Day 42 - Law breaking

Look people say they have hard jobs, but be a dad to my kids is the hardest job in the World.

In fact any parent would say the same, the tremendous trust and well being intentions you have of bringing your children up safely and respecting the law sometimes gets pushed to its limits. Take today as an example.

Remember the good old days of 60s and 70s you know the one, the Sweeney, New Seekers, high wasiter trousers, Cortinas and German wine, not these iconic pictures of the 70s but my own recollections, scrumping, knock on ginger, riding bikes without lights and collecting frog spawn and feeding them bread whilst they die a slow death in the old sink tub in the garden.

Well the link to yesterday is that it was a bright and beautiful day, I had decided to take William and Ellen crabbing, the only location for top notch crabbing is off the pier that you would catch the Starcross to Exmouth ferry. However, there are big signs saying NO FISHING, it does however, say nothing about crabbing, you know the art of getting those fab crab lines with the lethal hooks filled up with bacon and dropped into the murky water. So last Summer we partook in said crabbing from said pier only to have Mr "jobsworth" from the ferry boat come and tell me "you cannot fish here we have no insurance" Now being me the children were trained to spontaneously burst into tears which gives you the edge if you are in the wrong. You can then point to the children and say look what you have done now and scuttle off making the accuser cringe with jobsworth disloyalty.

Now on the 23rd July there is a village crabbing competition, no not the opportunity to share attractive pubic hair lice with the rest of the village but children allowed to fish off guess whose pier!

Well as you know petty jobsworth are fair game to me, however they need to catch you at it to impose their jobsworth fine, tax or remedy. Mind you the whammy of would you do that to a man with cancer and 2 crying children is one step too far for the moment, well always a 1st time for everything.

So yesterday with the tide coming in and the ferry running we needed to hatch a plan. The plan was simple wait until the 3pm had departed we then had a 45 minute window in which the ferry departs goes to Exmouth and returns. My plan was simple however, explaining it to 2 expectant children was the hard part, anyway as soon as the boat was off we were there, lines, bacon and buckets and spent the next 45 minutes crabbing to our hearts content, only to be joined by more crabbers, has we started a trend or was my instant attraction :)

My award winning feat of being able to crab off Starcross pier with my 2 children was an emotional experience at the back of my mind was the need to get well to allow my children to live the dream. I only hope that I am able to see them grow up and laugh into funny, witty, sane, sorted adults, when that job is done I will be happy.

In my battle I am not scared for me but for them, not having a daddy, not having 2 parents who would equally love them and hold them and help them chart their course in life.

Keep attacking, Nigel x

PS: We had 2 crabs eat the bacon and of course we put them back, they weren't big enough to eat! (Only joking)