Taking a walk with my Dad..
Apart from my
sneezing as if I was a competitor in the allergy Olympics, today has been a
wonderful day. Woken up by my niece and nephew at 8am as they were preparing
for school and breakfast I got up earlier than I had planned on a holiday but
when you are in someone's house, you do their rules.
My dad was taking
my niece in her pram for a walk to the local shopping centre and I asked him to
pick me up some things but he insisted I walk with him. I did, reluctantly, not
reluctant to hang out with my dad for an hour but I wanted to be lazy and the pollen
count is so high I am sneezing more often than I am breathing, or so it seems,
I do exaggerate when it comes to my hayfever.
Firstly, I had to
prepare, my dad was still in his jeans that he wore for gardening so stained
with grass and soil. I needed to wash, change and put my shades on. Dad was
already standing on the drive waiting for me with my niece in her pram. And so
it began. I knew a different route to the shops, a route I remembered from my
childhood when we used to cycle all over the place and didn't have the luxury
of an Xbox to be glued to. Dad didn't believe me. Dads cannot be argued with
when it comes to directions, they always know the best route and don't you
forget it. One thing I noticed (or did I always know)is that my Dad doesn't talk
much and when he does he was pointing out the types of flower and plants and
cars, especially how many people had the same car as him, I wouldn't notice any
of that but would notice if the car was the same colour as Dad's. We took Dad's
route there and I insisted we explore the option of my route. We found it, a
bridge that Dad has driven under hundreds of times and had never noticed. It
saved us an almost 1 mile detour through the estate we used to live on. The
house we used to live in looked tiny, even though it had 3 floors, it looked so
small as did the grass we played on, I don't know how all of us (and there were
a lot of kids in my street) played on it at once without fighting, oh I forgot,
we did fight sometimes.
So I took Dad my
route home, the shortcut, it saved us 20 minutes and was a much nicer walk, so
Dad learned something from me today. Makes a change.
Sean Usher
May 7, 2013
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