Father's Day

Yesterday was Father's Day, and frankly I was a bit unsure what to make of it. My instinct has always been to dismiss the whole thing as a load of nonsense dreamed up by greedy executives at greetings card firms. But even though, as a journalist, I've always taken a certain professional pride in being cynical, as my Facebook feed filled up with various friends and acquaintances changing their pictures to ones of their own dads, I had to wonder whether I shouldn't just go along with it all.

On this weekend last year I was in the middle of an epic stag weekend which I'd organised, so the whole question of what to do on Father's Day didn't really materialise. This time, G was old enough to scribble all over a card for me (doing her actual name will have to wait a while yet), and Mrs J gave it to me as we had dippy eggs for breakfast.

And that was enough Father's Day for me. I even bucked convention by cooking my own roast in the afternoon, sticking it to the man in my own maple-glazed way. But seeing as I spend every day with G, the notion of using Father's Day to spend some quality daddy-daughter time with her seemed a bit pointless. Surely, I thought to myself, we should use it an excuse to avoid each other for a day?

I more or less ended up doing that as I negotiated a pass out for the evening. Since having G, and moving next to the largest town in the country without a cinema, my movie going has declined dramatically. But I was very keen to see the Ayrton Senna documentary, and so headed into Manchester to check it out at the Cornerhouse.

One day I'll sit G down on a Sunday afternoon and try to explain to her that her dad has spent an alarmingly large number of Sunday afternoons sat in front of the telly watching Grands Prix. For just now though, I'm happy to leave her playing with her new water table instead. Much more exciting.