And so I stepped out of the shower this evening, towelled myself dry and stepped tentatively up to the bedroom scales for the first time in months. I stood on the glass and watched the LCD display wheeling up, working out what the grand total was. And then the display steadied and settled on a final number.

87.9kg. Oh dear.

It seems like tonight was exceptional timing. 88kg is – according to the Body Mass Index – the threshold between me being in my ‘normal’ weight range and being overweight. After ignoring my increasing bad habits for too long, it was time to start taking action.

How did I end up here? A combination of factors. A sports injury didn’t help matters. I haven’t been able to exercise properly since October due to wrecking my knee at a half-marathon. Factor in some spectacular gluttony over Christmas, and that certainly didn’t help keeping the weight down. Worse, it established a junk food and red wine habit that has stuck with me to this day. Not good.

I’ve tried to keep running, but this winter has lasted far too long. Rain and snow and high winds have kept me indoors, even when I have felt up to the task of running.

But clearly the time for excuses is over. I’ve watched my waistline expand over the last few months and all the hard work I put into losing weight and toning in the first place is slipping away. But there’s a plus side.

I feel like those scales tonight just issued me a challenge. Bring it back down again. I need to lose at least 10kg. Ideally I’d be sitting around 75kg, maybe by the summer if I can contain the diet and keep up a regular workout routine. So what’s the plan?

1. Bring the diet back to basics. I’ve got to rein in the sloppy eating habits. Junk food and wine are off limits.
2. Start working out again. But I need to take it easy to begin with – I can’t risk another injury, so it’ll be short 3-5 mile runs to begin with and cross training to sweat some of the weight off. And tone up a little at the same time.
3. New shoes! Yep. Rather than risk my old trainers giving me another injury, I’ve invested in a new pair. Nice, new well-cushioned trainers. Mizuno Wave Inspires.
4. Stand on the scales every single day. I need the constant reminder to stand on the scales to discipline me. And there’s a certain reassurance to seeing the numbers slowly going down.

So, challenge accepted. Let’s see how long it takes to shift this excess baggage!

Nostalgia’s a funny old thing. You recall childhood things with a fondness and rose-tinted viewpoint. But sometimes things that seemed wonderful as a child can seem awful through the eyes of an adult. Take Charlie And The Chocolate Factory for instance. A true children’s classic, following a poverty-stricken young boy and the golden ticket that changes his and his family’s lives forever. Yes, yes it could be a reality TV show…

But let’s take a look at the true villain of the film. Grandpa Joe.

What. A. Douchebag. Let’s overlook for a moment the weird four-in-a-bed situation he had going on with his wife and the in-laws. That’s kinky enough for a kids’ movie. It’s what happens when Charlie bursts in the door with that golden ticket in his hand.

Ol’ Grandpa Joe – who’s been bedridden for a full 20 years – leaps out of bed and starts dancing around the tiny little wooden shack the Buckets call home. Lest you forget, this is a family that’s living in extreme poverty. Hand to mouth. Mrs Bucket is mopping up after the grandparents and working into the night in a backstreet laundrette. Even Charlie is doing his bit by working a paper route. That’s how dire the situation is for this family – and has been for decades.

And yet here’s one lazy old git who’s been pretending to be crippled for 20 damn years. He’s allowed Mrs Bucket to cook and clean for him for decades, and work into the night. And yet at the first sight of Charlie’s golden ticket, the old coot leaps out of bed, kicking his heels like he was on an episode of Glee. Asshole.

There’s plenty of other evidence that Grandpa Joe was a total tool, but the laziness of the man really blows my mind. It particularly resonates because Joe is a metaphor for people who pretend to be helpless and need support, yet when an opportunity arises that suits his purposes – for personal gain or his own entertainment – he’s suddenly able to take care of himself. What a freeloader! Crippled when it comes to contributing to the family, but a trip to Wonka’s candy factory? I’m cured!

Maybe I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about this one, but I know too many people who burden their families with crap like this. They can’t do this. They can’t do that. They need your help because something’s beyond their control or abilities. It’s almost always mundane shit they just can’t be bothered to deal with. And they want someone convenient to farm it out to. But when there’s something that they really want to do, they can always summon the willpower and resources to achieve whatever they want. I’ve seen it a million times.

So Grandpa Joe is an asshole. And unfortunately, a metaphor for several people I know.

Oh my. What a Christmas it’s been. Well, the parts that haven’t involved the in-laws, anyway. It seems everything in that quarter is lies, deceit, repressed anger and depression. But that’s someone else’s story. It just hasn’t made them that much fun to be around. Kinda glad I kicked my family to the kerb ages ago.

We started out with the best of feeble intentions. We’d tackle Christmas with moderation, and still be able to have fun. At the end of a four-week Festival Of Gluttony, it feels like we’ve consumed twice our body weight in stodgy dinners, crisps and chocolate. Not to mention the dreaded drink.

Alcohol is the killer in our house. There’s always a bottle of red wine sitting around, which is always tempting to break out after a long day of juggling parenting and blogging. The thing is, whenever I get to a certain point of drunkenness, Greedy Me makes an appearance. A starving, rampaging version of myself with a single, deadly purpose: eat everything in sight. This version of me has been known to wake up the next morning with empty crisp bags and plates of toast beside the bed.

So not only is the calorific red wine a liability, but the junk food binging doesn’t help either.

And now that a fresh new year has dawned, and the Mayans were wrong about the apocalypse, it’s time to sober up some. Especially since the world isn’t ending and now it does matter that we pigged out at Christmas. Damnit.

Basically for at least the next month, we’re entering a self-enforced dryathlon. Goodbye, cheap bottles of JP Chennet merlot from Tesco! So long, 24 packs of whatever the hell beer is on offer down the off license. And with it, we’re going to be cutting back drastically on our junk food intake. The local Chinese restaurant has been dreading this day, but it’s inevitable. We must cut all ties with our Fried Food Dealers.

Yes, we’re only 5 days into 2013, but the Dryathlon is going fine so far. Last night I discovered an unopened case of beer in the cupboard (how did that get there?) and it was relatively easy to walk away with a large glass of iced water instead.

And of course, I’m back to running. Hoping to resume my fitness levels and burn off the winter excess and gradually move toward marathon distances throughout the year.

Anyone else vowing to get rid of the Christmas gut in the new year? Try a Dryathlon!

And I’m not even as hairy as the guy in the picture!

So, I decided to bite the bullet… and get my wife to make an appointment for me at the local beauty emporium. Which was pink. Very pink. Pink blinds, pink cushions, and a very pinkly-attired beautician. Okay, so this wasn’t the most manly place, but then is there a anywhere tough guys can go to get their backs smoothed out? Does Stallone get his back-hair burned off in the middle of a jungle by flame-thrower wielding guerillas? Does Chuck Norris have someone run a lawnmower across his back to cut down his back-forest?

Instead, I ended up sitting next the window in the oh-so-pink beauty parlour, hiding my face in a celebrity gossip magazine.

Eventually, I was called into the cramped little room to have The Waxing. Now, people talk about waxing with the same terror as a castration with no anaesthetic. Or childbirth. Or something genuinely painful. The truth is, you have various sections of your back slathered in hot wax, then the beautician takes a strip of paper, sticks it to the hot wax and rips it off in one quick, brutal motion.

And yes, this is the painful part. It’s a stinging sensation, and the skin feels hot afterward. But you don’t have much time to reflect, because she’s already moved on to the next part, waxing and ripping, waxing and ripping.

The worst areas are where the skin is most sensitive – around the neck and along the sides. But it was the sensation afterward that was totally weird. Wearing clothes. Without that wee barrier of hair, clothes feel strange against my back. It’s slightly cold, and there’s the feeling like there’s water running down my back, which is uncomfortable and makes me a little self-conscious.

Bottom line? I actually feel a lot better about having a smooth back (for however long it lasts), and back waxing is definitely not the nightmare ordeal people make it out to be. On the other hand, I was told that in terms of hairiness, my back was nowhere near some of the Yeti who come in to get a waxing….

Next week…dude gets a bikini wax…not.

Since she was a toddler, Rachel has always been our fussiest eater. A vomiting bug when she was very young meant we fed her ‘easy’ foods – sandwiches, potatoes, toast – when she couldn’t keep food down. Unfortunately, when the bug eventually passed, she rejected just about everything that wasn’t utterly bland, unchallenging food.

So, over the past few months we’ve been gradually introducing her to new foods. It’s been almost universally a hard road. She becomes whiny and weepy and kicks back every time a new food is introduced. I’m talking about pizza here. Simple pizza with all the pepperoni picked off.

And the flipside of this is that mealtimes become frustrating for everyone concerned, and the adult who’s doing the coercing ends up shouting and making threats of “no treats for the rest of your life” or “grounded until your teeth fall out”.

But for a decade now, mealtimes in our house have almost always been a two-tier affair – with one bland, boring dinner being cooked for Rachel and another one for us and the two boys. And that would’ve probably been all right except Rachel started to protest even about her regular food. So we decided something had to be done, and we sat her down and explained that she needed to broaden her culinary horizons. Or something more appropriate that a 10 year old fussy eater would understand.

To be fair, she has improved a lot. But tonight, I had mentally battened down the hatches, because on the dinner menu was…mince steak and onion pie with mushy peas!!!

And the minute she found that out, Rachel predictably started her pattern of complaining. However, tonight was going to be different. I explained to her that she only had to eat a small slice of the pie and a little bit of the peas. I totally appreciated the texture and flavour of the food was going to be totally different to anything she’d tasted before. And so I was determined that there would be no shouting or cajoling, just quietly encouraging her to try the food.

When something strange happened…

She began her usual dance: whinging about the food, recoiling from it as if it was poisoned, pretending to be cold, tired, etc. But – and she admitted this later – because I wasn’t rising to the bait, there was no angry, frustrated dad for her to play off. And she tested the pie with the tip of her tongue, before shoving it in her mouth. A few chews later, she gave it her seal of approval.

Minutes later, Rachel had wolfed down the entire meal, including mixing pie with peas and then a spoonful of peas on their own. We were stunned. She was experimenting. And there was absolutely no holding her back. She moved on to nab little spoonfuls of peas from the boys’ plates too. You could just tell that she was so pleased with herself, for getting over her fear of the food and for discovering that *gasp* she liked it!

We’re hoping that little victories like this build her confidence and gradually reduce her fear of new and different foods. She’s going away with a youth group later in the summer, and they’ll definitely serve her unusual food, so she’s got a target that she needs to work toward.

Of course, we need to acknowledge that this is a slow process. We need to keep experimenting with new foods and not keep slipping back to Rachel’s standard ‘safe’ foods. But hopefully we’re closer to normalising the fussy eater in our family!

I’ve never really had a big attachment to silly card-shop celebrations like Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. That’s not to say that I disagree with the idea of celebrating love or the people in our lives, but not on some pre-ordained date, and certainly not because someone told me to.

Let’s face it, without our children we wouldn’t be celebrating Father’s Day at all, and I want to take this opportunity to turn this around and focus on the tiny people who enrich my life in so many ways.

• Rachel: Quick witted and sharp tongued, this one can see straight through me, and knows how to make me laugh with goofy dances and absurdities. She came out on a run with me this morning, cycling alongside me for five miles, talking incessantly the entire time.
• Jake: Thoughtful, affectionate and sometimes insecure, ol’ Jake is the epitome of the adage ‘still waters run deep’. He’s a beautiful kid, physically athletic and needs to be reminded regularly that he’s brilliant.
• Dan: The Kamikaze child, Dan is like the crash test dummy of our family, constantly injuring himself. Dan’s really starting to establish his personality this year being fun, friendly and hilarious with friends and family.

What I love about this threesome is that they have a great relationship with each other. And with us. They laugh and joke easily, and though they bicker from time to time, they’re fantastic companions, and hilarious kids. Their in-jokes are bonkers and brilliant, they make every day in our house fun.

Sure, it’s Father’s Day, and fathers should be celebrated. But I find that my kids make the job of being a dad so much easier. So, here’s to the children!

I’m an atheist. It’s not something I wear on my sleeve because I’m not a militant atheist. I don’t walk around my town wearing a sandwich board declaring everything that’s wrong or objectionable about scripture. That’s the Internet’s job.

In real life though, I’ve never been made to feel dirty or discriminated against because of my (lack of) religion. No old ladies throwing rotting vegetables at me in the street or public shunning of any kind. Well, until recently. Here’s what happened:

Enter the local scout group

My oldest son is painfully shy. After years of trying to get him to participate in football clubs and after school activities, we finally found something he loved and enjoyed: the local cub scouts group. I’ve never seen him so happy or fulfilled, making new friends and getting involved in games.

But there were a couple of problems. The long-established leaders of the pack were planning to leave, and the numbers of children attending were quite small. It was very likely that the pack might disband if nothing was done to bring stability to it. There was one new pack leader who’d started in the same month as my boys, but really no-one else was stepping forward. And with child protection regulations, there was no way a ratio of 1 adult to 8 children was going to be allowed.

So – and totally painting myself as a modern day hero here – I decided that there’s no point in complaining about people not being community minded if I wasn’t going to step forward myself. And so I did. I put in an application to be an assistant, which involved a standard police check and some references to make sure that I wasn’t a shady dude. Fair enough. (Passed with flying colours, by the way!)

An interview…

A few weeks ago, I was surprised to receive a call from a man inviting me to an interview for the position of pack leader. This was curious, because I’d assumed I was applying to help on a more informal basis. You know, show up every 2-3 weeks and offer a hand with whatever was planned. So an interview seemed a tiny bit over the top. But hey, I decided to go with the flow.

And so I went along to the interview with a bit of the reading material the Scouts people had sent me. It was while I was sitting in a coffee shop before the interview that I read the literature they’d sent me. Uh-oh. To be a pack leader, you must have recognize an obligation to God. It doesn’t have to be the Christian God, mind you. Any God will do. Just not “no god”.

Before the interview, a lumbering, white-haired bear of a man approached me and introduced himself as one of the leaders who’d be interviewing me. Apparently there was a problem with my application – I’d ‘forgotten’ to fill in the religious denomination section. Silly me. I explained that I tend to leave that blank because I’m an atheist and…

It was as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. The formerly genial gentleman who’d been talking to me was reduced to uncomfortable stammering. Damn, I’ve never experienced anything like this before. He awkwardly pointed out that the Scouts aren’t a Christian organisation – presumably for equality reasons more than anything else – but that an atheist cannot make a pledge to God. I agreed. It’s something I would never do, not even to cover my ass and ‘fake it’.

He rushed off to consult with his colleagues about this, but the vibe was frosty. And then I was called in to meet with the three leaders.

What I explained to them…

1. No, I’m not a Christian. I have no problem with anyone’s religious beliefs, but I won’t fake a belief to fit in. I think that stands testament to my credibility and self-respect.
2. I admire the Scouting organisation. I understand that they have a code of conduct that they try to instil in the children, and I admire and support that. I just don’t believe that religion is the only way to treat kids morality and right from wrong.
3. My decision to help out with my local pack was an attempt to be community-minded and volunteer to give something back to an organisation that was having a profoundly positive effect on my children.
4. I explained that my religious position is long held and will never change. It was the product of a long and traumatic period of questioning in my life that led to the conclusion that there is no God.

I did not try to be a facetious smart-arse and list my religion or say that Simon Cowell is my God. Though I was sorely tempted. You open your doors to all religions, as long as the person can say that they pray to a deity.

It’s profoundly insulting to be told that a door is closed to you because of your beliefs. What, I can’t be around Cub Scouts because of my lack of religious belief? I suppose I’m not fit to be a parent at all by that logic.

Here’s the real kicker:

After having what was a genial but frank discussion with these three leaders, the head honcho guy laid out the problem for me: there’s no way you can ever be a pack leader. (Er, I didn’t want to be in the first place, I just wanted to offer support, not get married to you!) But I possibly, maybe, could be a pack assistant. You don’t need to make the vows, but you can wear the uniform. Cool. I think.

But the leader of the leaders had to squeeze in one final insult along the way:

We’re going to have to check this out with the area leadership. But it’s not as if people are knocking down our door to sign up as leaders, so it’s probably okay and we should be able to offer you a position as pack leader.

Er, back it up there Baloo! So what you’re saying is that if you had a queue of Christians, sorry Deists wanting to help, I wouldn’t be good enough for your Scouts group? How unutterably rude! It goes without saying that you clearly aren’t inundated with nice, religious mums and dads lining up to help out. Instead, you’re sitting in a circle around an atheist dad who’s keen to help your organisation. Grrr.

That made me angry. “Ordinarily, you wouldn’t be good enough. But since no-one else cares enough to step up, you’ll probably get a position by default.” Not cool, Scouting dudes.

Guess what?

In the last week, I was offered a pack assistant position. Incredible. But totally expected. I presume the legal position was a bit sketchy – you can’t really discriminate against people based on their religious beliefs. But obviously the pack was in dire need of extra hands and there was really only one applicant.

Now, I could be bitter and offended about all of this, but I’ll probably take our local scouts troupe up on their ‘kind’ offer. Ultimately, it’s good for the kids, and not just my own kids. And I still like the idea of contributing to the community somehow. And I still respect what scouting’s about in providing a firm foundation for our kids.

But a question for Christians and Atheists reading this: how would you have reacted? Am I doing the right thing by staying involved, or should I have been more vocal about my objections?

I’m not judging these people. Well, not much. Okay, I am judging them. After spending years in the wilderness being a slave to the grind and becoming a dull, grey person as a result, I want to make every moment count.

Anyhow, it’s reassuring to know that whenever it feels like I’m totally at odds with the rest of Planet Earth, at least I’ve got my kids. I just love that closeness that we have in our family – the in-jokes, the wacky spontaneous dancing in the kitchen, playing and living together. (Reality check: no, we’re not The freakin’ Waltons, we irritate each other too sometimes!)

Sometimes they’re so finely tuned to my mood that they’ll know what I’m thinking before I’ve even opened my mouth. They’re the global leading experts in reading my mind.

For example, Jake was regaling me with a story about something that happened with one of his friends. It seemed to me that the other kid was being a bit of a douche, and so I was deep in thought, racking my brains for the best, most balanced advice to give him. Jake immediately registered the annoyance in my face and said “You’re angry about something.” He was absolutely right. I didn’t like the way he’d been treated by the other child, but I was trying hard to balance my response. But Jake picked up on the pursed lips and faraway look and correctly guessed that I was irked.

And I love that they’ll say to me “You’re annoyed.” It means that they’re tuned in to how I feel about things, but that they feel they can talk to me about it. It’s not “Dad’s angry, keep your head down and hide”, they want to engage and ask why. Curiously, whenever they quiz me this way, it sometimes shakes me out of my funk, because it makes me feel ‘understood’ and not like some type of untouchable patriarchal type.

So, when other people are getting on my nerves and I’m pissed off with the world, this is one more reason why my kids can still put a massive smile on my face. In what ways do your kids make you happy?

In his life so far, he’s notched up quite a few bumps and bruises, but the top three so far have been:

4. Headbutting Buildings: A couple of years ago, playing in a niehgbours’ back yard, Dan was being chased by a friend. Turning round without using his perpiheral vision, Dan turned and ran…straight into the corner of the house. Essentially, he put a massive vertical scar on his left temple, which grew into an impressive-sized bump. Took weeks for the scabs from that one to heal up.

3. Causeway Tumbles: On a trip to the Giant’s Causeway, we were all bouncing up and down the stone columns. Except Dan, who was belly-bouncing against the stones. Until he bounced too hard, and ricochetted backwards. I saw him fly past me and literally caught him in mid-air as he was falling backwards. If not for that, he’d have landed on his back on some pretty hard volcanic rocks. Ouch.

2. The Tooth Smasher: The most recent addition to Dan’s gallery of scars. While out playing on his swing scooter, he somehow – and no-one knows how – smash his face off the handlebars, chipping a prominent front tooth. And guess what? It was an adult tooth, too. Oopsie.

1. The Wrist Slasher: In this one, Dan’s not quite three yet. We were in his grandmother’s house just days after my father had been buried. The perfect time for some hospital-related shenanigans! Dan, playing the Superman role, rushed at the front door with an outstretched fist and punched straight through a panel of glass. The most of the damage was done when he pulled his hand backward and sliced his wrist on the shards of glass. A trip to Accident & Emergency and some emergency surgery managed to save the motor function in his hand, but it was a scary few days.

I’m sure if we all put our heads together, we could come up with a load more. He’s been known to close his finger in doors, for instance. Lots.

We’re kind of hoping that he doesn’t continue to do lasting damage, or he’s going to end up looking like a toothless yokel. You can see why allowing him to go out on a pair of roller skates is a cause of such worry for us!

Picture the scene. I’m sitting in our living room with Jake and we’re talking about our new abortive show, Terra Nova. If you’re not familiar with Terra Nova, it’s a series about a group of people who escape a wasted, polluted Earth to the dawn of the planet where they can found a new civilisation.

Anyway, I recently found out that FOX have cancelled the show, and wanted to break it to Jake that once we hit the season finale, there wouldn’t be any new episodes. Welcome to the eternal disappointment of the sci-fi geek, son. Never trust FOX to keep a good show running, etc.

So I sat down with Him and gave him the bad news. I should have anticipated the “But why?” that followed. So I gave him my theory: not enough people watched the show and it was very expensive to make, so it got cancelled.

“But why was it so expensive to make?”

Damnit, a money question. I decided to pull a random answer out of my ass. Don’t judge me, all parents do it!

“Well, son, it was so expensive to make because they had to find the dinosaurs in the first place. And then they had to teach them how to act.”

He looked at me for a second. As the enormity of this dawned on him, his jaw went slack nod his eyes started to widen. He was halfway through his catchphrase “Did they ACTUALLY?” when you could literally see logic winning out in his brain. There are no dinosaurs. D’oh!

What followed were about five solid minutes of us all laughing (Jake included) at how gullible he’d been. He later told me it was the best joke I’ve ever played on him, so I’m glad he took it in good spirits!

What’s the best practical joke you’ve ever played on your children?