Best Laid Plans

Apparently I like to plan. It’s true. I guess I have always enjoyed the concept of having something to work towards/aim for and it is also true that I find it very difficult when changes to those plans occur. This week, as my plans for the weekend collapsed I found myself in an unenviable position of feeling totally impotent. I really wanted to help Sean and I felt there was nothing I could do. His mother was taken ill suddenly and his family were gathering together. He travelled home to Gosport with his niece Lucy whilst his sister Moira, broke a long awaited holiday in Italy short to rush back.

All I could do was sit at home and feel a bit useless. Cassie and Julie very sweetly invited me out and whilst I accepted my heart was not in it. Weighing in didn’t matter; tidying up didn’t matter; all I could think of was how useless I was in London and how I would be worse than useless if I was in Gosport.

And then on Sunday morning at about 5am it hit me. No plans, no thought process, this was me following what I could only imagine was my heart. I got up, showered and caught the first outgoing train to Portsmouth to be with my man. Just being there for him might be the one thing I could do. By the time I got to Ford (just the other side of Arundel) I had to change to trains and at this point I made the call to Sean who was still in bed. I was SO scared – it might have been a REALLY bad move. He was so happy to hear that I was on my way that I kept bursting into tears for the rest of the journey. At Portsmouth it all got a little ‘Funny Girl’ as I climbed aboard a ferry to get across to Gosport but minutes later he was in my arms and I was crying like a baby - which was not really the point because I was supposed to be cheering him up. Then I met all his family and they couldn’t have been more lovely, welcoming and kind. Whilst there was this terrible thing that had brought them all together this week, there was obviously so much love in the room I was quite overwhelmed.

This Sunday was Father’s Day and once again my thoughts turned to my own father. I like to think that he might be proud of me, at least in some way and happy that I have met somebody I can share my life with, whether I plan things or not. And Julie’s father, who I didn’t see this year but must have been very pleased and surprised to have all of his children around him. It’s odd to think that I have now known Julie’s dad longer than I ever knew my own.

As I trundled towards Portsmouth my thoughts turned to all the fathers I know and how they would be getting breakfast in bed; a lie-in maybe or simply time with the kids. Brian Attwood in Berkhampstead, Don Von Stroe in Besancon, Rory Murphy in Streatham, Vincent Creelan in Belfast, Adrian Colborne in Cardiff, Byron Moxey in Derbyshire, Alan Myatt in Gloucester , Michael Benjamin in New York, Terry Wilson in Ladbrooke Grove and of course, Jim Broughton in Hampshire.