It is a matter of some pride to me that my best pal is my father-in-law.

He’s in his 80’s now and I have enjoyed his company for almost 40 years.  I’ve particularly enjoyed working with him on the thousand and one DIY projects we’ve undertaken – laying patios, cutting down trees, building a garden pond and making a landing stage, to name but a handful.

The phrase “working with him” doesn’t really do my doziness justice, though.  In reality I’ve stood beside him, passing him tools or steadying ladders, ostensibly learning from his myriad of skills; and though he is an excellent teacher I have resolutely remained an appalling student.

But the pleasure has been immense.  I cannot describe how much fun he makes work. 

A story might help.

A few years ago we (that is, he) was working on an electrical fault in my garage.  It was on the master fuse box where the mains supply came in.

Now, David has an idiosyncratic approach to health and safety and was working with the power still on.  After half an hour or so of him broddling around with a screwdriver at wires and connectors I’d done nothing more than explore the contents of my nose.  So feeling a bit redundant I asked him, “Can I do anything?  Do you need anything?”

“I think I’m OK” he said, “although I could have done with my glasses”.

We kinked double laughing.

Then again more recently when we were working on the same fusebox, there came a point at which he put it back together to test it and inserted the fuse.

BANG

And FLASH.

He jumped backwards a couple of feet and stood motionless with his head bowed for a second or two as though he was in shock.  Then he turned to look at me and we giggled uncontrollably like kids for minutes after.

He carried on working on it to try to rectify the fault for the rest of that afternoon until we again got to the point where we needed to reassemble it to test it.  You’ll understand that I was a bit cautious for him after the blast we’d had before, so again asked him if he wanted anything – rubber gloves, wellies?

“No, I don’t think so” he said, “just a nappy in case I shit myself”.