500th Blog Post Celebratory Quiz

Hello, Lola II here.

Lola has very kindly invited me to post her 500th blog. What an honour! And what a lovely Blog. Well done Lola I, and here's to the next 500!

So here's the quiz: What do the following items have in common:


and

and


The answer?? Our daddy, of course! Read on to find out why.


I regularly browse Lola I's past blog postings in a random fashion. I enjoy being faced with unexpected memories I've put aside, in anticipation of all the future fun.

Well, browsing back reminded me that this time last year I wrote all about our mummy, and it's about time our daddy got the same gift. So here's a post to right that wrong. Or if his name was Mr Rong, it would be to write that Rong...

Dad has many admirable qualities. Show him something broken and he'll fix it in a blink of an eye. Nowadays Dad single-handedly supports the old-fashioned attitude of FIX IT, DON'T THROW IT OUT. That's a value that has seeped its way down to his three daughters, on the odd occasion... He has high standards and is a thorough finisher of those many DIY projects. My personal favourite was the practical and effective repair to his headphones. The pads got thin and so he repaired it using washing-up sponges. What a vision to behold!

Give Dad a roast chicken and he'll have a lovely munch whilst performing an autopsy (a leftover from his medical training). He will happily tell you what it died from, and then proudly announce that the delicious bird "did not die in vain".

What are his loves? A good joke, Mum's chocolate mousse (impossible to recreate by anyone else), family gatherings, cheese, television, books, and the internet. He'll do anything for a rendition of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Dad knows so much about Herod that the National Geographic channel interviewed him for a programme on what Herod probably died of.

What is our Daddy good at? Explaining things; he's very clear thinking so that his explanation hits the mark first time - the relief was enormous when I didn't understand maths at school. Dad is a good listener (if he can hear you...), he is always pleased to hear from the family, and enjoys a good laugh.

Dad is good at drawing and also made a clay silouette of Mum's head. The carvings of heads from two pieces of driftwood are beautiful. We hold particularly fond memories of all the things he made out of zimmer frames; the contraption to hold the video under the tv, the dining room table extension, all manner of things for his lecture-giving days, the list is endless...

One day, many years ago, Dad very carefully cut walnuts in half, scraped out the contents and stuck them back together in order to make a walnut mobile. Unfortunately his hard work wasn't tidied away when Great Auntie Sylvia came to babysit. Upon his return home he discovered all his hard work smashed to smitherines, with Auntie Sylvia's comment ringing in his head - "you have some funny nuts this side of London".

Dad's currently trying to eat less. We all know how difficult it is, so WELL DONE, DAD. Keep at it and we'll be skipping around the boat together next October!

XXXXX