“Getting away with murder in the house of the devil is no great feat.”

It wasn’t always like this.  Worries about safety of children has something to do with age, maturity, intellectual discourse on the dangers of too many weirdos with too readily available sicko pornography, but mostly to do with having children.  Yes, the having children bit definitely brings on the protecting children feelings, along with the fear of them getting hurt in ways you cannot always protect them from.

It also helps to be a single parent.

I sit here, Sunday night, 22.32, just past 10.30 in the evening, tired, with my iron ticking hot behind my left should, my back aching, the dog bringing his meal into the living room to eat at his leisure by his dog bed one morsel at a time, feeling slightly nauseous and wondering where all the time goes.

I am a single parent.  Although not the be-all and end-all of me, it is definitely a defining feature.  I wonder what I would be without a child?  I’d just be me, but childless.  I had plenty of practice at that sort of lifestyle.  I had got morosely good at having a bad go at my own life, until this fatherhood malarkey kicked off.  Now I am happily ensconced in the roll of ‘good father’, which is what my friends all call me.  Even my first au pair comes back telling me that she explained to her own father that she has a second father in England (me).  She comes back once in a while to visit and hang out, run and play with my daughter and generally catch up on life in her second home.  In fact, I’ve just dropped her at the airport.  Stansted.  From which I’ve just driven home.  It took me over two hours.  My au pair left by plane after I drove away from the airport, and landed in Germany (from the UK) before I opened my car door at home.  That is how absolutely diabolical the traffic can be coming home on Sunday night on the M25.

So I’m trafficked, driven, cooked, cleaned, sweeted, shintzeled, vacuumed, swept, mopped out.  I’m soon to be ironed and movied out (just waiting to turn Wanted back on – Angelina Jolie where are you when I need you?  Why can’t those gorgeous eyes stare lovingly into mine?  Ok…I know why – I’m not Brad Pitt or Billy Bob Thornton, but I’m much younger than both…and would be happy to stay at home taking care of her seven kids while she went out and earned all the dosh!)

Might even have some time to write that killer novel I’ve been working on.

I’ve started it a few times, in different guises.  Many short stories and poetry and a children’s book and an unpublished novel or two later, I’ve still as yet to find my stride; my Ulysses.  Maybe if I was married to Angelina Jolie, living in a big house with no money worries, taking care of my daughter and her other children, writing when I could and generally enjoying life, I could write my pullitzer or nobel prize winning novel.  Who knows?  Anything could happen.  (And my dog would be REALLY happy with a bigger house to run around – so many corners to pee in! )

Hot iron ticking on the ironing board to my left reminds me that I’ve still got work to do, and it’s now quarter to eleven.  My back is aching (less than after that damn fool basketball game – who the hell am I fooling – I’m totalled at 32, a physical wreck even as I lose weight and run to make myself feel better.  And if my recently departed au pair is to be believed, finally in a state to be attractive to other women; chance’d be a fine thing! ), my athletes foot is now catching up with the second toe on my left foot and I’m feeling really crappy after all that ice cream and sweets I scoffed earlier while watching Angelina Jolie school some young whipper snapper of an actor into shape – lucky sod even gets to kiss her!   (Dunno if I could handle that…um…yes, I think I could actually… )

Anyway, this is me signing off.  Not cause I don’t have anything to say, as I do, plenty even.  Just cause there’s too much to do to be sitting here blathering on about nothing much at all when there’s work to be done.

Here’s to my long lost mate, for whose whinging I coined the phrase (much to his dismay), “You’re life sucks, I’d hate to be you.”

Another day in the life of…

a single father