family: April 2005 Archives

I had such high hopes for today. I was going to check out a couple of local gyms, help my cousin do some work around the house, maybe go out on the bike, you know, just the usual first-day-of-a-three-day-weekend chill-out stuff.

Well, that feeling of contentment lasted about two minutes. No sooner had I gotten out of bed (admittedly late in the morning, this was Saturday after all) than the phone rang. It was my ex, telling me where she was going to be at different times of the day so I could drop off the child support money at the right house. Then she hit me with this little bombshell. She doesn't want me buying my son presents every time I see him. Apart from the fact this isn't quite true, what's wrong with a father wanting to buy his son a toy?

Apparently it undermines her authority. I saw him on Wednesday and called in to the supermarket on the way home from work and bought him a little Lego car. It cost the same as one and a half McDonalds Happy Meals. She wasn't impressed. He'd been naughty ealier in the day with her mother, although he was good as gold with my mother in the afternoon and good as gold with me in the evening. But no-one told me he'd been naughty earlier. I have a message for my ex-wife here. I'm not psychic. If there's something I should know about his behaviour, please tell me about it. If there's something he needs more than a toy car, please tell me about it. I may only see him once or twice a month these days (her idea) so I'm not exactly "in the loop" any more. But I repeat: unless I'm told what's going on, how am I supposed to be any the wiser?

I was furious and very upset when I finished my first phone conversation with her this morning. She's not happy that I'm trying to reduce the amount of child support I'm paying because she wants too much from me (I'm already paying more than I have to by law, which I believe I've talked about in another post). Her argument is that if I can't afford the child support then I can't afford to buy him toys. We're talking about three lousy fucking pounds here. Once every fucking two months. Every time I see him he says "Have you got a present for me daddy?" and every time I say "no". Well, this time, I thought I'd say "yes" for a change. Just to show him that I do actually love him. And still it's wrong.

I give up. She'd rather I buy him a t-shirt or some pyjamas or something. What the hell is so wrong for a father to buy his son a toy once in a while? Can someone please explain this to me, because I can't figure it out at all.

Plan of action for the next week:
1. Apply to the Child Support Agency for a review of my payments. We've avoided getting them involved so far but, hey, I'll get my payments reduced and I'll probably end up spending the extra tenner on him anyway.
2. Call my ex every evening to find out what his behaviour has been like that day. After all, she phones me every time he's with me to find out if I've been feeding him nails or something.
3. Talk to her about our different parenting styles. She's very quick to punish, and punish rather hard I think (a television ban for a whole week for a five-year-old?) whereas I'm more prone to raise my voice once and then talk to him afterwards about his behaviour. Apparently he has two personalities - he's reasonably good when he's with me or my parents, and an absolute terror when he's with my ex or her parents. Maybe there's more to this than meets the eye.

Still, the three double-whiskies and the blast of very loud Metallica at 5pm helped calm me down. A bit. Because before then, I swear to god she was sapping my will to live.

We finally did it. My sister-in-law and I had tried walking up Pendle Hill before, on a very wet day last year, but we only made it round the foothills. Today, we had a determined effort to get to the top. Here's a potted photo-diary of the day. Click on each image for a larger one if you're so inclined.

An example of picture-postcard Britain.

If you look at the large version of this image you'll see a diagonal "scar" running up the side of the hill. This is the path to the top!

My sister-in-law and nephew at the base of the path. As you can see it's mainly a staircase of stone steps. Didn't make it any easier though! We ended up walking for 20 yards, stopping to get our breath back, walking another 20 or 30 yards, stopping again....... and while we were resting by the side of the path we were being overtaken by people with dogs, people with kids, people wearing work shoes, people not breaking sweat - it made us sick, sick I tell you!

Finally at the top! A well-earned lie down and a spot of lunch (not pictured). However when we stood up we nearly got blown over by the force of the wind up there!

The view from the top, looking down. It's a pity the view was a bit hazy, but whether I'm going to go back up there on a good day remains to be seen! While we were having our lunch we were passed by three men out jogging (to the top of that thing! Are they crazy?) and by a man carrying a three-foot long remote controlled model glider aircraft. It was all we could do to haul a few sandwiches and bottles of water up there!

Self portrait of a man sheltering from the wind.

We could have been on the surface of a different planet.

Portrait of the author in the middle of nowhere. This picture was taken before we got lost, as you can see, we're still following the path by the stream. A bit further on, we started asking people "Is this the way back to the village?" and were getting answers like "No, this is the way to the town. The village is way over yonder" and watching them point over our shoulders back the way we had come.

So a three-hour six-mile walk turned into a six-hour nine-mile walk. I must admit I was getting frustrated near the end, especially when I thought we were completely lost, but we made it back in the end. They've got some very steep roads up there in Lancashire. It's bad enough having to drive up them, let alone walk or (gasp) cycle.

I'm not doing that again in a hurry, although I guess I did manage to walk off last night's dinner. I think I'll stick to the flat from now on, though. Until the next time.

Telephone conversation with my sister-in-law this morning:

s-i-l: What are you up to?
me: Tidying the house
s-i-l: Have you got a mirror there?
me: Yes, why?
s-i-l: Go stand in front of it, stick out your tongue, and see if it's covered with green spots. You might need medical attention.

I know I'm not the tidiest person in the world, but at least I'm not likely to be visited by the Health and Safety Executive any time soon! Well, I hope not, anyway.

Also while we're on the subject of being cheeky, Old Horsetail Snake requested that I always post my weight in lbs, so that he's got a vague clue of what I'm talking about. That sounds like too much hard work for me, so intead I'll refer my esteemed and learned fellow blogger to this link right here.

Last night my son advised me to "get rich" because then I'd be able to spend half my money buying new things to replace the old things which I've broken (!) and the other half buying him toys. I told him I was working on it.

So the day's going well. Sleep all morning, help my cousin make a kitchen cabinet from timber that was in my old bedroom in my parents house. Go for a bike ride in the late afternoon. Safari, sogoody. Then my ex-wife calls and ruins everything. I've had to cut the child maintenance back because I can't afford to give her what I've been giving her. I'm still giving what I legally have to give (i.e. if she gets the Child Support Agency on to me she's not going to get any extra) and she accuses me of having my priorities all wrong and not putting my son first. We both end up shouting at each other. I slam the phone down on her once and she slams the phone down on me once. Sometimes I feel like I can't win. When I tell her I can't afford to make any extra payments she proposes that I remortgage the house, or take out a loan. Yeah right. And how am I supposed to keep up the repayments, might I ask?

To be perfectly honest, this argument over money has made me feel suicidal in the past. Not very suicial, just a little bit. Just enough to start wondering what size hose will fit over the car's exhaust pipe, but not enough to find myself in a hardware shop looking at bits of hose. It's taken me the best part of the evening to even get into something remotely resembling an ok mood, just in time for bed. Bugger.