More Unbelievable Than a Soap Opera

My Clever Plan......it was implemented and executed perfectly. I've even managed to avoid hospitalisation due to overdosing on Brufen. I should, therefore, be prepared for the West Highland Way Race this weekend.

But as the saying goes, no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. In this case the enemy isn't some suicidal, sandal-clad Taliban (Ok, Ok, in my day the enemy would have been a donkey jacket wearing member of PIRA.....or more usually a member of the neighbouring British regiment but you get the idea). Nope, the enemy, in this case, is my own seventeen year old daughter. Allow me to explain.

Following my employer's close scrutiny of my online witterings I'm afraid I lacked the minerals to leave three years worth of blog posts on here. Although none compromised the security of my employer nor revealed the identity of any of our 'customers,' many mentioned the lighter side of my job. If my previous non-job blog posts had survived the cull you might have read how I left my family home at the age of fifteen and by the time I was seventeen I was living in my flat in Peckham with ex-wife/partner (no.1) and my then one year old daughter. Back in those heady days in the 1980s I considered myself quite independent and capable of taking care of myself.

I applied this idea of independence and capability to my own seventeen year old daughter and planned to leave her for a few days while I travel from Old London Town to a far away land where men wear skirts and women have a hierarchical system based on the number of their remaining teeth (stop yawning and wake up at the back!).

What could possibly go wrong?

Then, as My Clever Plan is running along nicely, I get a telephone call informing me that my independent and capable daughter has been involved in a motoring accident. After discovering she's suffered no injury we have a discussion that goes something like this:

'Dad, I've crashed some boy's car and I need £800.00 to fix it.'

'I don't understand. You can't drive and have no licence. How could you possibly have crashed some boy's car?'

'He let me drive his car from the road onto his drive but I crashed it into a post.'

'Did he know you have no licence, no insurance, no experience behind a wheel and a father that will kill him slowly?'

'Yes.'

'Then tell him to come here because I've got my cheque book ready.'

I hang up and realising the nearest tattoo studio is closed simply use a biro to write the words 'cheque' and 'book' onto my knuckles. Then my delight at avoiding hospitalisation due to Brufen abuse dissolves and is replaced by an acceptance that I am to be incarcerated for life for the vicious slaying of 'some boy.'

There's also an acceptance that I clearly can't leave my daughter alone for a few days and a rather large spanner is thrown into the works of My Clever Plan. I related this story to my pal and fellow West Highland Way athlete, Keith 'Corned Beef' Hughes (see what I did there using the words 'fellow' and 'athlete'.....stop laughing).Corned Beef's comment was:


 'Your life is more unbelievable than a bloody soap opera, Cobber (he's Australian).'

So  the next instalment of the soap opera that is my life, that is a 95 mile race from Milngavie to Fort William, appeared to be in jeopardy again. But a knight in shining armour appeared in the form of the mother of my daughter's friend and the gig's back on.

Daughter will stay with friend's mother for the period of my absence so I can be assured that:

1. My house will not be burned to the ground.

2. A Facebook event involving a rave at my address will not be created.

3. A phone bill that would make Bill Gates shudder is not on its way.

I do hope that friend's mother will heed my warning and keep her car keys safe.

See you in Milngavie.