The Weekend Picture No.3

Baking in the Rain - our cake sale

Our friend, Fiona, ran the London Marathon last Sunday for a charity called AbleChildAfrica. The charity works with disabled children in Eastern and Southern Africa. As part of her fundraising pledge she organised a cake and book sale for yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately, we were not blessed with the best weather ever - with swirling gales and persistent rain. This weekend's picture shows a low point in the afternoon. E is manning the stall.

What's in a nickname?

One of my duties as a father is creator of nicknames.

I have always enjoyed making names up for my kids. Not for me the boring christian name which my wife and I agonised over all through that long long nine months. No, much more fun to make up a random moniker for your patient progeny.

The Weekend Picture No.2

Cheetah Birthday Cake

It was my daughter E's 7th birthday party today. 11 excited little girls, 4 nuclear reactors worth of additives consumed, 2 tons of discarded wrapping paper on the sitting room floor and 1 extraordinary birthday cake.

My lovely wife has many remarkable gifts but among the most prominent of them is her ability with birthday cakes. This year E asked for a Cheetah birthday cake, and what a little girl wants, a little girl gets.

Cheetah Birthday cake.
Chocolate Buttons for spots, liquorice for lines, eyes and tongue,
candles for whiskers, marshmallows used too.

It tasted as good as it looks!

Happy to give the recipe to anyone who asks.

More reasons why Mum knows best coming later this week.

Speak soon

JH

The Heroism of Fathers on the Titanic 2

The sinking of the RMS Titanic is an event that still touches us all.

There can't be many of us who have not asked themselves what they would have done had they been on board on the 14th-15th April 1912.

It is an event that I have found particularly poignant since I became a father. Would I have been able to let women and children go first. Could I have stood on the deck and watched my wife and family being led away from me to safety, knowing that I would never see them again? Could I have been a hero?

Hopefully that is not a question that I will ever have to answer - but it is one that the Reverend John Harper was faced with.

The Heroism of Fathers on The Titanic 1

RMS Titanic sank 100 years and 3 days ago today. It is an event that still touches us all. It is not just the fact that over 1500 souls perished on that freezing night in the North Atlantic but the human stories that it tells of the heroism, cowardice and individual tragedies of that fateful night.

There can't be many of us who have not asked themselves what they would have done had they been on board on the 14th-15th April 1912.


It is an event that I have found particularly poignant since I have become a father. Would I have been able to let women and children go first. Could I have stood on the deck and watched my wife and family being led away from me to safety, knowing that I would never see them again? Could I have been a hero?



Hopefully that is not a question that I will ever have to answer - but it is one that two fathers, Arthur West and the Reverend John Harper were faced with.


This is Arthur West's story. Come back on Friday to read the story of John Harper.