Howard Mosley-Chalk is a father and husband. But more importantly he is a man. As a boy he assumed he would grow up to be either Prime Minster or a professional Lego designer, but at 30 he finds himself writing for Your Local Link. These are his (un)manly words.
Summer bummer This month summer finally arrived with all the apologetic energy of someone who turns up late to a wedding. “So terribly sorry I’m late,” huffed summer, red cheeks and moist armpits. “Here, have all the nice days you’ve missed in one go.” And so the temperature soared, the sun beat down mercilessly and we all suddenly longed for a return of the torrential rain. And I was chief amongst the whingers, wafting my collar, squinting at the horrid clear blue skies and complaining about being hot. Because I hate the summer.
SHOCK, HORROR There, I said it. Call me a weirdo if you like, I don’t care. I’ve always dreaded this time of year and can only assume I have the opposite of seasonal affective disorder. Or maybe it’s just that I’m paler than Casper
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the friendly ghost and I burn quicker than a cheaply made shell-suit over a naked flame. Either way, summer can bog off back behind the clouds. There is an extra concern this summer – something else to add
to my unease – as this will be my daughter’s first proper sunny season. Last year, when Ava was just nine months old, we spent most of the summer indoors lying on the floor,
or out under the shade of a tree, lying on the grass. It’s what babies do. But toddlers, oh dear readers, do anything but stay in one spot. Ava, fast approaching two and finalist in this year’s Little Miss Scream No pageant, is all over the shop – out into the garden, onto the drive and even attempting to scale the shed. Unfortunately all of these places are situated on the planet earth, which has the curious habit of orbiting the sun. And due to Ava being the product of my own pale-to-transparent skin growing DNA, the sun is therefore THE ENEMY!
Painful memories “Calm down, idiot,” says my wife, basking in ultra-violet radiation like some kind of malevolent, energycraving entity from Star Trek. “She’s