A dad and a dog on the Downs

We have some lovely scenery near us. Of course, that could be said of almost anywhere, including the middle of cities (Hyde Park, London; Central Park, New York). For us, though, it's a little special, as we have Britain's very latest National Park on our doorstep; The South Downs National Park.

Last weekend, following a lazy start with Roxy on the bed (see Wednesday's Gem), we decided to go to one part of the South Downs, known as Butts Brow.

Butts Bow, a painting by Lis Lawrence.
NB - all rights to this piece belong to Lis Lawrence. www.lislawrence.com

It was a short, but steep drive up to the car park, where we found that a lot of other people had already had the same idea. There were even a number of cyclists making their way at varying speeds up the hill. Even the car park was not at the top. Once you had parked up, you had a choice of various routes to progress along, although all had the same basic theme of  'uphill'.

Let me tell you, though; It's bloody worth it. When you reach the summit, there is a 360-degree view for miles around. Off to one side, you can see Beachy Head and the sea beyond there. Turning clockwise, you can see the South Downs stretching off into the distance. Further around, there are some hills and valleys a lot closer, but you can still see patches of land between them. For my money, these gaps looked like doorways into different worlds. A final quarter-turn gets you a view of the town of Eastbourne.

Again, this image is not ours. All rights belong to Will Gudgeon.

It doesn't normally look like a view of Orthanc from the film version of Lord of the Rings, but it is an impressive photo, yes?

The three of us spent a good ten minutes admiring the scenery, until the mood was broken by Roxy, who was suddenly rolling around in the grass, in paroxysms of joy. Fortunately, there was nothing that warranted the dreaded B-word.*
Rolling over, Roxy stood and shook herself, grinning hugely. I smiled myself, and, referring to the view once more, remarked how wonderful it was.

Here's to my father, who introduced me to walking in the countryside, and to offbeat humour, and to Toby the Jack Russell terrier who often accompanied him on many a jaunt. Rest in peace.

...and when they were only halfway up...

I try to be clever, honestly. I try to have a ready answer for every situation. Unfortunately, I don't have that spontaneous an imagination. Most of my humour comes from having thought about something and then editing it until it works. Or not - I'm no Terry Pratchett.

Julie, on the other hand, is almost the very epitome of spontaneity. Put her in a situation, and BAM! Out comes a cracking remark. Sometimes it is funny, other times, it is a keen observation on what has been going on.

Of course, these off-the-cuff remarks can arise from something only she was aware of; such as when other people are not looking in the same direction as her.

Such as when I am driving, and Julie has seen something off to one side - or even just inside her own head.

My father always got on famously with Julie; once those two started off on one of their bizarre dialogues, there was little chance of anyone keeping up to speed.

Dad approached this mindset from a slightly different direction to Julie. He had always been a fan of The Goons, and in later years began to have a fascination with abstract art and some of the more way-out types of jazz music.

I have pointed out many times before that our family - like many others, I imagine - have a lot of in-jokes, silly remarks that make absolutely no sense to other folk. Apple strudel, postboxes, burn rubber. Apparently random words and phrases, but they all are strong memory triggers for us.

Dad appeared to be something of a catchphrase generator, mostly when he was driving; I think it may have been a way of breaking up a silence and keeping himself awake. One of these phrases was a 'bloody obvious' comment - like most of them;

"It's uphill, this bit."

And yes, he would be driving up a hill at the time.

The thing is, it was catching. We now say these things ourselves, for pretty much the same reason. Of course, when Julie is involved, things can take on a new life of their own...

All I could think of was this...

Not to be sniffed at

As I write this, I have not long returned from an evening of playing Magic: The Gathering. In what proved to be our group's largest meeting yet, we took over the pub completely, and had lots of fun in doing so. I'm especially pleased, as I actually won more than half of my games for a change.

I forget who my opponent was at the time of this Gem, but I do know that, just to my right, Josh was playing James. Earlier in the evening, me and Josh had been swapping a couple of off-colour gags (none of which I will be repeating here), which set us both up nicely for an night of feeling rather silly.

James was puffing away on his cigarette - his E-cigarette, I should say. A subtle blueberry flavour, which was also pleasing to the nose. It was the odour which prompted a little discussion on our table about the varying smells of tobacco and the electronic alternatives, and that in turn reminded me of how my father used to smoke a pipe.

Pipes are definitely an acquired taste - The lounge always wound up looking like a fire had broken out in a pile of soggy wood. However, to me, the fragrance of pipe tobacco being smoked was quite nice; earthy and comforting.

Considering my predilection for wordplay, you would have thought I should have chosen my words a lot more carefully when reminiscing about pipe smoke to this lot...

Yes. Yes, I did...

Love over Scrabble.

As a family, we have always liked word games, Scrabble in particular. Of course, there have always been personal foibles, and I don't expect that will change. Dad, in particular, used to make random guesses at word spellings; in case you couldn't tell, he was more of a numbers man. Many times, he would play a word and there would be a chorus of  "what the hell's that?", only for us to find out he was going for some semi-phonetic version of a common word. In fact, it got to the point when "Bagsy* coming last!" became his opening gambit.

He wasn't that bad a player though. As he always liked to put it, he was often runner-up. Pity there was usually only two of them playing.

On one occasion, a family game, it was my sister who was failing and trailing. In fact, by the end of the game, she had only managed 98 points. To put that into perspective, anything below 150 in a four-player game is, for us, a bad result. Ever the dutiful father, Dad decided to console his stricken daughter.

*'Dibs' for those more used to USA English

A lickle trouble

Viewers of programmes like Eastenders, and those who have seen films with Jason Statham in them will know of a certain vocal characteristic of those who live in the London area. Essentially, letters and wholes syllables are swallowed up in a glottal space, resulting in an almost total absence of the letter 't'. In fact, the very word 'letter' ends up being pronounced as "le'ah."

Dad had a similar, yet different, approach to pronouncing whole words. It was - and still is - a family in-joke that Dad could never really pronounce the 't' in the middle of a word. Instead, the hard sound of the consonant was transformed into a 'k' sound. Since my father was fond of Derbyshire, and a lot of his and Mum's spare time revolved around trips there, this invariable meant going through Matlock. Or, as Dad would call it, 'Macklock'.*

You can see how this is going, can't you?

Now, since Dad was rather fond of a tipple, especially single malt whiskies, the family joke has always been about 'lickle bockles'. My father always took it with good grace, and even enjoyed joining in with the banter. Brilliantly, this Gem has someone else falling foul of the whole scenario...

Hmm. If this was Twitter, this would probably be given "#guessyouhadtobethere".

Interestingly enough, when I was having an idle google, I found a site that would seem to have been named by my father...

I'm not making this up - ickle bockles is a site that provides you with all those horribly small toiletry containers that airports demand these days. Visit THEIR SITE to find out more.


*either way, Matlock is a lovely place to visit, but it is a right bugger to drive through as it's at the bottom of a long, narrow valley.

New old news

Even before we suspected anything was wrong, Dad was one of those people with an offbeat sense of humour and liked to look at things from skewed directions. He was also well known for being easily distracted and for getting his sentences tangled up.

When we finally noticed he was becoming even more vague than usual, we suspected Alzheimer's disease. The real cause, a massively aggressive brain tumour, floored us all.

As a tribute to my late father, I want to dedicate this week to him with three Gems (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). Silly and yet sharp, he's still missed, and always will be.

--------------------------------------------------

My dad is the reason I'm a big fan of surreal humour. The Goons, Monty Python - even The Young Ones - all came to me via my father. It may have surprised some people, knowing him as a sober-looking besuited man with a very well-maintained beard, that he would have such a liking for these things. However, 'silly and surreal' was a very good way for him to let his hair down. One of our favourite things was to hold a conversation about nothing at all, with each sentence being replied with something that took the chat in another new direction.

"So, what do you think?"
"Orange. Definitely orange."
"Not square, then?"
"It's a close call, but square is very Marmite."
"True, true. The brakes make too much noise as it is."

See what I mean? Absolutely bizarre. This is why he and Julie would get on so well. In fact, they would take this conversational art and take it to new, utterly baffling (yet logical) extremes.

A few years ago, a new newspaper was launched in the UK.

Nice and cheap, the i is a news digest, meaning that all the stories are pared down to the minimum. In other words, no rambling articles where the same thing is repeated ad nauseum. As an added - or removed, possibly - bonus, there is very little in the way of celebrity crap. Even better, being a sister publication to The Independent, it is resolutely liberal and fairly open-minded. Unlike the 'newspaper' below...

Yes, it's a fake. Yes, that's me.

Originally, this newspaper was only published Monday-Friday. It was less than a year, though, that a Saturday edition was introduced for the stratospheric cost of 30p. Before that point, though, my dad and I had a conversation...

It took me far long than it should have done to work that out.

Swine on the sly

Some time ago, I mentioned that Julie had been referring to a running gag in one of her Gems (this one, in fact). And you know what? I quite forgot to mention the Gem that started it all off.

It all began innocently enough - for one of our conversations, at least. A nice drive in the countryside, windows down and enjoying the warm, if fragrant, air. Playing 'spot the farm animals'...

Wait, what?

Well, the thing is, we often use statements that don't just verge on The Bleedin' Obvious, but rush in and take over its territory - all in the name of having a conversation opener. My father used to do this too ("It's uphill, this bit"). However, silly is as silly does. If you opt to start a conversation with a daft opening, you can't really complain if the whole exchange ends up the same way...

You'll have noticed that by the end of that lot I had caught the bug and was operating at Gem level myself...

Ready for the rubber zoom-room

Here in Britain, we tend to have a certain image of slow, elderly drivers. This image comes from the only thing we are usually able to see of them - their hats. In fact, in our family, this has become an actual term.

"Why are we going so slowly?"
"I think there's a Hat up front."

I know it's an unfair generalisation, but there are enough participants in the Granny Grand Prix each Sunday that there is more than a kernel of truth to it.

My father wasn't a complete Hat, but he was definitely working on it. With a touch of OCD and self-doubt in his psychological make-up, his approach to speed was very much 'I'll get there when I get there'. Fortunately, Dad was also quite mild and had a nice line in self-mockery. When he turned a corner and shifted up to third gear, he would purse his lips and suck air and say, "cor - burn rubber!"

Dad was full of bon mots such as this, and repeated them often enough for them to become catchphrases, sayings that the rest of us would repeat, often to the bemusement of our own passengers.

• "It's uphill, this bit."
• "Straight on a bit." (this on a dead straight road with no turnings for miles)
• "Tide's out."

You may have noticed there's a fair bit of stating the obvious going on. Like I said, though, all these and more have become catchphrases within our family. Certainly me and Julie tend to repeat them when we're out and about.

Dirty old world

One of the things that Julie and me like to do to relax is to go for a drive. For us, it's a great way to de-stress ourselves. If I have a bad head, for some reason, it works wonders to get into the car and just pootle about for an hour or so. What we like to do is go exploring; lots of little roads, places we've gone past, names we've seen on signposts. Alternatively, just driving along long stretches of road, enjoying the air (if it's warm enough) and listening to music.
That's if Julie manages to stay awake, that is. There's something about the movement of the car that just lulls her to sleep. She has often said that if someone came up with a bed that mimicked the motion of a moving car - while remaining in the one place - then they could make a fortune.

Naturally, we do enjoy the scenery, but as the driver, I tend to miss a lot - we tend to agree that concentrating on the road should be my main objective.* However, because I do pay a lot of attention to details, I often see things that Julie misses or has not seen until then. My peripheral vision will pick up things like the slight movement of a rabbit by the roadside, or some bird of prey hovering over a field.

Red Kite in Wales. Pic from Byrdir, a farm that does accommodation
and has a nice little blog going too. http://byrdir.co.uk/

In contrast, and possibly caused by the aforementioned lulling motion of the car, Julie's visual acuity seems to be less than 20/20...

Quite possibly, love, quite possibly.

*My father was notorious for not being able to keep his eyes on the road. It was very common that we would have to act as a second and maybe even third pair of eyes. I especially recall one family holiday in France. We were driving along one side of a beautiful valley, and Dad was constantly distracted by the admittedly gorgeous scenery on the other side.

(Dad) "That's a pretty chateau over there." 

(us) "It's a very attractive road in front of us, Dad!"

---------------------------------------------------------------

PS
I'll tell you what; when I went looking for a picture of a red kite, I never expected to find one as part of a blog by a Welsh farm, a farm that has a large amount of accommodation to its name.
The front of the website looked so good, I decided to see what the options for staying there were like. Very nice, as it happens. A beautiful location, nice cottages to stay in... I think I might have to keep this place in mind for sometime in the future (when we have the money, in other words).
Here's the link again http://byrdir.co.uk/

World Book Night 2013 - listen like a Slav

What ho, folks! How are your respective weekends going? Have you consumed diabetic quantities of chocolate, or are you somehow managing to pace yourselves?

If you're having a quiet weekend, then I hope you are settled down with a good book to read. Oh, go on, then. Have a bit of chocolate. And a nice cuppa.

When it comes down to settling in for a good, hard read, I like to have a little music on in the background. It won't usually have much in the way of lyrics, as that would distract me. As there aren't many (decent) albums that are limited to instrumentals and/or lyric-free vocals,* this generally means classical music.

I have a few favourites, but there is one composer I tend to keep coming back to; Dvorak. I was a young lad when my father played the composer's Slavonic Dances, but I loved the sound and it has stayed with me ever since. If I'm sat with a book and I want something upbeat to accompany my reading, on goes that CD.

And you know what?

We're going to be sharing that opportunity with you. Yep, another one of the prizes for that one lucky person is going to be a copy of that CD.

Nice, eh?

Stay tuned for more prize announcements in the coming weeks!

Running and rambling

A while back, one of Julie's colleagues announced that she was going to take part in the Cancer Research Race for Life.

At the time, we congratulated her and didn't think much of it. After all, there is so much in the way of charity events taking place these days.
And then, in July last year, my father was diagnosed with a massive and aggressive brain tumour. Less than six weeks later, he died.
After that, our heightened sensibilities couldn't help but notice that so many people's lives had been touched by cancer. It's been tough, to be sure, but we're coming to terms with it now. Yes, we do find ourselves in situations that affect us. The first time I saw this video was hard for me, but I now see it as a positive thing.

Back to our friend. When she told us of her intention to take part in this, we wished her well and backed away. Not from sponsoring, but from the actual activity. You see, neither Julie nor myself are what you could term 'svelte' or 'athletic'. Not by a long shot. For my part, I like to walk; I'm built for a slow, solid pace and Julie is generally happy to accompany me.
Running? Uh... no, thanks.

Julie put it slightly differently, of course.

Heh. Dad would have loved that one.

A pause and a change.

Hi folks, Spike here. Just to let you know that circumstances beyond out control are forcing us to slow down on the posts.For the next few weeks, there will be posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and maybe one or two extras.

Sorry about this. We love you all.

Your mother was a hamster and your father...

...may smell of elderberries, but that's besides the point, you English dog.

Yes, thank-you, I'll take it from here, if you don't mind.
On a recent journey up to Scotland in the company van, I had managed to sneak Julie in under the radar and since the hotel room was double and paid for by the company, all we had to do was pay for breakfast. Sweet.
Even better was one of our stops along the way.
Eastbourne to Edinburgh is only a short distance if you're looking in the index of an atlas of the British Isles. Driving it is a rather different matter. To make things easier, we planned to break the journey into two days, stopping over at my parents' house for a night each time (so that's why there have been so many family Scrabble games, eh? Interesting...). While we were there for the Northbound night, my father, who is - to put it mildly - rather interested in Scotland, especially the northern parts and Isles. He's made many journeys there, thanks to an old friend who lives in Wick. Naturally, since he has had experience, he was happy to pass on a few hints, one of which was to stop over at the Westmorland services on the M6 motorway. It's greatly different to the normal, horrible, bland motorway service station, he told me.

Oh look, an 'exciting' addition to a bland service station.
Forton Services on the M6

On the other hand, there's this.

Isn't this much better?

If you travel along the M6, one of Britain's longest roads, then you could do yourself a big favour and stop at the Westmorland services at Tebay. For a start, you can see from the pictures above that they're far prettier than the normal crap. Not only that, but once you get inside, then you'll find that the ridiculous chain cafes, shops and restaurants are absent. Instead there are farm shops with local produce and a restaurant offering dishes that really are made freshly, with fresh ingredients.
Damn, I'm hungry now, and I'm not going to help myself with this next bit...

As I said, my father is rather hot for the Scot, especially Robert Burns, his poetry, and THE event of the Scottish year, Burns' Night. The main thing here is that Dad does like a bit of haggis. I'm partial to it as well, but Dad's just that bit happier for eating one. With that in mind, I had resolved to buy him one as we were going to be dropping in to Scotland for a flying visit.
As it turned out, buying a decent one-man haggis was a problem in Scotland, but not at the aforementioned services, so we browsed the shops and bought a few gifts. I'd already headed towards the chilled food section, and Julie was following. I announced my intention to her;

Not a lot I could say to that.

No pros, but plenty of cons

Back to my family and yet another game of Scrabble. Two games, actually. You'd think we have nothing better to do, wouldn't you? With five people around the table, one person had to sit on the sidelines, and I volunteered with alacrity. Also with appropriate alacrity, I dashed off for my notebook and pen.
Oh come on - you don't think I was giving up a four-way Scrabble game out of the goodness of my heart, do you? Especially considering when two of the four are Julie and my father. OK, so my (currently) reticent mother and my sister were there too, but we all know where the fun lies, don't we?
Actually, in this case, no. Dad and Julie were bucking the trends and setting standards by winning a game each, an unusual event in itself, as they are usually proud of their ability, if that's the right word, to come last in a game. So much so that Dad appears to have himself a catchphrase, which he gleefully calls out as we're setting up the game.

"Bagsy coming last!"*

In one sense, I suppose, it's almost a mantra, to ward off any bad luck (ok, sour grapes, possibly) in case he does lose. Admittedly, if it's just him vs Mum, then the odds are that he'll lose.
Like I said though, He shared wins with Julie over a pair of games, something Mum took badly, sulking over a spectacularly awful set of letters. My sister, on the other hand - despite a couple of brief snits here and there - took their wins with a certain awkward grace...

We all looked at Dad at that point. It was so much like something he would have said it was uncanny. It was almost as if he'd scripted that line. Only the fact he was creasing up proved it was the first time he'd heard that line. Oh, well. At least I got one final Gem out of the game...

...or did I...?

---------------------------------------------------------

*In the USA and other countries, this equates to calling 'dibs'.

A family feudin' over features

There's nothing like a family for being able to push all the right - or wrong - buttons, is there? They have known each other for long enough to know what pleases or annoys them. Technically, that should make it all that much easier to buy them a gift at the appropriate times, but it never turns out that way, does it? In the end, out of desperation, it's a trip to a shop and handing over some of your cash in exchange for a gift voucher. On the other hand, we all know what familiarity is apt to breed, don't we?
As we saw last time, my sister responded a little harshly to my father making a rather triumphant move in a board game (although, in fairness, he HAD just stuffed up her own potentially game blagging turn.) It was during the same game that I decided to try and take a sneaky photograph of my sister. The thing is, she's rather like our mother when it comes to this. If they catch you trying to take a photo, and it's not during a special occasion, then you had better hope your life insurance details are up to date. Fortunately for me, my sister was, this time, on the other side of a large oak table and the cutlery had long since been cleared away.

*FLASHclick*

After the cursing had died down, we looked at the picture I had taken. I reckoned it wasn't all that bad - it certainly could have been a lot worse. My sister, on the other hand, demurred, which only gave our Dad a chance to take a quick dig;

There was so much flaming going on, I contemplated looking for a fire extinguisher...

The Great Platypus Debate rambles on...

Oh deary me. First, Scott decides that being different equates to being a platypus. Then, Julie joins in and gets herself, me and pretty much the rest of the world confused about how a platypus may be different from, say, a tortoise. And now my father joins in. You may recall that, when the mood strikes him, he can be as whimsical and off-beat as my lovely wife. And that, when the two of them get together, all you can do is sit back and try to stay afloat. Because once they're off, you have no chance of keeping up with the glorious oddities the pair construct from thin air.
It's quite charming, actually, that my father gets on so well with Julie - almost better than he does with me, I sometimes wonder, but that's fine with me. In my opinion, Julie is one of the personable people I know. It's almost impossible to not like her, she's that scattily charming. And considering that I'd always said (before they met) that Dad would be the one Julie would have to be the one to win over; Mum being so staunchly liberal it's beautiful.

Recently, we visited my folks and we were playing Scrabble (yes, there WILL be a Scrabble-themed Gem along soon...), and talking about what had been featured on Julie's Gems. Naturally, The Great Platypus Debate reared its unique head. I didn't have a computer handy, so I referred to the original notes I had jotted down in my omnipresent pad.

"Are platypuses like giant tortoises?"
"...no."
"Well, they're similar shapes, aren't they?"
"...no.""They're both flat aren't they?"
"...no."

At this point, amidst the general laughter around the table, Dad decided to side with Julie in his own little way

Although I wouldn't put it past someone to try. Before various animal welfare societies heard about it, obviously...

Northern England; that last bastion of Communism...

Hello and welcome to Half-way Day!

Once again, we will be revisiting that weekend that was only a couple of days ago in reality but is already apparently a distant memory... Well, a distant memory to most, but we have a few reminders of a great little weekend, courtesy of Julie, Dad and a game or two of Trivial Pursuit. Julie isn't involved this time, it's just me, Dad and Nadia Comaneci. Stop it! It's nothing like that at all - in fact, I had to Google the name, just to make sure I had the right person in mind when I was typing this out. I'll tell you what; I know I had this mental image of her as a successful Olympic gymnast, but blimey - that's LOT of gold medals... (take a look at the Wiki page to see for yourself). Actually, some of the stuff Nadia has done more recently is more impressive to me, especially the charity work regarding muscular dystrophy.
Anyway. We're not interested in any of that are we? Of course not; all you lot care about is how such a talented woman fits in with me and my father... Hmm... I could have phrased that better, couldn't I? Oh well, the best thing to do is just jump right in with the Gem and see how we progress from there. I'll ask the question, shall I?

My reply to this was, "No, it wa.. wait, what??"
Obviously, Ms Comaneci was born in Romania. Well, I say 'obviously', but Dad seemed to have been a little confused. Or perhaps he was just being a little silly.

(by the way, I phrased the question as I did because the questions were printed in 1985 and I wasn't sure if Ms Comaneci had passed away since then.)

How the Dodo really went extinct.

We had my folks down to say this weekend gone and had a great time. Lots to catch up on, things to discus and talk about generally. Food was eaten, both at home and in a restaurant, and that too was very enjoyable.
However, all this pales into insignificance when we get the board games out.
Long-time followers of this site will know that the combination of Julie and the games Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit are particularly good for providing us with entertainment beyond the original intent. Then too, if you include my father AND alcohol... Well, now.
With that in mind, this week is going to be mining the rich vein of Gems found during the course of this weekend, and we'll begin with a question asked by my father.

Imagine the scene; Reading out questions can be thirsty work. I have just finished asking my mother a series of long questions and am rewarding myself with a nice long gulp of refreshing water (yes, water). It's my turn to be asked a question, so Dad pulls a card from the box and reads out the following...

Seeing the question has provoked an entirely unexpected response, Dad breaks off. By this time though, I am having serious trouble breathing, let alone actually swallowing the water in my mouth, my mother is laughing hysterically at me (so much for sympathy there...). Julie, on the other hand isn't quite sure what's going on. Something's not quite right, but she can't put her finger on it...
Eventually, I manage to swallow the water and, after some deep breathing, establish that Dad had actually meant to read out 'much-lamented'.
Who'd have thought that the poor Dodo hadn't been hunted to extinction after all, be had been mass-killed by a fleet of steam rollers?

Mind out for that stea... oh...never mind...

Genetics by marriage

To round the week off, how about another two-hander featuring Julie and my father?
Seriously, I think the scientists could do far worse than start looking for a gene that deals with the ability to come up with stuff like this.

By the way, I'm hoping you have now got the hang of which typeface goes with which person. I use italics, Julie is the lighter, standard type and Dad is the heavier, darker font. I try and keep it standard across all the posts.

I'll tell you something. Sometimes, both Dad and Julie say things like this on purpose. Other times, it's pure mucked-up language and logic. Unfortunately, it's now got to the point I can't tell the difference between the two.
Ah well. Time to just sit back and enjoy the show then...

Eyeballing the titles

As you know by now, my Dad visited us last weekend and brought Toby, their Jack Russell terrier with him. He's an incredibly intelligent and loyal dog but he has some funny habits - like deliberately wedging his throwing toy under something so he can't get it out. His face is also one of the most expressive I have ever seen on any animal - including a few (alleged) humans I know.

"Take a picture of me, will you? Hah! I blow raspberries in your general direction..."

On one day, Julie was playing with Toby, when she stopped and looked into his eyes.

Indecisive much? Well, it's either that or Toby's eyes are chameleonic.
Shortly after that, we settled down to watch a film. We had asked Dad what he fancied watching, but he decided to leave it up to us. However, when it came to setting things up for it, he did ask which it was we had settled on.

Now, at the end of this week, can you see just why it is Julie and my father get on so well?