace with plates full of piping hot food. The barbecue was sat on bricks from an aborted bricklaying project of last year. (I had read a Sunday supplement piece about the joys of raised beds for growing your own vegetables. Deluded by the memory of a day’s bricklaying on a conservation holiday twenty years ago, I’d ruined the Mazda’s shock absorbers with a load of cheap bricks.)

Between the barbecue assembly and the fence was a shelf of small gardening equipment. I had looked at it earlier in the day and dismissed it as innocuous: terracotta pots; twine; unplanted seeds in sachets; a highly combustible plastic propagator.

The whole neighbourhood seemed to be enjoying the sunny day. I could hear Desmond and Celia giggling on the other side of the fence and the sound of splashing water suggested a water fight. We have often admired the youthfulness of Desmond and Celia. Whenever Celia does get out of her rocking chair they get along like teenagers.

Maude was enjoying the company and waving away the praise for her marinade.

Chad had, once again, 'forgotten' to bring any wine. Maude had set him to work on chores as a penance. I looked in to see him shelling peas. I was surprised by this, as peas were not on the menu. When Maude looked in his direction he laughed his theatrical laugh or beamed a smile back at her. As soon as she looked away his bottom lip obscured the peas he was trying to shell.

The propagator explosion was much louder than one could have imagined – even if one had been aware of the hazard. Maude screamed and jumped into the air with such force that her glasses were skew-whiff when she landed. Aurora followed suit and set off a chorus of screaming babies. Not wanting to be left out, Chad fired a shower of peas across the kitchen as he screamed too.

It was then that I realised that the explosion had blown an almost perfectly circular hole in the fence and had sent burning debris flying onto our neighbours’ property – more accurately, onto our neighbours. Celia was screaming. I looked through the burning aperture to see Celia stood naked in a newly acquired hot-tub. Desmond had the look of a man desperately bailing out as he scooped water onto her rear and burning splinters sizzled on the water’s surface around her.

It didn’t seem like a good time to offer an apology.

I extinguished the fence with the watering can and closed the French windows behind me as I went back into the house. The room fell silent as I calmed Aurora in my best Max Wall voice:

‘It’s alright dear, Daddy’s put the fire out.’

Ginger Teeth

I met Sadie for coffee and pancakes today. It was at a cafe at the end of my old street.

'Maude and I had our first flat just round the corner you know. Before the kids and all that. This was a real ale off licence then.'

I looked around. Art Nouveau styling, people reading books. It all looked quite metropolitan...for Newcastle.

We talked about children. Her two, my two. I knew that she wanted to discuss difficulties at work.

She knew that I was perhaps the only person who knew the true nature of her present/my former manager. There was a pregnant pause. I broke the silence.

'We can only talk about her if we agree not to mention her name - a bit like actors and 'The Scottish Play'. I don't allow it to be spoken in my house and I'll not have it polluting my rare social engagements.'

Sadie nodded. 'But how should I refer to her?'

'Well some of Maude's less able kids have great imagination when it comes to assigning epithets to their classmates and teachers. They have a maths teacher, for instance, who talks out of one side of his mouth. They christened him 'Luke Sidetalker'. I suggested an exam pass at least for whoever thought of that. One boy calls a sandy haired classmate 'Ginger Teeth'. I particularly like that one.'

'I like 'Ginger Teeth'', said Sadie.'It's quite apt and stops me demeaning myself by swearing in a public place. 'Ginger Teeth' it is.'

Sadie detailed some of Ginger Teeth's recent antics: shady dealings with funders, applying for a job that Sadie had expressed an interest in, not telling Sadie, getting said job and adding it to her portfolio of roles, the promise of a new contract for 6 months, non-manifestation of said contract in paper form etc...

I was unsurprised by any of what I was told. Sadie explained that she put up with the maltreatment for economic reasons. She seemed to be asking me if she should launch herself into another 6 months of self-esteem battering.

'You really shouldn't take on the new contract - even if it does find its way on to paper.'

'But how will I pay the bills?'

I thought for a moment.

'In short you need a way of raising money which is less demeaning?'

'Yes'. Sadie looked optimistic.

'Given the choice, myself,  I'd rather play the spoons at the Monument.'

'Vast Difference'

I hadn’t really read the letter properly.

A part of me didn’t really want to read the letter properly.

It was Monday morning and I was pleased that I had found a free parking space just beyond the hospital’s charging zone.

This joy was fleeting. I looked at the ‘how to find us’ map on the back of the letter and realised that the procedure that dare not speak its name was actually at a health centre on the other side of the borough.

I rang them and apologised. They agreed to see me if I got there within a half hour.

I could be forgiven for the lapse. My doctor has a disconcerting approach to consultations. She dictates referral letters into a machine, pausing the recording to restart the conversation, then pausing the conversation to complete the letter.

‘Dear Dr Yadda Yadda [minor surgery, can’t spell his name, please check] comma,

Hits 'pause'.

'Lovely man. He's done thousands of these. Literally thousands'

Hits 'record'.

'My patient, comma, after long deliberation with his partner, comma…’

Hits 'pause'.

‘Much prefer the comma to the dash don’t you? Too many people using dashes these days. Think they run scared from commas ‘cause they’re not sure how to use them. You still writing?’

I nodded. ‘Blogging mainly, half a novel…’.

Hits 'record'.

'…believes that his family is…’

Hits 'pause'.

‘You have discussed this with Maude haven’t you? I mean, you don’t technically need her consent these days, but your partner really does need to know.’

I nodded.

Hits 'record'.

‘…complete. I have outlined the preoperative requirements, comma, the nature of the procedure, comma, the risks, comma, and the usual recovery period. Full Stop ‘

Hits 'pause'.

‘Have you thought of joining the Royal Society of Authors. God-send. Got thoroughly fed up with the writing scene around here – so parochial. I go to RSA meetings in Edinburgh. Made lots of contacts – novel out in two months. Bingo.’

Hits 'record'.

‘Please arrange for surgery at earliest convenience. Patient will prepare as advised and adhere to preoperative instructions. Double space. Yours sincerely, comma, line line line line [room for big signature]. All the letters after my name.

Hits 'pause'.

‘Lovely to see you. Come back sharpish with any complications (very rare). Look into the RSA thing – good source of critical readers for fiction and, if you don't mind my saying, I think you need a direction, a plan.'

Opens door with a smile. 

'Not sure about blogging though, not really worth the effort…’

'Crusher, Slag'

My remote signing on experience was followed by an interview at my local ‘Jobcentre Plus’. I gave my full name to ‘Lynn’ whose role seemed to be to put new claimants at their ease before going through the questions they had already answered on the phone. Before she did this, Lynn made kindly remarks about the details I had supplied and which were on a printout on her desk:

‘What a lovely Irish name you have.’

‘Your daughters have beautiful names – wish I’d had those on my list.’

I resisted the urge to ask Lynn why I had been turned away from this office a few days earlier to make my first claim by phone, only to be brought back to answer the same questions all over again, which I could have done in the first place and used my precious window of Jocasta in playgroup time more enjoyably.

Lynn was clearly a nice person and was only trying to do her job in a fundamentally flawed system. She had also popped a button and was showing a great deal of bra. Lynn was not aware of this – it certainly wasn’t flirtation on her part. It could have been a very sophisticated ruse – along with the nice comments on my family names – to distract me from any thoughts of complaining about the aforementioned wasted time. I don’t think it was.

Lynn told me it had been really nice to meet me and showed me to a seat on which I should wait for my ‘adviser’.

I was now about to speak to the 4th ‘Jobcentre Plus’ person involved in facilitating my claim: Sandra.

Sandra was acceptably helpful and pretty upbeat for the surroundings. Halfway through filling in an eternity of screens of boxes requiring codes we reached the point at which we had to identify the types of jobs/fields in which I would be interested. I asked her to use the words ‘art’ or 'arts' to start with. This brought very little to light.

‘I’ll just put in the code for ‘admin’ – we can always change it later.’

Sandra glanced out of the window. She had the look of a smoker and I think she was checking the weather for a cigarette break which couldn’t come soon enough.

‘What about trying the word ‘culture'?’

Sandra helpfully turned her monitor towards me and scrolled through the drop down list. Hurtling towards the late C’s into occupations beginning with D, she stopped the screen.

‘No, nothing at all with ‘culture’ or ‘cultural’ in the title. We do need at least 2 – so I’ll just put the code for admin again. As I said, we can change that later…’

Sandra glanced towards the window and then smiled a smile which told me that our interview was drawing to a close. I looked again at the list and noticed that a variety of ‘crushers’ were recognised as valid occupations: ‘Crusher, car’ among the more obvious. My eye was drawn to the final ‘Crusher’ on the list:

‘Crusher, slag.’

Sandra was unable to tell me what a slag crusher actually did or how one would retrain for such a role. Sandra then took her cigarettes from her desk drawer, dropped my file on Lynn's desk and left the building.

Does anyone care for you on a regular basis?

I gathered all the necessary documents in advance of the marathon phone call I apparently had to make to sign on: mortgage details, P45 etc.

Jocasta was making her debut at playgroup. I sat on a toddler chair for half an hour to ease her in and to complete all the paperwork. Jocasta’s keyworker was kind enough to help me out of the toddler chair. I sneaked out with a ‘call me with any problems’ gesture and headed home to my landline.  What better use of my tiny window of free time could there be than answering a series of inane questions about my employment history and personal circumstances. It was beginning to feel like too many hoops to jump through to achieve a discounted rate at the local pool. I clearly would not be entitled to any actual money, on account of Maude’s proper job.

The questions were all pretty predictable: when did you last work? Who lives with you? Do you have dependants etc…

I was then struck by a question in the section on physical wellbeing and ‘care':

‘Does anyone care for you on a regular basis?’

I paused a little and gave an answer that probably didn’t compute:

‘I do like to think so.’

'Just on the way to the tip, you can't miss it.'

‘Hello there, I’ve been made redundant and I’d like to sign on.’

I was trying to sound positive, but this wasn’t easy in the setting. All of the ‘Jobcentre Plus’ desk staff seemed trained to brilliantly avoid the gaze of all jobseekers entering the building. My chipper smiles were not reciprocated – as they were unseen. The security man was muscle-bound and looked very tense. A young man shouted into the freephone by the door, encouraged by his girlfriend.

I’d asked for directions at the local library. They sent me across a large car park:

‘Just on the way to the tip, you can’t miss it.’

The three signers-on ahead of me were all signing on at rearranged times. They had missed their allotted signing on times. I found this intriguing and wondered what had detained them elsewhere. I thought it best not to ask.

‘Have you signed on before?’

‘No’

‘Well you can’t make your first claim here. You’ll have to do it online – or over the phone. Do you have a landline? It’s free and takes about 40 minutes.’

‘So I can’t just do it here, at the ‘Jobcentre’, face to face, like these other chaps?’

‘No. Here’s a leaflet.’

I left with something short of a spring in my step. The leaflet was a wonky photocopy and the web address was misprinted.

Worn out Paddy

My Dad spends the majority of his time in his armchair. The armchair is about 10 inches from a huge double radiator which pumps out enough heat to warm an airport. The chair faces the TV corner. The new, larger screened television blares. 

My dad can only see shapes now. He only leaves the armchair to eat at the kitchen table, take his tablets, go to the toilet, or go to bed.

‘Manchester’s full of worn out Paddys like your Dad’, says my mother.

’Loads of them - sat in chairs like that. Them that are still alive, that is. They came over here from the back of beyond and went mad with the drinking and the women.’

My youngest gravitates towards my Dad, stuck in his chair, worn out. I think she knows that her chances are probably few to jump on his knee. He tickles her with his big sausage fingers.

Today, my nephew stopped texting briefly to take a picture of the tickling on his phone. I followed suit and took a few pictures too.

‘It’s the new one.’ I said, showing my nephew my phone. ‘The camera has more megapixels.’

I'm sure that one day I'll look back and laugh...

‘I’ll try and get up now.’

‘OK’

The nurse proffered her shoulder as support.

‘Hey, it’s handy me being this teeny isn’t it.’

I didn’t answer that and made my way back on to the undersized stretcher/trolley.

The doctor reappeared.

‘He just got up on his own,’ explained the nurse and disappeared.

The doctor told me to stay put until I felt truly able to walk and then he left. I stayed put on the undersized stretcher/trolley for another hour or so. I then felt as though I had rallied. There was no sign of anyone coming back to monitor me, so I thought I’d get dressed and head for the taxi rank.

I slowly stood and peeked out into the corridor. I could see the reception desk staff and could hear them chatting about the expense of the extras in the new Mini Cooper. My faculties seemed to be in order. My nurse looked across.

‘Just thought I’d stand up and get ready,’ I said.

‘Right you are.’ She smiled her kindly smile and continued her conversation, which had moved on to woefully inadequate boot size.
 
When I came to on the corridor floor, what can only be described as a crowd had gathered around me. Many faces peered down at me - some with kindly smiles (staff), others without (passing patients).

You show me yours.....

So, hospitals continue to host some of the most embarrassing incidents in my life. There's nothing like a bang on the head to aid reminiscence.


When I was nineteen years old a lump appeared at the very base of my spine. It was the result of an ingrowing hair – a common masculine complaint – and had to be excised. A small operation was necessary. I attended my appointment and did exactly as I was told. The young nurse seemed personable - she put me at me ease about the minor nature of the procedure and the swift recovery I could expect. I had read the guidance leaflet and knew that pre-operative shaving was necessary.

‘I will, of course, have to shave your…er…bottom area. So, if you could just get yourself ready on the bed. I’ll get the shaving stuff.’

I was painfully shy as a youth. I was, therefore, troubled in the extreme by the idea of lying naked on a hospital bed behind a thin curtain in a busy ward. I had seen plenty of hospital-based comedy in my time. I knew that mistakes were easily made in such hectic environments. Hospital staff could easily fling back the wrong curtain. I imagined a consultant at the head of a cohort of eager medical students with pencils poised over notebooks. The group would be moving at speed and the consultant would be cavalier in his approach to personal privacy, guessing at the location of an interesting case of elephantitis he had heard about. In his attempt to broaden the experience of his proteges he would inadvertently show them the pale backside of a shy young man from Fallowfield.

My fears were unfounded or, at least, inaccurate. The curtain was pulled back by the correct nurse. She entered and placed the shaving paraphernalia on the bedside table, turning swiftly to restore the curtain and preserve my dignity. I looked back. A large can of shaving foam, a bowl of water, a towel and a disposable razor sat on a small tray. I was slightly perturbed by the low quality razor and the prospect of dabbing shaving wounds with a styptic pencil. I was more perturbed by the nurse’s hesitation:

‘Right….er…I think I’ve got everything we need. Razor, foam, water, towel. Yes….everything we need.’

By this point I was quite relaxed. But then I have always found the nervousness of others quite tranquilising. How, I thought to myself, could this situation become any more embarrassing? Once embarrassment has been achieved to this level, surely it can only plateau and result in the getting on with the task in hand. I looked around at the nurse. The cheap razor trembled in her hand. Her embarrassment had not peaked, it was refusing to plateau and seemed instead to be turning into terror:

‘I, I can’t do this,’ she whimpered. ’I’m sorry.’

She fled. Moments later a burly male nurse appeared and held the razor with a steady hand. As he wordlessly prepared me for surgery, I could hear a group of chattering medical students trooping past. They didn’t trouble my curtain.

'it might make you a little bit woozy....'

The only option left for paramedics in a small vehicle who can’t right an upturned house husband is to call an ambulance - so an ambulance was called.

‘It’s not an emergency one’, explained Clive. ‘It’ll probably take about an hour. They’ll not keep you in though. My guess is Diazepam and codeine and then back home. You’ll not be dancing, but you’ll be mobile’

Clive was happy with the fact that the ambulance was in no hurry and squeezed in a few more telly questions to Maude, before surprising her with a fan-like hug and kiss as he made his exit. Robert looked vaguely embarrassed and waved awkwardly.

Maude filled one of the children’s backpacks with my pyjama bottoms and a toothbrush, ‘just in case’.

My battered back felt every bump in the road, as I took in the multitude of signs on the interior of the ambulance. Most of them could be boiled down to the simple message: ‘please don’t hit the ambulance staff, they are trying to help you’.

I was, as ever, too long for the stretcher. My feet protruded over the end and it was my feet that opened the plastic trimmed doors of the Accident & Emergency department. The staff nurse’s greeting ‘We’ve got a tall one here’  set the tone for the rest of this healthcare experience.

After the inevitable wait of an hour, a doctor appeared. His eyes were bloodshot, but he seemed thorough and concerned enough. After much probing and examination, he fulfilled Clive’s prediction:

‘Diazepam. It’s a muscle relaxant – it might make you a little bit woozy. And something for the pain. You should then be able to go straight home, but not driving yourself.’

I noticed that he was eyeing my feet as they extended beyond the end of the stretcher. I was wearing rather fetching socks, but later realised that he was making a prescribing decision based on a bloodshot visual assessment of my body size.

‘I think you’re the tallest person I’ve ever met’, observed the nurse, as she squeezed past my feet and into the cubicle.

She set a small paper cup of medication beside me, along with a paper cup with just insufficient water to properly swallow all of the tablets.

I took the medication and waited. An hour or so passed. It felt safe to try and get to my feet. The pain had subsided. It felt good to be able to slowly straighten up. I tried to focus on the Angel of the North – a motif on hospital curtains in the Gateshead area. I couldn’t, I passed out.

I came to on the floor of the cubicle. I understood that I had fainted, but that my collapse had gone unheard. I stretched painfully to reach a cardboard vomit catcher from a trolley and hit the call button.

The dispensing nurse arrived and seemed unmoved. She folded a blanket and put it under my head, which was lolling on my outstretched arm.

‘Just lie there until you feel a bit better, pet.’

I lay there and squinted up. The nurse looked down and smiled a kindly smile, in much the same way that Clive and Robert had smiled kindly smiles.

Laid Low

I had been struggling under the sympathetic gazes of Clive and Robert, the paramedics, for a good fifteen minutes. Maude winced, smiled, looked away, smiled, looked at her watch.

What I was trying to do was quite simple. I was trying to stand up. My lumbago had begun to stir at the weekend:

Toddler into bath, toddler out of bath. Attention-seeking four year old up the steep stairs to bed. Bored, screaming four year old lifted off bicycle not long  after start of bike ride. Deceptively heavy child’s bike carried by Daddy for rest of bike ride route etc…

My back was an accident waiting to happen. As I failed to launch from the living room carpet, I had to admit to that the accident had, indeed, happened.

Clive was the senior paramedic or ‘nurse practitioner’, as he clarified. He had recognised Maude on his arrival at the house.

‘Well I know who you are!’

Maude’s recent reality TV debut had caused something of a stir in the area and Clive was clearly an aficionado of the show. He sat and asked me the regulation questions for his forms: age, details of medical history, how I came to be helplessly prone on my own living room floor. He sped through them while his assistant checked my blood pressure and took a blood sample. Clive’s eyes moved frequently from me to Maude. He could hold out no longer:

‘But what about that hairdresser?! How did you not just throw him out of your house?’

Maude happily filled Clive in on some of the backstage secrets of the show and joked about the menu choices of her fellow contestants. Clive reminded her of some of her funniest remarks and commented on how much Maude reminded him of his favourite sister.

I coughed weakly from the floor. It was then that Clive and Robert tried to manoeuvre me from beetle stranded on back to fully functioning stay at home Dad.

‘Well, we could give you a painkilling injection, but that’ll not necessarily get you off the floor. Go on, have another go.’

As I managed to get onto my hands and knees, I could feel a bead of sweat dripping off the end of my nose and extreme pain radiating from a source somewhere around a twenty six year old operation scar. I steeled myself for one last attempt on ‘upright’. As I crumpled back to the floor, I could hear a ringtone of unfamiliar young person’s music coming from Robert’s mobile phone. He apologised as he rifled through his bag. I could also hear Clive.

‘You’ve  got a lovely house, by the way. Looked much bigger on the telly though.’

Rude Awakening

I could sense Maude’s presence beside me, before I officially woke up. I could feel that she was regarding me closely. Not fair, I thought, to survey ones partner first thing in the morning when they are feigning sleep to avoid getting up with the kids because it can’t possibly be their turn to do so again. I was conscious that I looked weary – the strain of childcare was undoubtedly showing.

I chanced one open eye and, indeed, there she was:

‘You look about a hundred!’ she laughed.

‘Good morning to you’ seemed the only dignified response. ‘I’ll have a rejuvenating shower and hope to pass for a sprightly octogenarian.’

As Maude gets older, she gets better in so many ways.

She also gets more like her father.

(Crawford is well into his seventies and most of his news on the telephone relates to death or serious illness. Augusta too, although significantly younger and more active than Crawford, can be similarly morbid.)

Maude’s initial amusement at my cadaverous pallour soon turned, as ever, to talk of tests at the doctors and the inconvenience that would be caused by my early death.

‘It’s good that you’re not driving so far any more, but you really need to look after yourself. Have you been taking those supplements I got for you? They were very expensive…... Do I have any clean pants?’

Stay at Home, Dad

‘You didn’t come back this week!’ said my neighbour, Vanessa, as we queued for coffee in the church hall.

I didn’t feel the need to tell her that my confidence had been knocked a little by the frosty reception I received on my first visit to ‘Rhymetime’. Magnus the librarian was thoroughly welcoming and happily wrote a sticky name label for Jocasta to wear.

Some of the mothers, however, seemed perturbed by the presence of a stay at home Dad. They all seemed to know each other and were clearly such regular attenders that Magnus had pre-prepared badges for their children.

Three of the little girls present were all called Sophia. One mother pointed out that her child’s name was ‘Sofia with an ‘f’'.

I threw myself into proceedings, nonetheless, and sang the rhymes with gusto.

It was halfway through ‘Incey Wincey Spider’ that I thought I caught some non-verbal communication occurring between two of the mothers. Some kind of signal passed between them involving a nod towards me. Both women had younger babies – as well as their Sofia/Sophias. They began to unbutton their cheesecloth blouses and, each with a steely eye on me, started breast-feeding.

I was not put off by this nursing offensive. I carried on singing and making spider

hands. It was at this point that Magnus announced the banana break. His assistant

emerged with a platter of sliced fruit.

The nursing mothers whispered to their Sophia/Sofias that they should hurry and get some fruit as a reward for all their wonderful singing. I wasted no time whispering and shoved Jocasta in the general direction of the fruit.

‘Nana!’ cried my youngest. As she motored towards the platter, she inadvertently winged a Sophia/Sofia and sent her into a bean bag.

I heard at least one gasp from the Sophia/Sofia side of the room and smiled in the general direction of the mothers. 

Mother one reciprocated with an incey wincey smile. Mother two looked past me and switched breasts.