Valentine's Day (As If I Care)

Last night I had one of my weirdest dreams ever. It was one of those when you kind of notice that things are not quite right; or are actually significantly wrong, but the processes that alert you to the realisation that you're dreaming never quite kick in. I used to have incredibly lucid dreams as a child, to the point where I had to devise a tactic of waking myself up (spinning on the spot like a whirling dervish), and even that sometimes didn't work. But as an adult, as soon as I realise I am dreaming, I wake up.

Anyhow, lasts night's dream was even weirder than that picture of the thirteen-year-old dad who looks like an eight-year-old and his fifteen-year-old girlfriend who looks like she's thirty. Can't quite get my head around this situation. As his girlfriend went into labour did he ask if the hospital had a creche? And when told his new-born baby would of course be too young for a creche did he reply no, not for her, for me! And how, is his daughter likely to view those opening pictures of her life? Will she ask if that is her brother? And when she asks if where her grand-dad was will she be told he couldn't make it as he was doing his work experience? Will the lad be awoken in the night when it's his turn to change the baby – and will he moan: 'Aw, I was 'aving an ace dream about doing skillage wheelies on the recce an' all...'

Well, good luck to them. I have to admit he's certainly managed to lose his lovin' L-plates a great deal sooner than I did, almost a decade I am slightly embarrassed to confess. When I was that age I would not even have comprehended intercourse as having any basis in reality in my life. Girls were odd, hostile things that gathered in packs and belittled you. You pretended you liked them so not to appear queer but if the choice came to a spot of rumpy-pumpy or a kick-about on the abandoned tennis courts the footie'd win every time. Of course it was known that a certain girl would pop your willy into her mouth for 10p, but I always spent my spare cash on Panini Football Stickers rather than mildly-distracting blow-jobs.

Enough meandering, back to the dream. Myself and my friend Mark were present at an open-air comedy performance. I seemed aware that it was still winter and that it should have been very cold but it was warm enough for all of our to sit outside without our coats and not feel chilly. I should have really noticed something was really not quite right then and there, but we just sat and waited for the support act to come on. I think the main attraction was Richard Herring. But then the support act came on and it was Saddam Hussain. And – despite the disability in him being dead – he went down extremely well, involving myself and Mark in the act and generating a hugely positive response.

Just goes to show how fragile the choices you may in life can be. Instead of promoting his comedic talents, Hussain chose a career as a barbaric, loathsome, abhorrent and inhuman despot. If only Frankie Boyle had made the same choice.

The dream petered out into the usual nonsense and eventually, after an unspecified period of further unconsciousness, I woke up.

Valentine's Day. Nothing in the post for any of us, which was not totally unexpected. I have little time nor inclination for romance in my life at present, something that has become a theme for such a long time now since Poppy died. I shouldn't rule out any such of loving future for me, but to even contemplate an evening of carnality I'd have to hire Tony Robinson and his minions to dig deep in the search for my libido. I really cannot be bothered to re-enter all that dating nonsense and do-you-like-me-like-I-like-you toing and froing and emotional shadow boxing and reading signs and playing guessing games. Even just thinking about it is chilling my insides.

So, nothing for any of my sons, or at least nothing I'm aware of (and in Andrew's case, there better have been no card-sending unless it was to someone I can finally approve of instead of either someone I have to tolerate or something I will not tolerate at all), although Gabriel remains chipper with his lot. We continue to have the pleasant version of middle-son with us and I don't miss much about the down-beat side of his personality. I kind of miss the clumps of blooded toilet tissue in the sink most mornings, but the hornet-like buzz of his electric razor does serve as a useful sign that Gabriel has finally lumbered out of bed. Lukas I think remains too young and dis-interested in the female form to be bothered with romance. But as noted above, you never can tell. I'm certainly not ready to be a grand-dad. I'm only forty-six after all. And this is one of the few times I can feel justified in putting 'only' in front of 'forty-six' when it comes to admitting my age.

Poppy disregarded Valentine's Day as a cynical marketing executive's wet dream, so for us – after the first few years of passion – it became just another 'special' day where we just exchanged cards and got on with normality. However, on the last one (not that I knew it was going to be the last one then, of course) I arranged Lukas to be baby-sat at a friends house, dressed Gabriel and Andrew up in white shirts and black trousers as waiters, set her a place at the table then cooked her a three-course meal (salmon, paella – a BrynT speciality, and banana cake and ice cream), served by her two eldest sons. It was the last time I actually remember her genuinely smiling.