Child's Play

Right, today I need to speak to the estate agent to see about whether I can go and have a look at the property again I might be interested in buying. I’m going to try and arrange it for tomorrow night because I am away with work a couple of nights this week. Despite my usual indecisiveness about such things, time is generally of the essence when it comes to buying property, so I need to get on with it and hope that no-one puts in an offer before I make up my mind about what I am doing.

Yesterday went ok. There was no hassle from anyone about not giving my father a card yesterday, although mum did (jokingly) try and encourage me to phone Magic FM to make a Father’s Day dedication. I politely declined.

Before my nephew went to bed yesterday he wanted my father to read some books to him. So he kept giving books to my father but dad would just leave my nephew to turn the pages and seemed to find it impossible to interact with him at all. My nephew is 15 months old so can’t read and I was saying to dad that he should just point out things on the page “look there’s a cat” and maybe give a quick meow or “look there’s a dog, woof” but he just sat there in silence seemingly unable to describe anything on the page. I just have no idea what goes on in my father’s mind. He’s not a stupid man but over the years seems to have lost his ability to interact with people even on a normal level. I think in some ways he is just so self-conscious that he doesn’t want to do something that he thinks could embarrass him. By contrast, I see messing about with my nephew as a great excuse to get away with acting like a bit of a kid and nobody thinks anything of it because they’re you’re alibi! You can’t normally do animal impressions, sing stupid songs, build things with toy bricks or just chuck a ball about even if you’re really rubbish at most sporting things. It’s marvellous! I think you miss out on loads of the enjoyment of kids if you just worry what other people will think. I guess if dad doesn’t want to do such things it gives me more opportunity to do it instead.

Enough of acting like a child for now and time to pretend to be an adult and make some enquiries about the place I might buy. Gulp.