Father's day

Today is Father's Day which makes me particularly want to honour each of my wonderful children. "My" is undeniably true and yet my part was minuscule. To be a father must be the greatest honour a man can achieve and children must be the greatest investment in this life. By it we understand in some small part what God is like. Thank you Jonathan, Christopher, Sarah, Kate for being who you are, for your love, for your belief. My heart is saying much more but how to write it I know not. I want to include Ali in this list but cannot as it is not Husband's Day.

Sometimes I am aware that I have not posted for ages but have nothing to say. Today my mind is teeming with stuff. Not that it takes many thoughts to count as teeming for me. It's all mixed up with A and T's plights (BTW T's course of hospital treatment has been completed and A's hands are healing well albeit with only two and a half fingers on one hand) and a preface to MacDonald's Phantastes in which Lewis remarks that "the relation of Father and Son is of all relations the most central" and this morning's sermon about the glory of tribulation (as opposed to whingeing about it), patience and perseverance and wot not, and my general malaise. As usual I am finding it hard to even figure what I am feeling myself, let alone try to communicate it to anyone else. It would require a listener with remarkable empathy for me to convey it verbally. Thus is the raison d’être for this blog. That few read it is neither here nor there. The case of the cardboard cut-out engineer comes to mind (see note below).

Why did I cycle 48 miles over mountains yesterday? I suppose that people here think I do it for pure enjoyment. I sometimes wonder about people. In fact the idea occurred to me after lunch, realising that I had no further duties and no set time for an evening meal, but it took me at least 15 minutes to pluck up enough courage - thoughts of all those hills, and of others here who spend their free time lying in the sun doing absolutely nothing, were putting me off.

I finally set off. The incline to the Sally Gap is gentle enough to start with but gradually gets more and more intense - struggling up that last stretch I wondered whether I would make it before feinting or something worse. I told myself I could always turn around. But I didn't. I persevered.

The prize was of course the generally downhill stretch to Laragh with its wonderful wide scenery. Then followed the ascent to the Wicklow Gap, a climb I know well but is still so hard. I purchased 500ml of Club Orange in Laragh for an outrageous €1.60, set myself for the one hour climb, habitually stopped to consume the drink half way at the rocks. Once again I wondered if I would make it. I could hardly turn back now! But here I am to tell the tale.

Why did I submit myself to such agony - was the prize really worth those two climbs? I don't have a clear answer, except that exercise generally is good for one and it's a bit of a challenge. It is sort of mixed up with this glory of tribulation (is this a euphemism for masochism?)

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The cardboard cutout engineer.

Working on some engineering issue at the BBC Research Department there were times when one needed input from another engineer. It was a common experience that, after you had made the effort to find someone and then had conveyed the problem in words, the answer came to you before the other person had had a chance to chip in. And so we reckoned it would do just as well to have a room containing a cardboard cut-out engineer to whom we could share our problems.