In Which For Two Weeks I've Become Old Dad

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

For the past week, and for the remaining part of this one,I have found myself at three fifteen on an afternoon along a lines of cars on a busy road outside my daughter's school waiting to pick her up there.

I have had companions. It had been dull D H Lawrence, now the more amiable Alan Coren to pass the time whilst I'm there. But it was only yesterday did I realise that I was, temporarily, old dad. The man who would pick up his daughter regularly from primary school and drive her straight home with rarely any dramas (" How was school?" "Fine").

Since the move up to secondary school this changed, as had she. Being now a teenager the old parents collecting her cramped her style. And as the place was a half hours drive away from where we lived, she wanted to take the school bus instead.

But for a short while my daughter's knee injury has brought us all back to the future. Given that unlike the bus she could put the seat back on the car seat to stretch her leg out. there would be a car taking and picking her up.

Thankfully now better than she was. But at the beginning her pain was such that when she looked at me I didn't see the questioning everything teenager but as a child seeking help. And in the reverse I wasn't the boring stick in the mud who nagged at her to do her homework and tidy her room. Or the man who deliberately limited her time online simply by changing the passwords on her laptop or Ipad. No I became old dad.

So three fifteen. Deliberately early so that I can get a reasonable space. (Impossible to actually get into the school at this time as it's packed with buses). I stay in the car, daughter knows roughly where I'll be parking so I won't wait by the school gates to pick her up. No parent (I'm not the only one) stays by the gates, it's just not done. The Sixth formers get out first and eventually the rest. Daughter throws her coat at the back of the car and her school bag at the front.

It won't last. Next week she'll be well enough to go by bus and already she's back to picking up on faults both real and imagined of her old parents. To be honest, I was exactly the same at her age. Indeed my mother often recounts the story of when she accused me of lacking a sense of humour. "Well I eat your cooking don't I?" came the reply.

Until the next time.