D’ya hear yer man

With Karen starting back to work last week, my dad is now looking after Lucy three days a week.

I am pleased to report that he has taken to babysitting like a duck to water. And before you get any ideas, the ‘duck to water’ analogy is not my roundabout way of saying he’s ended up soaked and spitting feathers.

He really is very good at it.

Put it this way, when Lucy has spent a day in her granddad’s company it’s pretty much guaranteed that she’ll have a good night’s sleep. I’m not sure what kind of gruelling routine he’s putting her through during the day, but whatever he’s doing is working. I know he’s very fond of taking her to the park, primarily for a go on the swings, but come to think of it he’s never quite clear on who’s pushing who.

Last Thursday Lucy was rewarded for good behaviour by being allowed to sit and watch my dad’s favourite TV programme. Dad took great pleasure in telling me that Lucy did an LOL during the episode of Last of the Summer Wine that they watched on UK Gold.

I’m worried that Lucy is at an impressionable age and prolonged exposure to Compo and the gang could lead her, quite literally, onto a slippery slope.

I can just picture my dad paying homage to his heroes by taking Lucy up Stormont on a rainy day and pushing her down the hill in an old bathtub.

Winetasting party

Speaking of summer wine, rumour has it that the American President is soon to be introduced to Lurgan Champagne.

According to reports Barack Obama has gone ticket crazy for Northern Irish band Two Door Cinema Club’s concert in Washington DC in October.

Such is the President’s admiration of the band that he’s bought all the available tickets for the gig so he can handpick the audience to share the experience with him.

The band are flattered by the attention, but have vowed not to be overawed. As such they plan to stick to their post-gig tradition of indulging in copious amounts of Buckfast tonic wine.

And therein lies the problem. I’m sure Obama would mean no harm in popping backstage after the show to get his copy of their album signed, but once the Lurgan Champagne got cracked open it would all go to pot.

After a swig he’d be revealing to them the special password he uses to purchase concert tickets before they go on sale to the general public. After a glug he’d be showing them the video of the Bin Laden takedown on his iPad. And then once the bottle was finished he’d attempt to order a pizza and accidently give the go-ahead to launch a nuclear assault on China.

If you think Prince Harry was bad, this has the potential to be a lot worse.

Devilish mood

The other night I was in a devilish mood.

I was at the fridge getting ice cubes from the ice cube tray in order to make my drink ice cold. There were three cubes left in the tray and I took them all. I considered refilling the tray and then changed my mind, deciding instead to put the empty container back into the fridge. I knew the consequences. It’s as if I wanted to be shouted at by my wife upon discovery of the empty tray. Like I said, I was in a devilish mood.

Anyway, later that night I was awoken by a stinging punch to the arm. Getting punched in your sleep is a pretty traumatic experience. You have no way of defending yourself and it’s a pretty sudden way to be hauled out of a dream. When I opened my eyes Karen was standing over me shouting something about toilet roll.

I gradually gathered that I’d forgotten to put a new toilet roll in the bathroom after using up the previous one. A genuine mistake rather than any degree of devilment, but given that it was the middle of the night and Karen had hoped for a quick and efficient toilet run my error had caused all hell to break loose.

I apologised profusely and, rubbing my arm, I made a mental note to fill up the ice cube tray first thing the next morning.

Weekly teaser

The answer to last week’s teaser was: Libra is the only star sign not represented by an animal.

Here’s this week’s teaser: if a tree doubled in height each year until it reached its maximum height after 10 years, how many years did it take to reach half its maximum height?