Who's The Daddy: Kids are enjoying life and making a few quid of their own
You know you’re getting old when you ask one of your grown and flown kids what exactly it is they do for a living, and when they tell you, to borrow a phrase off the late, great Bill Hicks, you look at them like a dog that’s just been shown a card trick.
Daughter #1 works in something to do with employment law and HR.
Beyond that, I haven’t got a scooby. And last week she got promoted, with a bump in pay, much to our delight. And hers, as it’ll just about cover the recent hike in rent on the flat she shares with a mate in Manchester.
It’s ironic, that at a time when the Boss has recently taken early retirement, and yours truly is without any question of a doubt one redundancy away from an enforced, permanent retirement from journalism, that our kids are just starting out in life and making a few quid of their own.
They say that you should take advice off your parents about everything, apart from work, because what did the trick in the old-timey days - and what I mean by “the old-timey days” is the 1990s - is pretty much irrelevant in 2024.
Take Daughter #2, who keeps us posted from her Caribbean cruise ship job on WhatsApp and Instagram a couple of times a week.
One video she sent was of what they do for entertainment out at sea. And it’s pretty impressive. A tightrope walker strides up an incline high above a gawping crowd on deck while a colleague matches them step for step - but upside down.
A bit later on a diver leaps off a board so high it makes your head swirl and lands, barely making a ripple, in what appears to be a Jacuzzi.
Daughter #2 did point out that the diver won an actual gold medal at the actual Olympics, it’s not something they make the kids’ club staff perform, although by the sound of it they do just about everything else.
As well as being worked like dogs, Daughter #2 and her multinational workmates do have a lot of parties, and apart from the one thrown to celebrate Mexican Independence Day last week, it seems they are held for the flimsiest of reasons (end of splash duty, karaoke - Mr Brightside by The Killers, since you ask - beach and cabin) - with oceans of free beer.
Was it really only eight weeks ago that we waved her off through Manchester Airport Departures? And then again five days later after Hurricane Debby turned Florida into a paddling pool and altered her ship’s course, so the company cancelled and then rescheduled her flight a few minutes after she’d gone through security. At times it feels like last week and others it’s like six years.
Still, soon be Christmas. And she’s due back in the UK in late January for a well-earned holiday, although I doubt she’ll be booking a cruise any time soon. I’m guessing she’ll kiss the ground like Pope John Paul II when she lands at Manchester Airport.
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