Thinking of fathers

We never thought of Fathers Day (ambiguous as ever about the punctuation, I prefer to leave it out altogether) when I was young; my own father's birthday always fell (of course it did!) at the same time of year and we celebrated it with strawberry tarts, which were his favourite and a great seasonal treat. I've chosen a photo of him taken sometime not long after the war on one of the Arran hills, taken by a friend because I was still too wee to take climbing and exhibiting a kind of fierce delight that I grew up to share in these same hills. He is wearing, as an old school friend pointed out, entirely natural fabrics, with not a trace of lycra - a fawn cotton wind cheater with leather patches on the shoulders, the khaki shorts he wore in the desert war, two pairs of wool socks and a dreadful old pair of boots with tricouni nails; his rucksack too is canvas and I'll bet that inside it there is a camouflage oilskin that's beginning to adhere to itself ...

I've actually enjoyed Fathers Day immensely, as some of my boys turned up after church bearing gifts for Himself. It was hot and sunny and still dry during the day, so we had coffee in the garden before heading down to The Boathouse on West Bay for lunch, followed by a sedate wander along the prom. Son Neil met an old school friend whom he hadn't seen for the past 30 years or so, and we finished off sitting on the dry moss in our front garden (shady in the afternoon) drinking tea and eating caterpillar chocolate cakes (excellent, since you raise an eyebrow) courtesy of a goodie-bag sent by my d-in-l.

I had another pre-prandial lie-down after all that, but thanks to the d-in-l I didn't have to cook, as the chaps had brought us our dinner. I collapsed over the telly and when I roused myself to lock up I found the night full of the sound of torrential rain. 

Extra one of the photos of the younger generation of fathers and sons ...