Today is Father’s Day, so what have I done to celebrate this? I’ve been all things to all people today. Pottering about, doing all the jobs that have been waiting for me all week.

I had rather a late night last night, getting in at around 2am (How times change - the party was only just starting at that time before Molly arrived). Molly had a bit of a lie in and only got up at 8. Luckily BW was on hand to take care of all molly’s breakfasting needs, I rose at around 9 am, tired already, just moments before BW went to work. As I was “on duty” we spent the morning in the swimming baths. When we got home, I started work on moving some rubble that had built up in the back garden. Molly, as usual, took an interest in what I was doing and came close to injuring herself several times by trying to lift the rocks. It became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to complete my task until my better half came home, so I placed molly in the wheelbarrow and then ran round the garden much to her shrieked delight. When I got her out of it she remarked that she was “having nice time”. I also taught her how to use the wheelbarrow in the conventional way too.

Upon BW’s return at about oneish I completed bagging up the rubble and placed it in the car along with a load of other junk to take to the tip. When I returned from the tip I resealed the bath and then put Molly’s old pram and some toys and clothes that she has grown out of in the loft. Clearouts are good for the soul. Then we all went to my mums for tea. I am rounding off the day by eating chocolate till I feel sick and watching Turkey pull off an unexpected victory over the Czech Republic.

A rather enjoyable day. I’ve done traditional male things, like lifting heavy objects and a spot of DIY, as well as a fair bit of “Dad” stuff, I’ve spent time with my family and now I’m watching a football match. It’s rather refreshing to think that my third Fathers Day has been quite similar to a load of other involved dads across the country. I have certainly now and finally become “Dad.” Birthday presents of socks and unhealthy interest in jumpers await.

Its Friday morning at about 11am, and by some miracle I’ve just been able to pack Molly off to her Gran’s house. Calmness now envelopes this house for the first time since 6.45am . The problem? Who knows? From the moment Molly woke up this morning she has been kicking off about something.

“Muesli or weetabix?”

“Weetabix please daddy”

“Righto Molly”

“No I want muesli”

“But I’ve just poured the weetabix out and put milk on it”

“RAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

This conversational framework can be applied to everything we’ve done, or rather tried to do today. Asda or town?, pink shoes or sparkly shoes?, see her mate Jim or Gran? Annoying isn’t the word. Mindbendingly irritating with a dash of paranoia - and I think I have quite a long fuse where Molly is concerned - is somewhere around how what I am feeling right now.

After 20 screech filled minutes in Asda I gave up. I don’t admit defeat to her that often but today she won. She got to go back in the car, without buying any shopping. Just when you think that she has shown the upper limits of her vocal range, up another notch the howling goes, ramped all the way up to eleven because we have left asda at her request. Generally she is well behaved, albeit rather bossy and nosy, so this behaviour is out of character. I think that if she continues down this line then the terrible twos finally arrived, 6 months late. Hopefully she won’t, no actually I pray with all my heart that she won’t follow the dark path of the screamo. I couldn’t take it. No-one can.

All the screaming, arbitrary mind changing and constant attention seeking leave Daddy goosed. And its at least 5 hours til BW returns home. Thank god her Gran has got her for a couple of hours, or I think blood may have been spilt here. By the time she returns, I suspect all will have been forgotten on her part and she will give me one the gorgeous smiles she produces when she sees me for the first time, it will melt my heart, and I will immediately forgive all her previous noise pollution.

The last word in baby bling was sold at Harrods last week for £6000. It’s an old fashioned Silver Cross Silver Shadow pram that looks like it has been reconditioned on pimp my ride Amongst its myriad useless features are an in-built sound system, perfect for nursery rhymes, an ermine hood and a blue satin interior. Every panel is gold plated, surely silver would have been more appropriate, and the spokes are 24 carat gold too. It was sold to a South African with more money than sense.

We have been trying to dispense with Molly’s pushchair because whenever she is in it she just wants to push it. We can cover ground faster if she is riding on my shoulders or walking rather than the fiasco that is her trying to push it. The only way to get her to go into even a rough straight line is to turn the wheel locks on. The public at large seem to dislike people who push prams and I’ve had a fair bit of tutting directed at me for letting Molly push an empty pram over peoples feet. I can fully understand annoying that is because I also get irritated to be stuck behind someone who is pushing the pram equivalent of a 4x4 on a narrow pavement. We use a low cost functional and compact stroller at the opposite end of the market from the six grand pram, it’s easily collapsible too for travelling on public transport because often there is already a chunky monster buggy on the bus taking up over half of the available spaces.

It is possible to pay anything you like for a pram or stroller, and there is a bamboozlingly wide choice on the market from fashionable and expensive to the practical and cheap. Other parents are competitive about prams too, even though no-one ever says anything to your face although our main buying criteria was if it fitting in the boot of the car. If we had anything like the silver cross pram I’d be terrified of two things; muggers and more importantly, the taste police.

Yesterday I received the following Email about the creche closures i spoke about in the post below. I'm posting on here because i think that it is the best place for it so everyone can see it. We want to get a campaign going to prevent it. So if you use the creche at either Fulwood or West View, and want it to stay open you should cut and paste the sample letter at the end of this article and post it to your local councillor. You will be able to find his/her home and email address here.

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Hello,

Just to say that I agree with your story about the closure of the crèches at Fulwood and West view leisure centres. I’m a stay-at-home mum with a two year son and I use the crèche at Fulwood leisure centre once a week and it has been a life line to me.

There is very little support in this country for those who choose, or have because of family circumstances (my case because of my partner’s work), to look after their children at home, despite all the research which that says that this is the best form of childcare for very young children. In contrast the childcare costs of working parents are subsidised by the Government in the form of working families tax credits, something the recent correspondent to the LEP which complained of ‘taxpayers money being used to subsidise the crèche’ should bear in mind. Working and trying to bring up young children is not an easy option, but neither is staying at home to look after young children. Often the only respite you get is when they go to bed. Trying to look after your own health and fitness at the same time is hard (and you need to be fit to run around after a two year old), and now thanks to Preston city council, the only opportunity many stay-at-home parents get to exercise during the week will be taken away.

I would like to get a campaign together to get your readers to write to their city councillors and MPs to stop this closure. A recent campaign in Edinburgh has reversed several closures of leisure centre crèches and there is no reason why we couldn’t do the same here. This is a very popular and highly regarded facility and the £54,000 a year it takes to run both crèches isn’t even half of the Chief Executive’s salary of £122,000. The crèche staff are very demoralised and have already started to leave to get other jobs, if we don’t do something there won’t be anyone left to run the crèches soon. I’d be grateful for any ideas you might have to stop this. I’ve already put together a sample protest letter which people can send to their councillors (attached). Good luck with the blog, I enjoy reading it every week.

Best wishes,

Brid Mercer.

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Here is the letter to send to your Councillor.
 

Dear Councillor,

I am writing to let you know of my concern about the decision made by Preston City Council on the 29^th of February to close the crèches at Westview and Fulwood leisure centres by the end of June 2008.

Both of these crèches are very popular and have excellent Ofsted reports. Without them many women and lone parents looking after very young children in the Preston area will not be able to use Westview and Fulwood leisure centres to keep fit.

The council’s decision to shut the crèches is especially surprising in view of recent government concerns about lack of exercise and obesity. Also, a recent NHS public health report has identified Preston as having some of the worst public health issues in the North West of England.

Since the crèches are due to be closed in the near future, I look forward to hearing from you very soon on this matter.

Yours faithfully

Just copy and paste it into word and print it out. Don't forget to sign your name either.

Both leisure centres in Preston have a crèche and both are closing at the end of June, the latest in a line of cutbacks aimed Preston’s parents. Although Molly was only an occasional visitor, it was still a valuable service that will be missed.

The main reason for the closure is financial. The crèches return around £3000 from an outlay of £54,000. That’s not a lot I agree, but at 50p per hour it is far and away the cheapest childcare in Preston. At that rate I’d have to swim or train for over 40 hours to get even close to what it costs to put Molly in a nursery for a half a day, my only other option if I want to go swimming. The crèche would still be a steal at double or even triple the price.

I can only speak highly of the staff, who always agreed to accommodate Molly despite us arriving early or, usually, late. Molly’s visits were limited because of the pressure on places and her young age. The law dictates she is defined by age rather than ability resulting in the absurd; in practice Molly was classed as a baby despite having all the motor functions and attitude of a feisty two year old and being only a few weeks short of that birthday.

The popularity of lunchtime swimming at Fulwood Leisure Centre meant we had to phone up, a week in advance, as soon as the centre opened, otherwise the swim-mums would grab all the places. At West View it was slightly easier, given the longer pool opening times, but even there it wasn’t uncommon to be turned away or asked to phone later in case there had been a cancellation. Another regular user has even started a petition to keep them open.

The Creche is popular and vital but undervalued. Preston’s parents are being hit to plug a gap elsewhere. Can the powers that be not see that the crèche and the leisure centres as a whole are meant to be a service for the community and not a business?

If you look down there *points* you will see that I have some issues with Fulwood Leisure Centre’s swimming pool. Well today I found a place that is the polar opposite of Swiminies and Molly really loved it. We went to the toddlers swimming session at Penwortham Leisure Centre.

It was a bit of a hike from our house near Moor Park to the pool. I cycled last time but as the sky was the colour of an angry battleship, Molly was lucky enough chauffeured across town my behind-the-wheel alter ego, Mr Sweary. After negotiating the lack of traffic lights and several clouds of thick, blue air near The Last Orders pub we were on our way.

The session was two hours long, starting at 10.30am, it was like a playgroup but with water. There were preschoolers of all ages there, from the very young to the quite old. The two hour session was broken down into three different age groups with the young babies going first for around half an hour’s tuition of songs and swimming up and down. Sadly I didn’t know this at the start otherwise I would have gone later, but it didn’t matter we were still allowed in the funny shaped pool.

We went in the second group which was for 1 – 2 year olds. Molly was a little old for that group because apart from the fact she is nearly 2 and a half, she is much more robust and confident than most of the other kids. She managed to get up one woman’s nose by launching herself into the water and covering her one year old in water. Then she started squirting water from a bath toy at another child. Somehow I think I’ll be going for the eldest group next week.

The leader actually in the pool orchestrating everything added an extra dimension that is lacking at other toddler swimming events. Swimming up and down, actually encouraging all the kids there to learn the basics makes the instructor become more easily approachable and friendly too. It really was the preschool mantra of “learning through play” in action.

The only complaint I have about today is that the water (30.1C) was a little too cold and Molly was shivering after a nearly an hour and a half in the pool. The nature of the pool itself (both the adults and kids areas are sort of joined together) makes it difficult to heat to a temperature everyone is comfortable with.
 

It’s the first time in ages I’ve been quite excited about our next visit, everything apart from the temperature of the pool was great, even the changing cubicles were top because they were all different sizes. One thing that gets my goat about it being so good is that the facilities for kids seem so much better, from playgrounds upwards if you live south of the Ribble.

I have sad news to impart to you: I am going to be returning to work soon. That doesn’t mean the end of this blog though; I will still be molly’s prime carer. Whilst I’m quite looking forward to talking to blokes again, I am not looking forward to the search.

My leave of absence in my previous job runs out in about 8 weeks time, and I don’t really want to go back if I can help it. The responsibility of fatherhood dictates that if I haven’t found anything else then I will have to go back. But that’s only a worst case scenario. I am actively looking for something else. Still being molly’s prime carer means that I can’t seriously look further afield than Preston unless it’s batty money. I’m sure there is a company in the millennium city that can offer me a new challenge and something slightly more flexible, on a part time basis. I don’t really want a full time job, as we don’t want, nor can afford to put Molly in full time nursery, but I would like something around the thirty hours mark, doing anything. I’ve got buckets of enthusiasm, a degree, a bit of experience and loads of transferable skills.

I have done all the things that you do when you are looking for a job, scan the local press, joined several agencies and keep my eyes open for potential opportunities. You have failed if you don’t get a reply within 14 days of the closing date, or you occasionally some traditionalist will send you a letter so long after you sent the application that you have forgotten that you even sent it in the first place saying that you will be kept on file. I wonder if anyone has actually ever got a job from having their “records being kept on file for six months?”

I’ve sent in over 20 application forms across a variety jobs and had three rejection letters. The worst part is the seeming ignorance of potential employers who couldn’t even be bothered to bribe the office junior into writing an email. I have spent many hours polishing and buffing my achievements then tailoring my CV to each job and person description yet there is often no reply. I want every job I apply for, if I don’t get it at least I’d had interview practice but if I don’t get an interview I’d at least like an acknowledgement that I entered the race in the first place. I could probably start a blog about the hunt itself.