“I don’t like it. Why don’t you like it? I don’t like it.” It’s a simple enough conversation, played out with a two year old, who doesn’t quite have the language development to articulate what she really wants to say. Yet they are four words I try my hardest to stop Lauren from actually saying. Sure there will be things that she won’t like, but it should never be the default position – as it often is with kids – with unimaginative adults; for me. I was/am terrible at proclaiming my dislike for something. Look, textures, colour, squeamish sensation it leaves – all come before taste in deciding if I will try something. If I think I’ve once had something similar before, it means that
Monthly Archive:: February 2012
Dust and stories – that’s all we have left. Stories of a weeping tricenarian, gift bearing Peloponnesians and a family of Caesars – leaders of their empires – of their once great, dust covered lands. Those leaders died before their empires fell. Their legacy lasting longer than the lands they had conquered. But what of the greats who only fight for themselves? Have no one else to carry their name, long after they have departed the battlefield. All they can do is fight. Fight as their foundations crumble. Fight as they watch others raid their lands. As Phil Taylor stood abject, and apparently beaten in the first round of the new Premier League Darts season, there was a sense that the crowd were witnessing the
Goodbye old friend You served me well I shall cherish the times we spent together You protected me You covered me You gave me warmth when others offered only cold You were cool when some would have been stifling We travelled great distances together But as time drew on, you rarely left the house You lived your life, as I lived mine But what now – where will we both end up? I will move on, but never will I forget you Your end will not come, splattered in paint or oil or dirt Valhalla, if such a place exists for your kind Woosh the flames rise as they lick around you Ashes – all that will remain But what if another can love you?
I stand in front of you I’ll take the force of the blow Protection Something a father should always offer his children. Something I would like to think I offer to my wife; your mum. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much protection those around us really need. I can mollycoddle you to the point where you will push me away. I can be overly protective of your mum to the point where people would accuse me of trying to lord over her – not letting her be her own person. That’s a lie, in so much as your mum would quite frankly ignore me if I was being overly protective, but you’ll understand the reasoning at some point. Then there are times when you