Fatherhood & Pitchforks

I returned home on Saturday afternoon hoping for a nice relaxing two weeks of the Lord's finest 'sweet f.a.' Not much to ask seeing as how I haven't really had a break since Christmas; I'm starting to think this 'work' lark is getting too much for my lil' head to deal with.

Now I know what you're thinking, the word 'hoping' clearly signifies that Daniel's two weeks will NOT be relaxing. And you'd be one hundred percent correct. I returned home to find my Dad had become the middle-class freedom fighter equivalent of Joanna Lumley.

Quite a lot gets my Dad riled. Being bought up in the East End of London for starters can't have inspired much faith in humanity. I've lost count how many times he's told me about how he used to be 'the angel child' while his younger sister skipped school and his younger brother held lifelong ambitions to be 'a dustman, because you don't start work till the afternoon'.

He also has the most pessimistic job in the world. A risk assessor for an insurance firm. To you and me, all he does all day is sit and think 'what could go wrong'. And when you work for an insurance company that deals in everything from the British Airways fleet to mineshafts in America, that's a lot stuff to 'go wrong'.

It's not so much a 'glass half empty' philosophy that my Dad holds, more like a glass shattered into a million pieces with the contents all over the coffee table.

So, you can imagine he wasn't best pleased when the council (Rochford Council in Essex for all you aliens) decided to submit plans to build about 100 cheap houses in the lovely green belt land opposite our house. Our house which my Dad has spent about a year decorating and getting it to his worryingly high standards after we bought it. And the one condition we bought the house on? That no development would ever take place on that land...

In some ways it's a kind of laughable series of events, but then again it's also quite worrying. These plans are the first steps in an absolutely massive property development scheme to take place over the next 10/15 years in Rochford and Ashingdon. The likelihood is much of the green space that my Dad loves (and hence why we bought a house here) is going to be filled with shite low-rent housing. Essentially, it'll be like having legal travellers.

So. What does this have to do with my 2 week break? Well, my Dad (after owning a councillor at a recent planning meeting) has been 'elected' by the residents on my road (possibly the most casual elections ever) to lead this campaign against the council. Brilliant, now I have Nelson Mandela for a father, leading some middle class 'rebels' against the council to keep them from building on areas where pheasants congregate.

This morning then, I've had to deliver lots of lovely leaflets through people's letterboxes (because people are so happy to see strangers knocking at their door asking for support at the moment) and it reminded me why I never wanted to be a paperboy. People can't buy normal letterboxes anymore, where it's one flap and you just whack the paper in and walk off. Nope, people seem to be buying the shark equivalent of letterboxes. I had more scratches and cuts on my hand than a reclusive teenager. And then the dogs. One letterbox was on the floor practically, so their sorry excuse for a dog (it was basically a fluffy rat) could have a go at postman. Honestly, buy a real pet and use the shitty little dog as a toy or a doorstop.

No pitchforks, no burning torches, no effigies on fire. Just some middle class residents expressing their anger through leaflets and expressing displeasure across the trellised fences. But my god I hope the campaign works. The last thing I need when I come home from Medway in Kent is to find more kids attired in stuff from JD Sports' bargain bin on my driveway...