In our case, neither the fence panels or the children are creosoted but that’s not really the point I’m trying to get at.
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| This is a knitting pattern from the 1980’s for a snood. It has nothing to do with this post, other than a snood would have kept my head and neck nice and warm while I was fencing on Saturday |
At the weekend I replaced 5 of our fence panels that were in various stages of rotting into a composting mulch with 5 new fence panels from a local nursery. As I was doing the fence panel replacing, in temperatures of around zero degrees Celsius, a scant 7 hours after my return from the works Christmas party, I considered that I was putting up wifey’s fence panels as she had ordered them and arranged the delivery. I wouldn’t, I mused, be up at this time of the morning, if they were my fence panels. In reality it was quite nice being outside with my hangover, unharassed by small children and doing something practical. Of course it wasn’t a hardship and I secretly enjoyed it but I do like playing the martyr a bit at times.
Today however one of my newly installed fence panels blew down. I suppose ownership could have transferred on the installation and that would make sense to me. But it did get me thinking; kids are like our 5 new fence panels in many ways. If one of your kids does well at school or wins a prize for some meaningful contribution to the human cause, you’ll happily tell anyone who can’t come up with a good enough excuse to flee the immediate vicinity that my child has won a prize for the number of prizes he’s won or something similar. Conversely when one of the children has decided that a cream coloured sofa is a thing of derision and needs colouring by having play dough mashed into it, they are suddenly and very definitely my children as in “look at what your naughty little boy has done now!” (This is usually followed closely by a mournful “I very sorry Daddy” from a momentarily contrite looking two year old. He doesn’t have me fooled in the slightest).