Bath time

I loved it when Dad used to suspend the towels over John and I in the bath making it into a sort of watery tent. I can still remember how the acoustics of the splashing would change. All jolly exciting at the time. Then he would hold a smaller towel by its top corners below his face, smile cheesily, gradually raise the towel past his face and the reveal a grimace when his face was again revealed. Happy days.

Pic of the day: We know this one well, of course. It's from the slides I had put on CD. But worth another airing as summer nears. Don't forget that hat for Portugal, Ma!

 

Sunday best

"Don't swear: it's Sunday". Found myself saying this ... on Sunday, not surprisingly. Like the inference that the Lord (a Dadism in itself, I think) won't mind if you to f and b any other day of the week.

Pic of the day: This one's not really old enough for a place on the blog but, heh, it's 10 years old now and will get us in the mood for Suffolk three weeks hence. Just hope it's a bit warmer than this pic looks. Click on it for full size.

 

Whizz kid

Someone who Dad considered to display a special aptitude for something but actually wasn't as skilled as he thought. Example: 'computer whizz kid'.

I described myself as an "electrical whizz kid" to Bertie when he was impressed by how I was able to reconnect two ends of a cable that I cut while trimming the hedge.

Drinking hot coffee in a hurry

When in a hurry to exit but still with a hot coffee [we never had tea at home, did we?] to consume Dad would drink with a big "aah!" in between gulps. Swimmers used the same rhythmic technique for breathing.

Holiday games

When driving in to Akumal on our recent Mexico holiday, I found myself challenging Aidan to "first one to see the sea gets a Mars Bar".  Of course it didn't help that we had already seen the sea earlier when we landed and Mars bars are not freely available in Mexico or that Aidan doesn't even know what a Mars bar is...

Parlez vous Francais? Mais oui!

"Mais oui!": a curious use of the unnecessary preposition 'but' to add extra emphasis and a Gallic tone of surprise to the simple [and perfectly adequate on its own] 'yes'. I used this at a restaurant in Paris on Monday. The waitress was ushering us to our table. I followed her initial babble then lost it. She paused, I paused and then realised the question she was asking so responded with a "mais oui!" She smiled in a what-a-fool-of-a-foreigner sort of way.

The expression is sometimes followed by "hon-he-hon-he-hon!". But not on this occasion!

One from the weekend

'Gracious living': a term used to describe any attempt to improve the presentability of food or place settings, eg using a tea spoon rather than knife to get jam out of a jar.