Father's Day

It's Father's Day. 


And the first time ever that the car wouldn't start. 
It's a four year old Ford Focus, for Heaven's sake. It's just been serviced. 
I mention this because R & the Boy were trying to get to Boy's cricket match ten minutes drive away in it and it let them down. 
And here's the thing:
I am in tears over this. 
But R ? He will do what he needs to do. He will find the money we really don't have at the moment to sort it out. 
He always does.
He's my rock.


We met at work in 1989. It was my first proper job after Uni, a temporary one you understand, while I decided what it was I really wanted to do. We were on different sections at the time but there was a major reorganisation following the implementation of a new computer system and our sections merged . R was in charge of the seating plan and he and I ended up sitting opposite one another.
He had a girlfriend at the time, of four years standing. Became engaged to her a couple of months after I met him. I was infatuated with the very aloof Goth guy who was charged with the task of training me. He thought I was 'twee'. I tried wearing black all the time but when Goth Guy's mate suggested I in fact looked like 'Heidi going to a funeral' I realised that was a non starter. 


Although he was engaged to someone else we started seeing each other. I'm not proud of that, but they weren't even living together, he'd been half-heartedly rail-roaded into it, and the thing was, we just clicked. It just made sense. They say, you'll know when you meet The One and I had always wanted to believe that and it turned out to be true. I just Knew. And so did he.  


It is 20 years in August since he asked me to marry him, at dinner in an open air restaurant in Artist's Square ,Montmartre, Paris, in the shadow of the Sacre Coeur, apt as they nickname that beautiful building the Wedding Cake on the Hill.


I am not easy to live with. I am up, and down. I cry. I love. I feel things too deeply. I get frustrated and that can be mistaken for anger. I worry - oh Lord how I worry. But R is my rock. 


He is always there, not just for me (God knows I need it) but most importantly for our children.




I am happy I have given him a son who shares his love of cricket. I know that seeing Boy in his whites even if he does get out for a golden duck, makes him very very happy too. 


He may never have done an early hours of the morning bottle feed, or changed many (any?) nappies. He may have said to me - when in the throes of  chronic pregnancy sickness "I'll help you!" by bringing a chair to the kitchen for me to sit on while I cooked... But.. I can see him now, with our first born, who arrived just over a year after we married, a bit of a shock to us , neither of us with any idea what to do with babies, singing over and over and over as he rocked her in his arms-


We all live in a yellow submarine
A yellow submarine
A yellow submarine


Repeat as necessary. 


And when years later, she was in hospital, on morphine, in pain, telling us she wanted to die, he was there and far far better than me at soothing her. He has one of those voices; he should be a continuity announcer. It was why I think, he was so good when briefly in charge of a call reception unit. He always made the customers listen and you can never win an argument with him. he has this way about him. The kind that gets Jehovah's Witnesses nodding in agreement with him  on the doorstep. Of course that means I often get annoyed with him because I know I can't win. 


But ultimately that doesn't matter at all. 


I cannot express how proud I am of him as a Dad. Calm, rational - infuriatingly so ! - generous, in control even during this bumpy patch we have inexplicably hit. He's not one of those dads who over do it by trying too hard. He's the moral confident silent backbone to our wonderful son and daughter. 


And they love him. And so do I.


But ssshhhh - don't tell him ;-)