We reclaimed Father's Day from the Marketeers

I have to admit that I think events like Mothers' Day and Fathers' Day are commercial bollocks.... yeh, yeh, I know it's bah humbug. But exactly what is their purpose? For a child to show appreciation for their parents? Izzy does that anyway, so why should she feel obliged to buy her father a crap sweater and golf-set on Father's day just to prove it? Exactly - it's just gratuitous commercialism.

"You're just being a miserable git!" I hear you cry.

Yes I am. Izzy's dad doesn't even play golf for chrissake.

Unfortunately for me, Izzy didn't quite share my point of view (that'll be the school brainwashing her). As we were sitting on the kitchen floor one day, picking bits of play doh out of Naughty George's ear, she turned to me and said: "I want to give Daddy a present for Father's Day."

 I was just about to embark upon a lecture about rampant marketeering and the shameless peddling of sentiment as a commercial prospect, when I noticed her expression. She was genuinely excited at the thought of giving something to someone else.

"Awww, man.... you don't half put me in some situations sometimes," I sighed to her.

"So, can we give him a present?" she asked again, enthusiastically.

I pondered the situation...."Ok," I said to her slowly, "but we are going to make something special, not buy it."

Izzy started clapping, and I realised that I would have to muster the meagre crumbs of my creative ability in order to produce the goods.

And then I had a brainwave, "Izzy, we are going to make your Dad a picture, made from flowers."

Great, the idea went down well, and all we had to do was gather the raw materials. That afternoon in fact, we set upon a long walk in the countryside around our house, and Izzy had been set the task of collecting as many different flowers and leaves as she could find.

For two hours we hunted down the tracks, trails and fields for all manner of flora, until finally, we concluded that we had enough for our 'creation'. Once home, Izzy painstakingly laid all the flowers and leaves in the pages of a book, so that they could be 'pressed' ready to go into the frame. The book was placed under a mattress, and all we had to do was wait a week until the flowers were ready.

A week passed, and it was the day before Father's Day. Izzy was nearly puking with the anticipation of seeing her 'pressed' flowers for the first time. I was nearly puking with trepidation because I didn't have an arty bone in my body and the situation could easily go horribly wrong.

I retrieved the book from under the mattress, and slowly opened the pages to find this.........

  Pic.No.1. Izzy's pressed flowers and leaves

It has worked! Not only that, they looked superb. They had maintained all their colour and even though they were flat, they looked almost three dimensional. Flippin' hek, I'm like Leonardo Da Vinci.

"Who's ya daddy?" I hollered at Izzy as she looked blankly at me, before answering, "Steve?"

"Never mind that," I sighed, changing the subject, after being beaten again by Izzy's stark literalism; "let's get this picture underway."

She must have sat there for a full hour and a half, painstakingly glueing all the flowers and leaves on the backing sheet, carefully placing each one for maximum effect. Then, when she had finished, she insisted on writing a note to put inside the back of the frame; 'I love you daddy, From Izzy xxxxx'

Not only that, with meticulous attention to detail (that's my girl), she also insisted on choosing the wrapping paper, and circling it with a ribbon that she had kept safe all week for this very purpose.

Finally, we had the finished article..... and boy, was she proud of what she had done. I didn't have the heart to tell her it looked a bit haphazard and lopsided, simply for the reason that she had given 100% effort to the cause. But was that an end to it? Nope. She wanted to hide the present for her Father to find as part of a Treasure Hunt. So with the present finally secreted in a location chosen by Izzy, we were all done.

The next day, Izzy jumped out of bed with excitement; "I want to ring Dad and tell him to come and get his present," she said.

"No problem kiddo," I said handing her the phone.

An hour later, Steve turned up and Izzy was pogoing around the kitchen.

"Daddy, I've made you a Treasure Hunt," she shouted, "you've got to find your present, but don't look in the wicker basket first ok?"

Over Izzy's head, Steve mouthed at me "is it hidden in the basket?" I nodded as he started laughing.

Pic.No.2. The masterpiece in all its glory

Finally, the present was unearthed from its location in the wicker basket, and Izzy was bursting with pride as her Father opened it, gushing with admiration about marvellous it was.

So Mr Commercial Marketeer, I think that's 1 - 0 to me!