Almost daily diary!

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

A trip in time

I performend another daughterly duty last night. Drove back to my 'home town'- only having left 24 hours earlier- to see one of my dads.
My 'real' dad, natural father, he who disappeared when I was 8 - or whatever you want to call him- lives around 2 minutes drive from my 'real' mother. Strange that she managed to keep that a secret for over 30 years, must have just slipped her mind!
Anyway, I met him, or rather re-met him, about 6 years ago. I'm not bitter. No, really I'm not. He fell in love and left, simple really.
Anyway, since we re-meet we have kept in touch mostly by e-mail. I try to avoid his phone calls by leaving the answer phone on because once he starts we can be on the phone for hours, I also visit in the evenings occasionally.
We seem to live in different time zones! We may look almost identical (well hopefully being female I do have a slight edge in the beauty stakes) but my body clock is way out of sync with his.
My day starts at around 5.30am right now, with small sprog slamming his door shut, snapping on his light and revving up his Nintendo DS before re-opening said door, and galloping along the landing to expel what sounds like a medium sized Niagara Falls from his bladder, before racing back again -Nintendo in hand with Star wars theme on full throttle- to his cupboard sized room.
On the other hand 'real' dad gets woken up by hungry cats around 9.30am. So by the time I arrive around 7.30pm -having relieved myself of the bedtime routine- its only about tea time (the afternoon sort) in his universe.
This is fine you're thinking, but no it's defiantly not fine! I need to be in my middle aged bed by about 10.30 to have anything like enough patience for the next days onslaught. But 'real' dad has his supper about 9.30pm. What should I do? Race off before supper even though I know that the best biscuits have been bought specially for my visit? Really, the conversation has often only just got going by then. Or do I resist the urge to rub my eyes (small sprog style) whilst doing a 'closed mouth yawn' -which still makes your eyes water anyway which is a bit of a giveaway-and enjoy the best biscuits therefore doing my daughterly duty? I don't have the heart to do the former, so I sit and eat and talk some more until I really HAVE TO GO. This is usually 11ish and with an hours drive home, it is way beyond my tempers ability to be kept the next day. But for 'real' dad and his wife it's still only early evening. They've only just started to warm up! The good bye bit is unbelievably long ( at the end, lots of shuffling on both our parts, the kissing is still a little awkward) and once I've gone they're up for a bit of web surfing into the small hours, only slipping into their respective nighties at about 2am.
So my Wednesday (today) started around 12am with me crawling into bed and within what seemed strangely like a few seconds Darth Vader seemed to be loudly snorting in my right ear. My god was it 5.30 already? Oh thank heavens..... no just husband remembering to breath (you know the sort where they stop for a few seconds and then breath in such a big breath their sinuses nearly collapse) Its only 4am. I have at least another hour and a half, if Darth buggers off that is.

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