Will’s World: Age-related problems keep me on my toes
© Richard Stanton I’ve spent most of today sawing logs. It’s one of my favourite jobs, mainly because I can get completely lost in it.
Put on the ear defenders, tune out from the outside world and just concentrate on what I’m doing. No phone calls, no one pestering – just me, alone with the stack of timber and my rambling thoughts.
When I started doing this job back when I was almost certainly too young to be doing so, the old man dispensed the same wisdom that his old man had given him: “If you like your thumbs, keep them tucked in.”
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I did then, and I still do, so I’m always careful to follow this sage advice.
We have one of the vintage McConnell belt-driven models, powered by a 1961 Massey 35, so don’t say we’re not state-of-the-art here.
I wonder how many tonnes of logs we’ve cut with it between the three of us over the past half a century or so.
Enough to semi-warm a drafty old farmhouse over that time period, anyway.
Growing pains
Generally, though, as I’m contentedly working away I’m pondering that most imponderable of things – the riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, that is the teenager.
At the last count, the present Mrs Evans and I have two of the female variety living with us, and it won’t be too long before we have a few more.
The only word I can use to describe this situation is “challenging”.
When you’re expecting your first child, people will gleefully describe to you the sleepless nights you’re about to encounter, or the grim situations where nappies and numerous wet wipes await, but no one really tells you about the teenage years.
It’s as if the survivors have banded together and made a secret pact not to tell prospective parents about the future horrors they face, just in case it puts people off procreation altogether and finishes the human species.
It’s like a reverse of the metamorphosis that takes place when a larva eventually ends up as a beautiful butterfly.
But in the case of teenagers, they turn from happy, gap-toothed and carefree little urchins, into emotional volcanoes, where flouncing theatrically out of rooms and slamming doors is suddenly commonplace.
They lurch between needing you so much – perhaps more than ever – and then not wanting you around at all.
And the list of things we do as parents that annoys them seems to get longer every day – be seen in public with them, wake them up in the morning, remind them about their homework, breathe. It’s difficult to navigate.
Teen there, done that
I did come up with something last month that helped for a short time, when I took one of them on a weekend hedge-laying course with me. Yes, you read that correctly – talk about farmer solutions.
I put to the back of my mind that I’d have a teenager holding a sharp axe in disconcerting proximity to me and focused instead on the shared experience we’d have together.
And it went very well. We met lots of lovely people who were there to learn a new skill, and all made a big fuss of the teenager, she being the youngest there by about 30 years.
We worked hard together on laying our stretch of hedge and were very pleased with our joint efforts when we finished.
But most enjoyable for me was seeing fleeting glimpses of the little girl she still occasionally is, alongside even more glimpses of the bright, capable and strong young woman she’s rapidly becoming.
I think we’ll survive the teenage years. Well, just about.