Puns and Dad jokes

I look forward to Saturday mornings. After a week of grind, it's nice to have a lie in. Or at least to not have to jump out of bed on someone else's timetable.

This Saturday, we'd volunteered to take Little Ray of Sunshine to her swimming lesson, as her mum (our daughter) Hija was having her hair done and the only available appointment clashed. It started at 9am, which sounded quite civilised- no problem. When it comes our children or LRS I'm basically happy to forgo my lie in to see them or help them out.

Then I discovered that the 9am start was the pool time, meaning arrival at 8.45.

But Mrs A was waiting for a delivery of a model cow (Highland cattle) she'd ordered when we were at Diddly Squat farm, which the posty hadn't delivered-as scheduled - so we had to go to the Post office first, to collect this little beauty:

Consequently we had to set off at 8am to make sure we weren’t late for LRS’s swimming lesson. We retrieved the cow (which is delightful as I’m sure you’ll agree) from the post office and arrived ages early, having allowed for a variety if apocalyptic events that (for once) failed to materialise.

On arrival, Mrs A changed LRS into her swim nappy and natty little swimsuit whilst I got ready (ie got my kit off) as I had been nominated as head lifeguard.

It started off pretty well. What I hadn't realised was that the swimming lesson was actually in a hydrotherapy pool - a true blessing as it meant the water was bathwater warm. LRS was smiling as she entered and seemed to enjoy kicking in a front crawl position. Then we did some front crawl arms and enthusiasm started to wain. Next was ring a ring o’ ring o’ roses, by which time she was becoming a bit grumpy and it only took the ‘dunking reflex exercise’ - which, despite the countdown and lots of signaling (ie me taking an exaggerated deep breath) is pretty much as brutal as the name suggests, to elicit full meltdown.

To be fair, we had done this (the dunking) before, when we were swimming on our weekend break to Llandrindod Wells, where it had been fine and smiley, but not so this time.

The net result was we had to beat a hasty retreat from the pool and feed her some yummy snacks to cheer her up, followed by her favorite scrambled egg on toast as soon as we got home.

Once we got back there, I dug around in the cellar to find the cache of kids toys saved from our own parenting days and we had great fun with the toy farmyard animals. If LRS were to appear on Mastermind, her specialist subject would be farmyard animals and she would undoubtedly beat all comer - in two languages!

Sunday was of course, father’s day and LRS had made me a wonderful card (I dare say she may have had a little help) - with a most gratifying pun on the front

I thouroughly enjoyed this, as I do love a good pun or wordplay and regularly cause groans from the family, accompanied by rolling eyes. I've often thought my brain must be wired up a bit differently to most people, as there's a kind of parallel thought stream going on in my head in any conversation, looking for opportunities to misinterpret what is being said for comedic effect.

It must be infuriating at times for anyone in earshot, but they usually let me off with a groan. Hijo even laughs sometimes and has carried on my nacent family tradition by developing his dad joke muscle to good effect.

Dad jokes are probably worse than puns but I really can't resist. It's so bad that if a police car goes past sounding its blues and twos, there is no way I cannot avoid the stream of consciousness that goes “ He won't sell many ice creams at that speed”.

I have to exercise considerable restraint to stop such thoughts being verbalised.

Good news! - summer turned up the last couple of days, which means English people start complaining how warm it is ( I include myself in this) and it is, at last, a pleasure to go to the Oval to watch a cricket match.

Well, that is, if you don’t care too much about the cricket.

We’ve been members for a few years - just to watch the T20’s - a format which doesn’t require 5 picnic hampers, and which I found stangely aluring when I was introduced to it a few years ago when Hijo and I were invited to a match by one of his friends and his father. It appeals to my inner mathematician - who’d have thought?

Anyway. This evening we went to see our home team Surrey, play the mightly Glamorgan. Or rather the micey Glamorgan. They were pathetic!

In previous seasons, Glamorgan have been magnificent, and some of the best matches I’ve seen have been Surrey v Glamorgan - down to the last ball, requiring a 4 to win (which we did). A game is always more rewarding to win when the opposition seem invincible. Tonight, unfotunately, Glamorgan were not invincible. More like insignificant. They very nearly all out in 20 overs and Surrey surpassed their total in only 10 overs.

So we went to the pub after. Mrs A and I an Hijo, along with his mate from school, a delightful Hampshire fan whom I enjoy ribbing whenever they lose ( which is robustly reciprocated when they win). We watched football - that strange game that gets so many people so animated - France v Holland - obviously we wanted Holland to win! Sadly it was a draw, but we had a good time.

A nice way to round off the week, and ordinarily that would be that. But there is one more thing to mention - a loyal reader of this blog (probabably the only loyal reader of this blog), our good friend and classmate of Mrs A, who I’ll call Ms PaintPot, for reasons only she will understand, has achieved the astonishing success of a 1st class honors degree in History at an age which will not be disclosed, but which gives us all cause for optimisim! Congratulations Ms Paintpot! I’m so proud of you - you are an inspiration to us all!

So, dear reader, whatever your passion, it is now incumbent upon you to now go out and fulfil it to your maximum possible potential.

Who knows what you can achieve!

Have a great week!

Jerry