By: Nick at Don't panic. RTFM.

I'm told that many bloggers plan their next post hours, days, even weeks in advance, and taking a basic truth they embroider and elaborate until they've got something that makes an excellent read, although shouldn't be taken as gospel.  Perfect Planning Produces Perfect Prose.  I think.

Others, and I include myself in this, just wait for something to happen and the scribble down some old nonsense about it. In this case, Piss Poor Planning Prevents Perfect Prose.  I believe.

So when asked if I would write a guess (guest) blog, in the heat of the moment...and like a rabbit dazzled in the headlights of transatlantic fame...I said yes.  Confident in anticipation of the boy doing something that I could put down to entertain and delight.  Well like a perfect teenager, he's got awkward and cussid...choosing to spend the last few days just getting on with the last few days of the school term in a peaceful, calm relaxed fashion.  It seems that as the school year comes to a close, he’s given up the fight and is just getting on with doing, erm, stuff.  Mind you it would be nice if his bedroom could be kept tidy for more than the blink of an eye.  But we all have hopes and ambitions which will remain unfulfilled.

So as the deadline has got nearer and nearer, my sense of panic has grown and grown.  I asked friends and fellow bloggers, and was generally met with 'Just get on with it, for heavens sake how hard can it be, you write all the time'  THanks for the sympathy.  The boy suggested I write about what I think about America...and I had to remind him that as the US now has a President that every country in the world would like as their own leader (hey Americans are so entrpreneurial, couldn't you consider some sort of rental deal for us?) and we now drive a rather splendid Jeep, that my views from the previous eight years have been well and truly trashed and buried in the back yard.  The pressure is a a bit like going into the exam hall knowing that you’d only revised half the topics you meant to because there’s been something interesting on the TV for the last few weeks.  I used to have nightmares about that well into my 30s.  Fortunately for the boy, the exam season is over and the summer holidays are beckoning.
 
I remember when I was young – younger than the boy is now – and the long school summer holidays began.  Technically the first day of the holiday was the Monday of the second week of July and carried on until the first Monday of the first week of September.  In reality, they started when the summer sun came out and continued…well for ever really.  In the same way, snow always fell on Christmas Day so we could throw snowballs after a Christmas lunch of roast turkey with all the trimmings.
 
We used to spend our days cycling around the country lanes with mates.  When I say ‘we’ I mean my brother and I and a few tag-along friends who’s names are now long gone.  So there would be trips to the local woods to see the pond filled with shopping trolleys, old tyres and all sorts of debris which seemed fascinating at the time, but would fill me with horror now. .  Or over to spend the day with a friend where we would lob eggs at his parent’s house roof (how come I just don’t remember ever getting told off for that?), or being chased away from a(nother) pond by a farmer who never seemed to appreciate the value of young lads screaming and splashing around in the water.  We always hid our bikes in the undergrowth, and had to crawl back through the nettles to retrieve them.  We seemed to have an immeasurable amount of freedom, and as this was long before the invention of the mobile phone, our parents must have had much greater faith in our ability to look after ourselves than we credit our children with now.
 
The boy’s summer holiday is a rather more structured…evidently it’s a sin not to organise your off-spring’s school holidays these days.  First week and a few days is being spent away with the school army contingent with some time given over to training for his Duke of Edinburgh Award….for the uninitiated (me) that is ‘the world's leading achievement award for young people’ and involves both doing charity work and yomping around the countryside.  As far as I’m aware our beloved Duke of Edinburgh has never given a day over doing any charitable labour, preferring to let the plebs get on with it, whilst he utters yet another racist/sexist/istist comment that gives the newspapers a good headline.  The boy’s time away will be spent on the North Downs – the countryside over the white cliffs of Dover - and then a few days in France, although I’m not entirely sure where – responsible parenting was never a strong point of mine  Not that the boy is looking forward to this, but his rucksack has been packed for weeks.  Neatly and tidily, whilst the devastation of the rest of his bedroom lays all around.  He will have a splendid time bonding with his mates and having various adventures for me to be regaled with on his return.  I shall look forward to that, but not in the way you might look forward to seeing a friends holiday photos, as this will be a source of immense pride and joy.  Of course, this gives me a week of freedom to let loose and hang free.  Which I will do with aplomb:  Monday night will be spent removing the boy’s stuff from the hallway; Tuesday from the living room; Wednesday from the dining room; Thursday from the upper corridor; Friday from the bathroom; Saturday from the back room; Sunday from the other back room; Monday from the kitchen, leaving Tuesday to decide whether or not to venture into his bedroom and restore some semblance of order.
 
I’m so looking forward to the long hot summer holidays that go on for ever and ever and ever.

Nick is one of the bloggers that I enjoy because he is so freakin’ smart and he writes with an honesty that comes through his posts. He is a single father raising a teenage son, which I hear is not an easy thing to do. Nick seems to be doing a good job at it and I’d have to say that if were a single father I’d like to be a cool dad like him.

Go check his blog I'm sure you'll enjoy it as much as I do.