Happy Father's Day

I once spent an entire sportive calculating the numbers of insects that are killed by the peloton in the course of an average Tour de France. I think I might even have bored some other people with some of my assumptions and variables, just for clarification.

When you ride a bike as much as I do, you have to be inventive about thinking of new things to run through your febrile imagination. That is on the bits of the ride when you're not wheezing your way up the hills or trying not to hit the gravel patches on the downs.

But today I wanted to go out early before the crowds were out. And this is what I came up with.

The excitement of the toy shop,

I still see it in my dreams

Pulling at your trousers

Where the pocket joins the seams

 

Or all those Sunday walks

Stone-throwing to the sea

Smashing through the bracken

You chasing after me

 

Or phoning just to grumble

Or laugh at something odd

Knowing you were always there

Agreeing there’s no God

 

Those poppies in the fields I saw

Were like the way you cried

Such sadness and such sorrow

The day your sweetheart died

 

Your laughter goes on in my head

You humming little songs

I can’t touch you any more

But that doesn’t mean you’re gone

 

Happy Father’s Day, Dad

xx