The scene was carnage.

Wonder Woman. Superman. Batman. Incredible Hulk. One by one all of earth’s champions had fallen.

Even the unexpected appearance of the giant green dinosaur had proven futile as he was easily bested.

Their conqueror walked calmly among them. 

So this was the best this puny planet could throw at him. He almost pitied them.

Just then he noticed a slight movement. It was Batman, the weakest of them all but strangely the last to fall.

He was attempting to crawl away. The conqueror walked to where the fallen hero lay.

Batman was trying to talk. His conqueror knelt so as to hear the words better. 

He couldn’t make them out at first, but then he did.

‘You sure are one tough feckin’ Minion.’

It’s a sunny day.
My son is pulling out all his toys and throwing them on the ground. Again. But what caused me despair yesterday just seems comical today.

For no obvious discernible reason things are all a bit brighter.

Dressing becomes a joke. I tuck his trousers into his socks and his t-shirt into his pants, just to see the look on mummy’s face.

Washing becomes a game where I’m the giant towel monster chasing him around the bed.

I go into the kitchen and move to give my wife a kiss only to discover that at that exact moment she’s stuffing slices of cooked ham into her mouth.

The house is full of giggles today. My son’s laughter is contagious and you don’t want a vaccine.

I’m juggling tasks better. While I play his games I’m also making a stock from last night’s chicken carcass, enjoying the tasks of reducing, tasting, seasoning and straining until I have a pure golden liquid which will be the base of tonight’s dinner. There’s something pleasing in the revolution of the process.

My boy and mummy have to go to the dentist in Newcastle. It could be tricky but we sell it as a day out in the seaside town and he goes along happily. The one sticky moment when he doesn’t want to leave the house is neutralised by my crazy stair dance (warning, it’s copyrighted so don’t try to steal the idea).

As I drive along the coast I watch the light breeze play with the fingers of the trees. There’s a tune going round and round in my head. I realise it’s Waylon Jennings’ theme from the Dukes of Hazzard. Without even noticing I’ve changed the lyrics from ‘Just the good ol’ boys’ to ‘Just a daddy’s boy.’

We’re in and out of the dentist in minutes, my son emerges beaming from the surgery with a new sticker and the glow of congratulation. It’s quite a contrast to my dental visits which can run long into the afternoon as a scaffold is constructed around my mouth.

Then we go to the play-park at the seafront. It’s the swings first (it’s always the swings first), before Superman rescues me from disaster half a dozen times.

There’s a slide which scares my son a little so he asks to sit on my knee the first time. As we’re halfway down I realise there’s a puddle at the bottom of the chute. The backside of my jeans is now wringing, but it’s ok.

Then we join mummy again in a cafe for breakfast. I think to hell with it and order a full Ulster fry, complete with soda and fadge. My son sits besides me happily eating a sausage and licking the butter off his toast.

While I’m sipping coffee I receive a tweet. It’s from Mumsnet and it tells me that yesterday’s post The Bad Day has been selected as their blog of the day (my life has truly gone off in an unexpected direction).

I feel warmth coming through the window, onto my face. It’s a sunny day.

Why is today so much different than yesterday? I suppose if I knew the answer to that I wouldn’t be a penniless blogger, a modern day minstrel peddling my bad jokes and half-baked philosophies.

The truth is the two days were probably not that much different, perhaps just a tiny degree of altered focus on my part.

Yesterday wasn’t that bad and today wasn’t that good, but maybe our minds are not equipped to deal with too many shades of grey and instead serve up ready-made disasters and triumphs.

I talk a lot about trying to turn bad things into good and, as always, I’m encouraged by the response to yesterday’s blog, the number of people who say they’ve been through exactly the same thing. It’s the solace of shared experience.

I start to think that there’s something maddening in how random it all is. How we’re thrown up and down like some discarded plastic bottle in a rough sea. Then I stop myself. We’re having a good time. Maybe it’s enough for today just to leave it at that.

I ask my son if he wants to go for a walk on the beach. After all, that’s what you do on a sunny day.

My da has always been good with his hands.

Just like his da before him.

Being handy, they call it.

Being able to look at a physical problem and know what to do about.

It’s a mixture of a bit of strength and a lot of wisdom and skill. Knowing why certain things happen.

Being able to work out a problem with your mind and then solve it with your hands.

I suppose I’ve privately always aspired to be a bit like that.

Maybe because of my upbringing I’ve never really believed writing to be an honourable way to make a living.

A working man’s hands are rough, hardened by the work and the weather over the years. My hands are soft.

So now when I come up against a manual problem I try to face it like my da.

I take my time, be methodical. I set all the pieces out and think about it like a puzzle.

Then when I have the measure of the task I start to build, one stage at a time.

But sometimes in life there are things you have to face up to. Accepting that there some things which will never be.

Yep, when you can’t put together the toy out of a Kinder Surprise Egg it’s probably time to admit DIY ain’t for you.

I’m on my knees.

Down on the ground in my son’s bedroom surrounded by toys, scattered like so much flotsam and jetsam from a wreckage bobbing in the sea.

It’s a suitable image because I feel like a shipwreck survivor today. Exhausted, weary and on the verge of giving up.

I’m having a bad day.

It’s Monday. One of the days when my son is with me from first light to bedtime.

I know I’m supposed to say that every moment with him is precious. Every second spent together a golden memory.

But I don’t feel that way today. The truth is there are times when I hate it.

There, I said it. The thing that no parent should ever even think, let alone write down.

It’s not yet lunchtime and already I’ve been a monster, a pirate, a cowboy, a human trampoline and a punching bag.

Now he’s pulling boxes of toys out from under his bed and emptying them on the carpet, asking me to find some trivial item not seen or bothered about in years.

I scarcely know what I’m looking for as I move my hands through the piles of endless plastic junk. It’s like searching for a single blade of hay in a giant pile of needles.

‘Where is it daddy? Where is it?’, the impatience rising.

It’s relentless today. His voice is like a stab of pain to my head.

It’s as if he’s attached to me, taking my energy, taking my ideas, taking my life, sucking the marrow out of my bones.

If I could just have a minute to myself. Just a minute to myself.

There’s a molten mixture of volcanic issues at play here. From my own mental health problems, lack of self-confidence and low mood, to my son’s constant need for attention and his rampant, inexhaustible creativity and curiosity.

Add into this my feelings of guilt that I’m not enjoying this morning with him, not giving him the best of me. Yes, it’s a very bad day.

I’ve achieved nothing yet. The breakfast is not made, the clothes not ironed. We’re still in our pyjamas and I haven’t written a word. The sense of waste is upon me. Wasted time, wasted potential.

I’ve been trying to get into the shower for more than an hour. Jesus, if I could just get a minute to myself.

I think about all the things I have to do and it threatens to overwhelm me. I feel the familiar line of cold sweat on my spine and know that a panic attack is sweeping across like a sandstorm. I feel the anxiety spreading in my stomach and chest like a weed.

I go into the toilet and lock the door, hoping it will pass. But he’s knocking within seconds.

‘Come and play daddy. Come and play!’

I want to put my head on the floor, my cheek against the cold tiles and shout. Enough! Enough! Enough! Please just leave me alone!

I open the door and he has me by the arm, leading me downstairs, explaining some new game he has invented and my role in it. We sit together on the carpet in the front room and he starts to wheel a toy car around me. I feel like I’m going to burst into tears. I feel it is all falling apart again. It’s the paralysis of depression.

I decide we have to get out of the house. I’m claustrophobic in here, like I need to burst out of my own skin. I tell him that we’ll go to the park. At least there we can run around, get some fresh air.

It has been a fine and sunny morning. I put on his clothes and shoes and open the front door. At that exact moment it rains. Not gradual, the way rain usually comes, but sudden and immediate and heavy. It’s an angry rain, the fat drops pounding the Tarmac of the road and then bouncing up again. We didn’t even make it past the doorstep. It’s a really really bad day.

We go back inside. I put something on the TV, some cartoon to distract him for just a few minutes. I sneak out and into the kitchen and post a couple of quick blogs. Quick and cheap jokes, just so I can pretend to myself that I’ve achieved something, left a part of myself in the day.

I read them back and don’t think they are funny. There seems to be something faintly absurd and pathetic that I’m trying to make other people laugh when I can’t raise a smile myself.

Soon my wife comes down from her office and we decide we’ve all earned a break. We go out for a coffee and a juice and then for a short drive. We chat, about nothing in particular, but with enough mutual respect and humour that the clouds soon begin to dissolve and I remember that I am somebody. Just the process of having a little bit of family time, all of us together out of the house, brings me back to a place where I’m comfortable. It’s often the little things we give no thought to that have the most hold over our feelings.

It worked today anyway. Another day it might be something else.

As we drive through the countryside in the rain I notice my son is getting quieter in the back. Soon he is dozing and I head for home.

I lift him tenderly from the seat and lay him on our sofa. He sits up and looks at me with confusion for a second before he settles again on his side. His little eyes are not quite shut, as if he is asleep and awake at the same time. A tiny hand is at the side of his face. He is oblivious to his power to pull you this way and that.

I sit beside him on the sofa and read. I want my face to be the first thing he sees when he wakes up, so he doesn’t have a moment of fear or uncertainty.

Then we can do whatever he wants. We can run around, play, watch cartoons. Whatever he wants.

Yes it’s been a bad day. So far. I suppose we all have our own versions of a bad day.

But there’s one thing about a bad day. It can always get better.

My wee buddy is turning into something of a practical joker.

Recently he wanted a whoopee cushion which he made me sit on again and again until it burst (rumours that I stuck a knife in it cannot be proven and my lawyers are watching).

He is also partial to his squirty camera which leads to hours of hilarity as I get splashed repeatedly in the face.

Of course there were a few logistical problems to be overcome first.

Initially he kept blocking the squirty hole with his finger and then got upset when the water didn’t come out.

Once I got him calmed down and overcame that hurdle he was tripped up by the camera button which was too stiff for him to push down.

I tried to help him but it was quite awkward with me pushing onto his finger.

In the end he asked me to do it myself. 

Thus the scene is I’m on my knees in the kitchen holding a toy camera and squirting myself again and again in the face.

Oh, how he laughed.

Hey, even Superman has to get mummy to wash his clothes sometimes