My Creative Family - Dad

Last year I talked about My Creative Family - I talked about the links in my heritage to the creativeness that I have today. 

If you missed those posts, just click on My Creative Family in the labels section to the right there - scroll down a bit to find the labels section. I talked about my grandparents - all four of them, and how they were all creative in their own way. 

Now I'm going to chat about Dad and Mum. 

First, Dad. 

Here he is. 

He's a fisherman for one. 

And it's his birthday today, for two. 

Happy Birthday, Dad! Hope you have a great day today! May this next year bring you much joy. Love you. 

Yep, Dad's a fisherman. I remember the little beach house that we used to stay in for our yearly holiday back in the 70's. It was rickety and you couldn't drink the water straight from the tap and my sister and I used to fight for the bed near the little window. I used to love looking out that window and down the long, steep driveway to the shop below where you could get a bag of lollies for a dollar.

September (when we had our holiday) was fishing season. Dad used to don his big, black waders with those rock sandals he had, put his orange floppy hat on and go to town with the fishing. He also had a black hat to match the waders and was never without that bait basket on his hip. 

His beach rods were yellow and very long. He had to be careful not to break the tips of the rods on the trees as he walked down the track to the beach. 

Mum just emailed me a photo I knew she had. It's a classic. Here he is in all his get up!

Don't you love it? 

Unfortunately we can't see the rock sandals or the bait bucket, but we can see the fishing bag on the ground there. It's the one he used to put all his fish in as he caught them and would only empty when it got too heavy! 

One night while on holiday, I wasn't feeling well and Mum got Dad up from the beach somehow. He would fish when the fish were on, and if it was in the middle of the night, it was in the middle of the night! It probably wasn't, but it seemed like it to me. You know how early kids go to bed. 

Anyway Mum got Dad and she brought him in to check on me. I remember Dad leaning over me - I can see it plain as day - and he was wearing that whole wader get up, including the hat. Quite a sight. Must've been dripping wet and stinking of fish. But still, nothing like having your dad around when you're feeling sick, hey? 

I don't know what happened - did I spew up (normal!), or did I have to go to the doctor? 

I think I was sick because I drank the water straight from the tap. I was playing follow the leader with my sister and she drank a tiny bit from the tap, but when it was my turn, I was thirsty and took a big drink. Not good. 

Ah, the memories :o)

Just seeing Dad above holding that flathead reminded me of all that stuff in an instant. Then I started writing, then I asked Mum for the photo...

Photos are amazing, they really do do their job well. If you let 'em. 

Here's another - get a load of it. 

That's Dad there - wearing an orange floppy hat. He used to wear them all the time. 

And that's the said beach that we used to visit when I was young. 

Yes, that's me. A bit of fun time with Dad. 

Golly, I love old photos. 

Dad's a creative man too. He's different in that he doesn't so much make things - he does, just not as many things - he tends to fix things, build things as needed and organise things with shelves or whatever's necessary. He's very creative with the materials he uses, I think. 

Dad's a great handyman. You know, he can do shelves, painting, hang pictures - all that fab stuff that we love our men to do. He's great at that. 

He's a good builder too - he can build stuff when he needs to. 

Here's a hutch he built for Mum. He stained it for her too. He would've restored the table it's sitting on as well. Mum and I did a big clean up of her craft room years ago (you keep telling me we need to do it again, Mum!) and we decided she needed some shelving. Dad to the rescue and he built this to her specifications - pretty spiffy, hey?

He helped me restore some tables we found under Pappa's house. Sanded those suckers back and stained them to make them all nice and new again. One of them I'm using to rest my arms on now while I type (tsk tsk - were never allowed to do that in Typing).

He also took Grandma's silky oak writing desk and restored it beautifully. He did such a wonderful job and it looks just gorgeous.

What else has he done?

Crafty - hmmm, not a lot. He's admired all the things I've shown him over the years - that scores a lot of points. And all the things Mum's made too - and that's a lot.

Fixy - fixed my bike as a kid. Dad always did the first day checks before we rode off to school. Fixed cars with his dad. Fixed everything around the house. Fixes bits on buses now. Fixed a gurney that wasn't working! There's a lot of things I could put here, but he's a really good problem solver and general fixer of things, it's amazing. He's pretty determined too, which helps him in the solving and fixing stakes.

And just for kicks - other things he's done as a dad...

1. He moved my room around a billion times growing up. I used to have to keep him up-to-date with the cricket score while he did it. "What's the score?" I'd run out to the living room, wait until it came up (they keep it up the whole time now) and then run back with the good/bad news.

2. He used to whip our ice cream for us and put Milo in it to make it extra nice.

3. He walked me down the aisle and then married Andrew and I. Mum, Dad and Pete gave me away. My brother and I shared a house for 2 and a half years before I got married, so he gave me away too. It was nice.

4. He gave us shoe boxes/ice cream buckets to spew in when we went over the range. Windy roads, oh, man.

5. He used to kneel beside my bed and talk to me before I went to sleep. He used to always push my hair out of my eyes and tuck it behind my ear.

6. He taught me to drive (so did Mum).

7. He used to be our bus driver for excursions at school when I was a teacher. I loved that and we had many great days out together over the years. I miss that.

Ah, Dad, love you!

You are a good man.

:o)