From when I was born until I was 12, my dad was a manager of a very successful West End restaurant. He worked long, unsociable hours; he was that very traditional ‘provider.’ He worked hard so that my brother and I could have what we needed, and more besides. It meant I rarely saw him. He got home in the early hours and was still in bed – to just say goodbye to – when I left for school. Our Sunday’s (his day off) were sacred. We’d always do something as a family – going out for nice meals and going to St James’ Park in London for a wander and to feed the birds are things that particularly stick in my mind.

It’s safe to say that despite his unquestioned love for us, my dad had very little hands on experience of bringing us up or looking after us – he’d be the first to admit that my mum did practically all of it on her own. This is why it’s so amazing to see what a major part he plays in his grandaughters’ lives. There’s no doubt that my mum would have been a doting and fantastic granny to my children, but sadly that was never to be. She always made my dad promise that if anything ever happened to her, he’d do everything he could for my brother and I. He’s stayed true to his word and has done a fantastic job. Just one example is that, despite still working part-time, he helps me out with the morning school run every day. My mum would have been proud.

He has taken on his role as nonno (Italian for grandad) with gusto. He does so much for us all; the girls love him to bits and my husband is a massive fan!

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1) Soft play centre 

Bank holiday Monday was a wash out. We headed to Eddie Catz in Wimbledon, South London – a soft play centre that caters for babies, toddlers and children up to about 12 years old. It offers classes and workshops under the ‘edutainment’ umbrella, but we were there purely for the kids to release plenty of energy, and boy did they. Some soft play venues that are aimed at that sort of age spectrum can be extortionate. I find Eddie Catz reasonably-priced. The facilities are good and the food went down very well, and again was reasonably-priced. All three loved the sizeable main play frame with all its scramble nets, tubes, slides etc, but my husband started getting a bit nervous about the two-year-olds disappearing out of reach and sight and took them to the tamer toddlers’ frame. The disco room was also a big hit.

2) Designed a Father’s Day mug

Last year’s effort (complete with wear and tear). It changes colour with hot liquid!

It has become a bit of a custom: the personalised photo Father’s Day mug. Each year for Father’s Day we design a mug for my husband using some of the family photos from the last year. It’s lovely to go through the year’s photos together and choose which ones to include. It’s really easy to do and there are loads of different options. We do get him another gift/s in addition, but my eldest likes giving this present the most (mainly because she loves photos of herself).

3) Baked and decorated biscuits 

Look at the concentration

I found the easiest recipe for biscuits ever on Netmums; it consisted of three ingredients (though I made it my own by adding Vanilla Essence) and all three girls were able to get stuck in with the creaming, mixing and kneading. Sofia had been bought Eddingtons Cinderella Cookie Cutters, so we used those. Like their older sister, the younger two are obsessed with anything fairytale and princess-related (bleugh!) so these caused much excitement. I let them all watch Jake and the Neverland Pirates whilst they baked and cooled, so it was a dream come true for them. I’d bought some squeezy tubes of coloured icing, so much time was spent decorating them. Then after dinner they ate them.

4) Arts and crafts 

I gave our arts and crafts box a Spring clean. Then doing our grocery shop (I’d say weekly shop, but I spend what seems like half of my week in the supermarket), I discovered that Sainsbury’s stocks loads of really well-priced arts and crafts items and sets. I bought sticky shapes for collages, paintbrushes and foam paint brushes, fancy pipe cleaners and a great canvas with a fairy design with paints and sparkly bits included for Sofia. The girls didn’t fight or moan for ages, so a definite hit and Sofia was super proud of her artwork, so we put it on display.

Sofia’s handiwork

5) Half-term play dates 

The perennial favourite: Simple, but effective. We went to someone else’s house armed with both healthy snacks and treats. The change of scenery and company works wonders.

The weather’s shaping up to be ok, so we’re off to Godstone Farm tomorrow… and here we are:

That poor rabbit!

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Me and Lua

The main shock to the system for me about being a father is the lack of any free time I now possess. For us it crept up slowly. Our baby daughter was an absolute pleasure to deal with, didn’t cry much, slept a lot; just generally chilled out, which was great. I had taken a couple of weeks off work and we all spent that time relaxing.

Yet slowly and relentlessly, over the past two years our tiny specimen of a human has increasingly consumed more and more of our time. She now has complete control over every aspect of our lives, and schedules; from when we wake up to the time we crawl into bed, knackered after a busy day of parenting. Looking back I had so much free time which was mindlessly squandered.

I used to have hopes and dreams, which I could have easily used my copious amounts of unused time to realise. But alas no. Now I am staring at the abyss of a packed, and yet somehow mind-numbing schedule with scant room for anything else.

I don’t ask for much, I don’t need to travel the world or win Wimbledon but I would like to do an online course, read more books or even (perish the thought) put some more time into my business so I can buy nice things. At time I’ve found myself replacing those things with similar but faster activities, or using shortcuts. I looked for a review from useaudiobooks.com for example, and have been turning to audiobooks more often lately. It’s been working somewhat, but the fact I need to rush still bothers me somewhat.

See these aren’t big dreams or impressive hopes, but they are mine, and they are being taken away from me by someone who can’t yet form a coherent sentence.

I have tried to explain this to her. After nearly two years on this planet I would have thought that she would have developed the faculty of reason. However, when I suggested that possibly instead of helping her reassemble the same jigsaw for the 900th time that day I could perchance excuse myself and spend that time expanding my mind instead; she just stopped what she was doing, thought about it and then threw a piece at my face. The jigsaw construction continued unabated.

My only defence against this onslaught of miniature tyranny is to get organised. During the week I am at work, but at the weekend I have a good couple of hours when she collapses from the exhaustion of destroying my dreams (her afternoon nap). And then I have the hopefully undisturbed peace and quiet of the night. In total I have probably about 10-15 hours per week I can spend on stuff just for me.

Over these past couple of years I have formed some tricks to get the most out of my free time, which, dear reader, I would like to share with you. Hopefully you have some better ideas which you can share back!

1. Get the thinking out of the way

There is nothing worse than sitting down with a good few hours in front of you and then not knowing what to do. Always, *always* do your thinking first. When you only have 10 or 15 minutes to spare you should try to plan out your tasks for when you have more time. Keep a list of clearly defined “next actions” so when you do have a good chunk of time you know exactly what to do. This is heavily influenced by David Allen’s Getting Things Done, but not quite so extreme.

2. Don’t use a clock 

A lot of time is wasted, especially when you have little of it, looking at the clock to see how much time you have left. Get out of this habit. If you need to stop at a certain time (i.e. to pick up a child from school etc) then set an alarm. You can now stop worrying about the clock, and focus on spending your time wisely.

3. Get going with the Pomodoro Technique

If you have planned out what you need to do, but still find it hard to get started, try using the Pomodoro technique. You can Google this, but essentially it is a matter doing a 25 minute burst of work, followed by a few minutes break, another 25 minutes, few minutes break etc. Normally I just use it to get myself started as once I’m in the flow I don’t like to stop for a pointless break. It is also useful when you have lot of small bits and pieces to work on as it breaks them up very nicely.

4. Don’t set goals or targets

If you set yourself a specific target, such as “I’m going to get x, y, z finished this week”, invariably something will come up (child gets ill etc) and you’d miss your targets by a mile. This is just depressing. The best thing to do about this is to not set targets. Don’t sketch out road maps or milestone dates. You will miss them. It will demotivate you. Do all you can to not demotivate yourself, and if that means having a much looser sense of targets and goals, then so be it.

5. Celebrate your “wins”

This ties in with number 4 above. Don’t set yourself goals and milestones, but when you do complete or accomplish something on your
list then give yourself a reward. Say “well done” to yourself once in a while. It is amazing how motivating completing a task, no matter how small it is, can be.

So there you go, 5 quick tips to help utilise your free time better and move you further towards completing things just for you.

Happy Father’s Day!

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