Fathers' Day - longest day of the year, so unfair...

Today is the summer solstice, longest day of the year...

Also, and I hope coincidentally, Fathers' Day. I can just imagine fathers everywhere gathering to set the date of their day and deciding to hold it when it's likely that barbeques can be invoked and there's plenty of daylight and sunshine to enable 'lounging about on the lawn with a cider'.  While Mothers' Day is generally in a month when it still feels like the middle of winter and nobody on earth would want outdoor food, besides, it's dark at about six p m and the most celebratory drink anybody feels like is a sturdy hot chocolate.

Fathers' Day

Mothers' Day

How Mothers' Day should look. Vast quantities of champagne and chocolate not pictured.

My dad was a lovely chap who, had he still been with us, would not have wanted any fuss for Fathers' Day, and was not a big fan of the barbeque; sandwiches on the beach were more of his forte. He grew up in the late 1920's, in rural Devon, in a house with no electricity or running water, and never got to read any of my books - although I doubt he would have read them anyway, because he didn't like books 'by women'. Too much talking in them, apparently, and not enough torpedoes.

Anyway. Happy Fathers' Day to all fathers out there, even if it is unfair that they can celebrate by sitting outside in the sun rather than having to gather all the family pets to their chest just to keep warm.  And big hugs to everyone who is missing their Dad today...