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.

The verb 'to brain'

Just a quickie from a recent tele-con with Beck. She was describing how an armless Paralympic swimmer finished her lengths by bashing her head into the side of the pool or, to coin a Dad-ism, "braining" herself. "I'll brain you!" Pa used to say when he was getting very cross with us.

Two from the Poode's visit to York

1. When driving too close to the car in front: "You're much too close!" Followed by: "Come down! Come right down!" Also tooting the horn when approaching a tight bend on a narrow road (eg in Devon) to forewarn advancing motorists of his approach. Usually followed by complaints from Mum.

2. Referring to spilling stuff "on the carpet" even in rooms which were uncarpeted. We know what he meant.

Catching tennis balls

Found myself with Aidan this afternoon in Dukes Ave garden with a tennis ball and racket and started to play catch.  It recalled those endless summers evenings when we all used to stand at intervals in the back garden and Dad would punt ball after ball for us all to catch.  No matter how weak or errant our throws back to him, he always seemed to get it back with out having to move.