We're on a run here ...

Two Dadisms have cropped up in a conversation with Beck just now ...

"To apply your mind to": to ponder seriously and in a considered manner about - usually at a time when you'd rather be doing something else and about a topic you seldom want to think about anyway.

Writing 'first class' on an envelope. A thoroughly pointless exercise but one which I still do - with a red stamp.

Pic of the day: Another gem from that photo album - of Uncle Andrew and Aunt Pat, of  course, in front of table mountain in S Africa. What a fabulous, colourful, vibrant pic with the pair of them looking in fine form. [Is that another Dadism?] Worth forwarding to Juliet, Beck?

Catching the slips!

Having never really understood "caught the slips" when Dad used to say it - particularly in tennis - I found myself using it in the correct context at a cricket match the other evening!

A very short one

'k you, an abbreviation of "thank you" pronounced as just "cure". Bertie's just picked it up from me.

Pic of the day: Now this is the main reason for the post: a truly classic pic of Dad "selling Ayrshires in Sussex". It's taken from a retrospective photo album he compiled at our request in his final years and which the kids recently rediscovered on the book shelves. Plenty more where this comes from ...

 

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.