So that\u2019s another Father\u2019s Day come and gone. The only reason I know it happened is because I got a card from our dog. At least I think he wrote it, but his handwriting is somewhat similar to my wife\u2019s. But that\u2019s the only one. No card or tweet or What\u2019s Ap from anyone else and\u2014more particularly\u2014nothing from my own children this year. Why does this happen? Do children get to a certain age (sort of 30\/40-ish) when fathers somehow cease to exist? Or perhaps they\u2019re too busy changing nappies and being parents themselves. Yes, I admit it. I\u2019ve got a slight attack of grand-paternal neglect.<\/p>\n
Of course, nobody ever forgets Mothers\u2019 Day. If you do, that\u2019s it\u2014you\u2019ll never be forgiven. It\u2019s hugely central and all wrapped up with Mother Earth, Love, Warmth, the Family and Maternal Bosoms or something. Mothering Sunday is at the heart of every civilisation and has been celebrated for squillions of years, and rightly so. But in the current spirit of #MeToo and equal opportunities for both sexes, why is Father\u2019s Day so relatively low key?<\/p>\n
Naturally all such days are mostly commercial fictions of Clinton\u2019s and the gift-wrap fraternity who have made a parcel of days in order to sell us more greeting cards. I haven\u2019t checked recently but I assume you can easily buy cards for Cousins\u2019 Day, Brother\u2019s Day, Sister\u2019s Day, Step Offspring\u2019s Day as well as Groundhog Day (again and again of course). What about Cat Day? We already have Dog Days to mark the so-called hottest days of summer, so we surely need Family Pet Day (wagon wheel treats for your hamster and rum flavoured millet seed to make your budgie fall off its perch in a drunken stupor).<\/p>\n
Hats off especially to the USA who already celebrate such delights as Patriot\u2019s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day (boundless Trumpeted patriotism and not just the movie) and Grandparent\u2019s Day on September 8th (hurrah\u2014well done!). Americans are world leaders when it comes to celebrating individual days. They\u2019re entirely responsible for bringing us Halloween and even Thanksgiving. I know this is true because I was invited to a Thanksgiving party last year. In Bournemouth.<\/p>\n
The more the merrier I say… we\u2019re obviously way behind over here. Let\u2019s have a different holiday one day each week in the UK to help keep our gift-wrap industry afloat. Here\u2019s my personal lateral list of new UK holidays starting with…<\/p>\n
County Day: fly the Dorset flag on Dorset Day and dance a little pirouette on Chesil Beach. Amazingly, I discover that this day already exists! It\u2019s officially on June 1st\u2014three days before the official Devon Day which is the feast day of Saint Petroc on June 4th. And Somerset Day is on May 11th. I don\u2019t know about you, but I was not aware of these, so where\u2019s all the publicity? How come we don\u2019t celebrate all three days with great joy and feastings throughout the Southwest? If we were in the States, we\u2019d have bunting and flags lining every avenue and all-day street parties. In the UK we only seem to do this when it\u2019s a Royal Celebration or a Wedding.<\/p>\n
Letter Day: we all know about D-Day, but what about the first three letters of the alphabet? I propose that \u2018A Day\u2019 (otherwise known as Hay Day) is a September party to take the place of Harvest Festival. Lots of other countries venerate the collection of fruits and crops from the fields. It\u2019d be pretty easy to get sponsorship in these days of fashionable green fingers (garden centres, seed companies and organic foods) and we could all eat freshly picked green veg for lunch and nibble on home-spiralized carrots for supper. \u2018A Day\u2019 is also known as Bunny Rabbit Day.<\/p>\n
The next letter day is easy\u2026 \u2018B Day\u2019 is clearly a day to celebrate bathrooms and loos and pipes and plumbers. Sponsorship comes from B&Q or Wickes. Make sure you\u2019ve put the hot water on to all-day at home before the day starts.<\/p>\n
\u2018C Day\u2019: I thought about this but it\u2019s pretty obvious really. The \u2018C\u2019 stands for vitamin C, so the day is marked by sucking oranges and lemons and attending anti-scurvy classes. Boring Marshwood Fact of the Day: Did you know that in addition to all citrus fruits, it\u2019s broccoli and Brussels sprouts that contain the most vitamin C. This might go some way to explaining why children traditionally don\u2019t like them.<\/p>\n
Then, please don\u2019t forget \u2018Robin Day\u2019: a day to write to the BBC complaining about the fall in broadcasting standards and media political bias and how \u2018Disgusted\u2019 doesn\u2019t only live in Tunbridge Wells and why Hedgehogs should be better protected and how the Archers has completely lost the plot on Radio 4.<\/p>\n
And I haven\u2019t yet mentioned \u2018Doris Day\u2019: a day to celebrate the glories of old movies and reminisce about the times when singers could actually sing rather than be retuned electronically to be teeth shatteringly pitch perfect with automatic robot-like voices. Perfectly in tune, but perfectly inhuman.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s enough of a rant for today. And it all started with Father\u2019s Day… My sons, I forgive you. But don\u2019t anyone dare forget next year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So that\u2019s another Father\u2019s Day come and gone. The only reason I know it happened is because I got a card from our dog. At least I think he wrote it, but his handwriting is somewhat similar to my wife\u2019s. But that\u2019s the only one. No card or tweet or What\u2019s Ap from anyone else […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3760,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-3763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-laterally-speaking","tag-humphrey-walwyn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.marshwoodlife.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}