Today was a pivotal day for my eldest son, one that began with him receiving his exam results and will no doubt end if with him bouncing around with all his mates at the Reading festival. It is one of those days that will still be in his memory bank when he is an old man and when he wandered off this morning my sense of pride was tinged with rampant jealousy, as today you see, is pivotal day for me as well, because it feels like the day I have finally passed on the baton of youthful exuberance and it will never be returned. Whilst he is having the time of his life I shall be sat down with a glass of something alcoholic hurling abuse at someone on Newsnight.

My study of George as a youth has been just about spot on. I knew that he would do enough in his exams (a scattering of A’s B’s and C’s) required for the A levels he will be sitting, but I also knew that he would do little more than that, I even find it hard to justify why he should, especially with the social and sporting life he chooses to partake in. It is hard for any parent to find the balance required between being a happy and sociable individual and an academic genius and I get it right and wrong just like anyone else, but if I had the choice between a boy going off to festivals, playing cricket and knocking around with nice looking girls or a social inadequate with a bucket full of A grades, I know which one I would choose. However, A Levels will offer no hiding place, the real hard work will start in September.

Of course, the passing of the baton of life didn’t start and end today, the writing has been on the wall for some time, in the last two years I have seen George become, taller, stronger, faster and fitter than me, it is quite humbling. He is also far better at cricket than me, though that is nothing to be particularly proud when you consider that I am on a par with Stephen Hawking using a banana as a bat. I don’t know how many dad’s out there feel the same, but there is something bordering on emasculation when you see this all happening to someone you have put at least fifty per cent of your genes in to creating.

It doesn’t help that all this fun he is having has coincided with my “time of the month” a period of three to five days when I feel absolutely knackered, listless and suffering from a general lack of enthusiasm towards most things. It hasn’t been helped this time around by two nights of Chinook military operations about sixty feet above my house, but it is without question that there is something in my physical make up that causes peaks and troughs in mood and general well being and after discussing it with other people, it seems I am not alone. (See my friend Nick’s Blog here) Fortunately, for 25 to 27 days of the month I am generally content, sprightly and pretty much positive about most things, but for those few days, I am pretty much a miserable fucker who is of little use to anyone.

Could it be Biorhythms?

Well it could be, though my brain, especially now I am in a trough, finds it all quite hard to understand fully, but there is pretty good evidence that all of us have peaks and troughs of physical, emotional, and intellectual ability and during a trough of all three, we are pretty much useless. The problem with trying to ascertain if Biorhythms are fact or fiction is that modern life means that no two days are the same and when things like alcohol, diet and fucking great Chinnooks flying over your house at 2.00am are thrown in to the mix, the whole thing is confused further. However, it is without question that there are  periods when you could chuck anything physical, intellectual and emotional at me and I would deal with it with gusto, then there are other times when I could burst in to tears watching an old episode of The Waltons shortly after smashing a simple piece of DIY in to tiny fragments, totally irrational behaviour I can’t explain.

I have learnt during these periods not to drink to excess and not to do DIY, but there is little I can do about about a reenactments of the Gulf War over the rooftops of Hatch Warren in the early hours or my son making me feel bitter with his hedonistic social life, so my only choice is to keep out of everyone’s way, have a a bath, a small glass of wine and a flick through multitude of old shit the TV.

Does anyone know what time the Walton’s is on?