We’re driving to Hereford to look at some puppies.
The rain is falling in biblical style and has been since leaving home, nearly four hours ago.
I call ahead to let the breeder know we’re running late.
“Oh, is it raining? We’ve had none here at all,” he tells me.
The sky clears when we are about ten miles from our destination arriving into an idyllic scene on the edge of the Black mountains.
I suddenly feel a little ashamed at my grumpy frustration at both the horrendous travelling weather and my ageing body’s disgruntlement at sitting in a car for so long with nothing more than some grapes and a banana which I wouldn’t have had either if my wife had not had the presence of mind to bring them.
It’s not just the travel. In truth, the whole project has been causing me no end of anxiety.
Earlier in the week, I wrote it all down in a list that was longer than I’d anticipated.
I’m anxious about having another puppy because puppies look sweet but are an awful lot of work.
I’m anxious about not getting another rescue this time. “Buy one, rescue one”, that’s how it goes in my mind.
I’m anxious about telling the breeders we reject that we don’t want their cute little cherubs.
I’m anxious about the cost of a second dog having foolishly just calculated the cost of the one we already have.
And these are just the dog-related items on my list of doom.
My daughter texts me about meeting up with a boy she met recently for whom she doubts her feelings. She is also often on my list.
“You probably need to give it a chance. Volcanic chemistry is usually a red flag,” I write back.
“I’m worried that I’ll hurt him. It’s easier with people I like but who don’t like me,” she replies.
Sometimes she reminds me of me more than is comfortable, for either of us.
I look at the sweet adorable puppies who look just like the other sweet adorable puppies and wonder if it’s viable to have one from each litter and a rescue, and then perhaps move into the garden and live in a tent.
I could get by on more frugal rations and cut out holidays for the next decade.
But the children are excited about a new dog and it’s nice to make them happy because this will probably be the last puppy that they are living at home for, a thought I’ve just had and one that makes me melancholic.
In the evening I’m soaking in the bath trying to get the motorway out of my tired limbs and listening to an episode of “Heavyweight”.
It’s about a girl who needed help and couldn’t turn to her mother or her father but was lucky enough to find a complete stranger who recognised what she needed and found a way of helping her get it.
The stranger was a parent to her even though they’d never met. An act of kindness that brought deep joy to them both.
Fatherhood isn’t a selfless abandonment of one’s own needs but rather a way of symbiotically satisfying them through the consideration for others that we love.
So, rather than receiving gifts and cards on Father’s Day, I like to give a quiet thanks for those in my life who keep me on an even keel by allowing me to take care of them.
My children, their mother, and the dog.
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