Love note

Seldom a note actually about love but any piece of paper left around the house prompting action from a family member or sometimes a note intended for someone to whom you would never wish to show love to start with. I leave them all the time.

Brush in your bed

Leaving a brush in someone else's bed was always a great wheeze for Dad - and often for children getting their own back. In response to finding a brush as he slid into bed Dad would call out: "That's very childish" even though he was the one who instigated the trick.

Pic of the day: "Faulkner's sale" is written on the reverse along with a reference to the print being produced in Jan 1955.

Dessert disappointment

Dad would request a dessert after a huge main course. Mum would plonk a very small portion in front of him. He'd pause for a moment, pull a comically disappointed face and say: "That's not enough for a mouse".

"... and a happy New Year"

At the end of grotto shows particularly if families aren't getting the message and departing I sing just: "And a happy New Year" without the preceding lines from We Wish you a Merry Christmas. Yet another Dad festive legacy and a handy form of conclusion.

Boxing

Pretending to box by having one hand in a fist and the other cupped just below the chin. I think he picked this up from his days boxing at Reading School, where he was taught to defend his chin - maybe the cupped hand was how it felt in the boxing glove. I found myself adopting this position while messing around with Aidan the other day and he's adopted it now - us both punching each others cupped hands, so we don't actually clock each other on the chin. This was raised back in 2011 as part of a longer list, but worth a trotting out again I think.

Solid ground

Polly and I entered the grotto to the strains of Johnny Mathis' 1976 Christmas chart-topper (I'm back in hospital radio DJ mode here), When a Child is Born. Dad used to sing the line "I'm on solid ground" every time Mum presented a dessert.

The song also always reminds me of cycling back from Bearwood on dark country lanes (now Lower Earley), my sheepskin gloves building up a layer of frost. I sang the song to stop myself getting too spooked.

The hurry up

 Walking upstairs to bed this evening, with Aidan just in front and dawdling, I used Dad’s technique of growling and whacking the stairs behind him as he then scampers up. It used to delight and terrify me in equal measure. 

Surprised this one hadn’t come up previously (I searched) but good to keep this ticking over and having at least one a year.