The red mist descends - In the name of Thiago - Day 12
In the name of Thiago
Well folks after a day
of melancholy yesterday, I was back up and firing today. An emotional low followed
almost immediately by an emotional high. I truly thank my lucky stars for being
married to an extraordinary woman who completely fails to comply to any
stereotypes of the fiery Latin-American. Phew. Can you imagine if we were both
like me? Quelle desastre!
However, while the
fire in Angelica’s belly only comes out on occasions when I really have messed
up, (she seems to be giving me a wider berth these days) the emotional
rollercoaster of doing anything with my dad presents an altogether meatier
challenge. And it’s a challenge I just can’t help myself from rising to, bloody
fool that I am.
After a three-setter decided
by championship tie-break at Draycott this morning against my old mate Jim, I
managed to maintain my impeccable 100% record. Unfortunately for me the old
bastard has taken me to the cleaners on all four of our matches. For the record,
Jim’s victory today was by the margin of 6-1, 4-6, 10-3. So after another tennis
humbling at the hands of my favourite 73-year-old, it was back to base to prepare
for the next house viewing with my old man.
Giving directions
to anyone can be testing at any time and I was trying to be patient with him
but Christ alive did he do my fecking head in today. Approaching a roundabout
with three exits, one clearly going to the left, one going straight on and one
going to the right, my Dad would not accept the instructions, ‘left, right or
straight on’.
Nope, it had to be
first exit, second exit etc. Any use of left or right was met with stern
disapproval, much tutting and a slightly impatient demand for the right
information. My instruction of "just stay on this road for about 6-7 miles until I say otherwise", would be met with incredulity and of course me then being asked if he needed to come off at almost every turning. At one point I almost lost it as he attempted to turn into what
was clearly someone’s drive when I said next left as if he was trying to make
his point.
But the funny thing
is, in a way, which I really can’t explain, I find the fact that he seems to take so
much enjoyment in pissing me off, strangely reassuring. I mean, bloody hell I
felt like throttling him at points today but then the split-second passes and I
quickly fall into a magnificent bout of brutal swearing and regress to rolling
around in hysterics.
It sure as hell takes
my mind off the sheer misery of my constant grief. Maybe the old man knows exactly
what he’s up to and I just fail to appreciate his subtle ways and means. Does
he bollocks, he just loves a good shit stir. But I’ll take it and laugh with
him because I can’t cry much more!
The other thing I did
today (well actually there were more than two, for example I washed some
pants), was finish reading this very entertaining book.
It was lent to me by my
friend Alex who, when hearing about my plan to walk from the south east tip of
England to the northern frontier that is Stoke-on-Trent, decided I could do
with comparing notes. This Moore fella cycled 3000 kilometres following the
Tour de France route, so knows a thing or two about making a trek.
It is a pretty good
effort but you know what, I’m still not having it. He wasn’t trying to raise a
five figure sum for the NHS and he sat down the whole way. Lazy bloody toerag
if you ask me!
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