Too old to be slipping the leash, or so my wife says

IT'S A DAD'S LIFE: We're on the rocks at Inchydoney negotiating our way to the beach from the headland, writes Adam Brophy

IT'S A DAD'S LIFE:We're on the rocks at Inchydoney negotiating our way to the beach from the headland, writes Adam Brophy

We are on the rocks because we would have had to walk an extra 50 yards back the way we came to use the steps. Typical false economy thinking.

Now we are scrabbling. Four adults and five ruggers aged between two and seven. We have formed a human chain and intend on passing the nippers to the bottom.

Unfortunately, the missus is the final link and she is so proud of herself for reaching the ground unscathed that she leaps to the sand forgetting for a moment about the three year old balanced on the precipice behind her, arms held out, calling, "Momma".

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My arse is wet from sliding down the bank with a child pressed to my chest. I am conscious there is no thread on my runners and the rocks are inky slick. The elder and her buddy find it hilarious. His mother is responsible for the predicament.

"Sure we'll have no problem getting down there," she had said. When a girl has the nerve to say that to you at the top of a cliff, what do you reply?

So, here we are. A little bit stuck. Halfway down a cliff with a perfectly sound set of steps spitting distance to the north.

Kids giggling. Dads sweating last night's beer. Mothers, I swear, plotting revenge for the previous evening's expedition, only failing to extricate their kids and themselves from the scenario in their enthusiasm to off us. The tide is encroaching, we're running out of beach.

I balance the elder on my knee and encourage her mother to return to our other child. She does, but with a serious lack of enthusiasm. I begin to realise how annoyed she is.

It had started out so tamely. A couple of restful stouts in a languid local, myself and my good buddy exploring the environs of my new town. He and his lot had rented a house nearby to spend a week holidaying in the southwest and catching up with us lot.

"Catching up" in the vernacular of the Irish family man obviously meaning he and I slipping the leash whenever possible to go off on solo runs to various hostelries and speak of putting the world to rights.

Somewhere along the line sociable pints became an examination of the theory that we may be too old to cut it in small town hotel discos. The premise holds. We are way too old. There was dancing. It was wrong in so many ways.

As I nursed my way through the following morning the missus hissed in my ear, "Your daughters might grow up in this town. You better start paying some attention to that, give up embarrassing yourself around the place."

I sipped my Solpadeine and stayed quiet. She may have a point, I thought, but countered internally with the defence that I had done nothing wrong bar murder some random brain cells.

I couldn't marry the extent of her wrath with my taking off for a few hours to behave indulgently at worst with a good friend who had travelled a long way to see us.

I'm suffering enough here, why does she presume she has the right to guilt me further?

Then you find yourself on a cliff face, in charge of a herd of children, knowing that your wife would think twice about grabbing you if your footing slipped, and realising you can't have it both ways.

Because a lot of the slide into middle-aged fatherhood is the acceptance that the boy has to be battened down, that the occasional re-emergence of said boy (I nearly typed "sad" and that would have worked too) does not reinvigorate or revitalise, rather he ridicules.

Maybe the missus shouldn't be quite so mad at me, but maybe also I should be a little crankier at myself.

At 2am the night before, when we were spewing drivel and shuffling aimlessly at the dancefloor edge, we weren't having much of a time. Right now, on the slippy rocks, considering the next day's headlines denouncing idiot parents for leading their children to a tragic end, this is where the craic is.

One child attempting to throw another off, one parent laughing a little manically and everyone wondering have we bitten off a little more than we should? We reach the ground, everyone accounted for. Breathe. "You mind the kids. We're going for a walk," say the wives. "Yes maams," we reply.