My Twenty Ninth Week as a Budding Author

There’s an issue with fathers, you inherit things from them. Many’s the time I’ve glanced sympathetically at my son Jake who’s quietly oblivious to some of the genes that I’ve sneaked into his system. At the age of forty he will glance down at the paunch hanging over his belt and be straight on the phone demanding an explanation. There are certain aspects of his physique that I'm hoping will develop from Helen's side of the tree. But it seems it’s not only physical attributes that are passed down the line, certain behaviours are transmitted as well.

Take my Dad, a retired RAF pilot who served a long and distinguished career doing silly things in the sky. Hardly anyone believes me when I tell them that he used to tow fake missiles past ships for naval target practise or that he landed his Hercules on pallets after some stupid idiot in a Vulcan had blown up the runway at Port Stanley. However, it wasn’t all kippers smoked for breakfast and handlebar moustaches. A side effect of a career in the RAF is lists. I’m convinced that RAF basic training consists of nothing but list making. Dad was obsessed by them.

From an early age I was exposed to Dad’s lists. Every pub visit needed his pen and a packet of Rothmans. He’d enquire as to our required beverage (always coke) write it three times on his packet of Rothmans and toddle off to the bar. Our house was littered with the things detailing gardening tasks, shopping items, the names of his children and reasons to be cheerful. The crescendo was reached when he moved from fast jets to propeller based Hercules. Our downstairs loo had its walls festooned with lists of airplane technical terms. He’d sit there with his Rothmans revising away for his Hercules exam. I must have been the only twelve year old who knew the sequence of cross feeds from wing based aviation fuel tanks.

My brother and I occasionally sabotaged them. One day Dad found the following:-

• Wash car
• Weed runner beans
• Phone David’s teacher about the shaving foam incident
• Set watch to speaking clock

Mark then added:-

• Purchase crack
• Smack bitch about a bit
• Get some bling

Highly amusing but Dad was not fazed and it was discovered later with the following amendment:-

• Hide list 

Anyway, there’s me taking the mickey and my younger brother enticing Dad into a life of crack when the truth is that I’ve become mildly obsessed with them myself. In fact this week of book writing has dissolved into a melee of list making to solve a complex set of logistics.

Firstly, I rode the Dunwich Dynamo. I am keen to feature this in my book as its organisation and spirit is everything that I’m trying to convey about riding. You can read the ride report here. But preparing for it required a whole series of lists, here’s a list of the lists I had to make:-

• bike preparation tasks
• food purchases required
• directions to train station
• items to be packed in car
• items to be carried on bike
• waypoints for ride route
• things to test for working order before departure
• directions to ride start
• things I should be doing around the house instead of bike riding

Each list spawned more issues and more lists threatening to bury my desk. I arrived at the event start completely exhausted from the effort of cataloguing all the things I had to do in preparation.

Things took a turn for the worse as the week progressed. School broke up on Wednesday and I’m in charge of the kids for a week. A few centuries back the Factory Acts made good progress in limiting UK child labour. I’ve torn all of that up and my kids are spending the week at work. We’re off on a mini road trip to fill in some of the book’s photographic gaps, mainly the Greenwich Meridian.

I rode this in February. I just about had the time to survive on the bike and photographs fell by the wayside. Therefore, what better way to get them taken than spend a few days of family bonding with me on the bike and Jake and Holly behind the lens. And what better way to prepare than more lists:-

• accommodation - what a nightmare this has been, trying to find rooms for one adult and two children. Are hotel owners secretly trying to help with the government deficit by deliberately overcharging so that they can pay more tax?
• photo locations - I thought I’d be clever and program the car sat-nav with these. I spent ages working out their locations in one co-ordinate system, only to find that the sat-nav supported another
• things to entertain the kids with - so far I’ve come up with fishing at Newhaven and a visit to a llama farm, probably need a bit more thought here?
• things I should be doing around the house instead of sodding off with the kids

Before departure I held a masterclass in cycling photography with Jake and Holly, this consisted of me giving them the camera and telling them to go outside and take a few pictures. I went as far as showing them the on/off button, but they’re kids and don’t need instruction manuals, they have a habit of figuring stuff out for themselves.

Check out the two pictures below. I’m feeling redundant already.

Finally, lets end on the most frightening list of all, this is the master list of items that I need to finish before the book is complete. It looks something like this:-

• ride all over England
• write about riding all over England
• take photographs of riding all over England
• turn the loose notes about riding all over Scotland and Wales into proper writing
• complete layout designs using Adobe CS5
• create graphics to support layout design in Adobe CS5
• pull whole thing together into a book
• proof read it
• sell single copy to my Mum
• update CV pretending I spent the previous year caring for sick relative

It’s still a daunting list and I’m always on the look out for ways to improve my productivity. The use of children as low cost labour has inspired me though and I am hoping that the following will pay dividends in the very near future.

Dave

22nd July 2011

WEEK THIRTY >>>>>>>>>