A DAD'S LIFE:It's my nature to take the weather personally
THIS IS the summer. This is Ireland. There will be rain. But why does there have to be so much? This summer, the town we live in has already been flooded bible style, and when there hasn’t been a river flowing down main street there has been a constant sheen of drizzle fanning into our faces.
It’s my nature to take the weather personally. Despite 40 years of enduring that angled mist, I still believe every summer of my childhood was bathed in a soft golden light. I presume this can be put down to the hue snapshots of that era having faded rather than to the large amounts of chemicals in the tinned meats we ate three times a day. Either way, I don’t remember being on lockdown like this summer.
The kids have responded more philosophically than I expected. Well, one has. The elder, while patting down a damp sandcastle on the beach, covered by a giant umbrella and picking wind-blown seaweed out of her face, suggests, “Summer isn’t really about the sun, is it?”
I acknowledge her insight.
“No,” she continues, “It’s more about free time, and spending that time together.”
My eye twitches a little as, once again, I agree. It is about spending a lot of time together. Under one roof. While it rains. A lot of time.
The younger is less philosophical. “Daddy, make it stop raining. This is stupid,” she shouts as she punches the sand. That I can relate to. That’s why every foodstuff should be eaten in a bun or with a spoon during the summer. Because the knives need to be put away.
This is the summer in four where the Olympic rings make an appearance. This is Ireland. There will be gnashing of teeth at how an island with our minuscule population, where everybody of active age is coerced into kicking a round ball around a pitch, does not dominate the track or pool on a global stage. Because of the rain, we have spent a lot of time as a unit watching the five-ring circus. It has been fun. I have hatched a plan.
“Which one of you is going to win me a medal?”
“Dad,” says the elder, getting thoughtful again, “I’m sorry, but I kinda like just taking part.”
“Then you’re useless to me,” I reply. “What about you?” I ask the angry, rain-hating one.
She considers the question with a level of inquiry worthy of choosing a sport at which she may excel. “What’s the easiest one?” she asks.
“They’re all hard. They all require monumental self-
discipline, motivation, hard work, desire and talent. You’ll have to give over every minute to the hunt for gold, you will make it your life’s work. But the payback will be a place in history. Or, failing that, which is the far more probable result, massive debt and a spotty educational career.”
She eyeballs me and weighs the whole thing up, “No, seriously, which is the easiest one?”
This is the summer. The kids are home. Parenting websites tell me they should take on additional responsibilities. One of their jobs is to ensure the dogs are exercised. Somehow I have been talked into paying €2 a pop for the dog-walking service. I don’t remember the negotiations taking place but my pockets are emptied daily. Or would be if they could drag themselves out into the rain for the half-hour required.
Instead the mutts sit in our driveway and bark hysterically at every passerby. They are the type of irritating, small, yappy dogs you encounter on country walks that inspire such loathing you would happily take out your rain-inspired frustration on them with a hurley.
I point out this possibility to the kids. They get indignant at the thought of someone becoming annoyed at their precious dogs. So walk them, I suggest. No chance, it seems. Instead, after much consideration for his manhood, the cock of the walk boy dog will spend a night at the vet’s, and will return with a little less pep in his pencil.
“No,” says the elder, on hearing the news. “He’ll turn boring like the other one.” She turns to the other one and mumbles an aside, “Sorry, didn’t mean it.”
“He needs to be done,” I reply, “He’s a nightmare.”
“No.” she tries again, “You’re just in a bad mood because of the rain.” Surely not, I think. Surely not.