At The Allotment

Perhaps it's because I'm getting closer to having kids myself, but I've been thinking about my dad a lot lately. I see him more and more when I look in the mirror; but I realised recently that the him that I see there isn't what he looks like any more. The last time I went home I realised he's entirely grey—which he has been for ages, but somehow I didn't really notice until now. I guess I don't really look at my parents all that much, even when I'm spending time with them.

I was recently listening to this episode of Jay's podcast which might be up there with The Cave as a favourite individual podcast episode. Aside from making me want a beach hut of my own (then discovering prices in Brighton for huts all the way down by Hove Lagoon start from 18k, so uh, never mind 😭) it had this splendidly evocative section:

Sitting in the blazing sunshine I ask my Dad if he remembered the days we sat on wet spring mornings with heavy drizzle after my operation. Not a single soul apart from us, sitting side by side, drinking tea from polystyrene cups watching the rain and the tides.

This, for me, is the best, most concise description of what Spending Time With A Dad is like. When we were at the baseball the other day CM asked me if I'd ever played sport with my dad. We didn't, partly because my dad was very much Not Sporty, but also because... that just wasn’t really what spending time with Dad was like? It was (and still is) mostly sitting around, one or both of us doing something, or sometimes nothing.

Through a complicated series of circumstances, my dad has come into possession of a boat. Most times I visit my parents, Dad and I will drive down to wherever it's moored, unpack and inflate the dinghy, connect the electric motor and head over to the boat for a while. He'll do some bits and bobs, some weatherproofing or some tinkering or something, we'll drink some bad instant coffee from the flask and plastic mugs we used to take on walks when I was a kid, I'll read the book or meditate or stare at the horizon until my glasses get too drizzly and fogged. It's one of my favourite ways to spend time.

Before the boat, there was the allotment—I'd spend days (possibly illegally?) during lockdown over there with Dad sitting on folding chairs in the long 2020 summer under the baking sun, doing work on my laptop—and before that the lean-to in the garden, and the basement. I mostly remember Robot Wars as sitting around while Dad tinkered with stuff, or the long drives up and back.

I spent more time with my Mum growing up because she was the one who gave up work to look after us, so most of the time she was the one who collected me and my brother from school and took us to the park, or swimming, or to piano lessons or what-have-you. This meant the time I did have with Dad felt more precious.

(I remember I'd wait for Dad to come home from work—we didn't have off-street parking but you could see the top of the road Dad would come down to park on from the window of our front room, so when I was very young I'd stand looking out the window waiting to see his car coming.)

This isn't to say he was some distant figure or that he never played with us or anything, it's just that when I think about times that were not 'us as a family' but 'just me and my dad', a lot of it was just us sitting somewhere together for a long period of time. These are some of my most treasured memories.