It's a nightmare being in the doghouse

What I hadn’t realised, however, is that we are now getting the blame for what our wives are dreaming about. It doesn’t even have to happen in real life for us fellas to end up in the doghouse.

Take my friend Mark – dad of two daughters, respected doctor, and my occasional tennis partner.

He couldn’t help noticing that his wife was giving him the cold shoulder. You know the kind of thing: giving monosyllabic answers to his questions; finding reasons to leave the room when he walked in; sighing more than usual; and generally wearing that disturbing veil of disapproval.

In the end, he plucked up the courage to ask what was wrong. “Nothing – I’m fine,” came the reply. Now, as all blokes know, this is wife-speak for “You’ve done something terrible and I’ll never forgive you so you’d better make up the bed in the spare room.”

Mark, a mild-mannered and generally obedient sort of chap, eventually coaxed it out of her – she’d had a terrible dream that he’d sold the house and bought “a rubbish one” without consulting her.

Naturally, Mark pointed out that he hadn’t sold the house at all and went as far as to stress that he still very much enjoyed living there.

“Yes, I know that,” snapped his wife, before adding: “I’ll get over it.”

It’s one of life’s mysteries that wives take time to get over something that hasn’t even happened.

Mark’s experience was bad enough but I was even more concerned to hear from John, another friend of mine, that he actually gets a rollicking from his wife while she’s fast asleep.

John will be lying there, desperately trying to get to sleep himself, while his wife moans in her sleep about his inadequacies.

“For God’s sake, I wanted a big one!” she suddenly shouted out the other night.

This kind of unexplained outburst would be a worry to any self-respecting man so, understandably, John woke her up to find out what she was finding so distressing.

“Oh, I dreamt that you went to the supermarket and brought back a small bottle of milk,” came the explanation.

It was just past three in the morning so John assured his wife that he hadn’t been to the supermarket at all and there was plenty of milk in the fridge anyway.

To be fair, she had the good grace to apologise and went back to sleep but, within seconds, poor old John was having to put up with another barrage: “I said a big one! I wanted a big one! What’s wrong with you? That’s a small one. I didn’t want a small one.”

I’m no expert but I suspect something’s going sour in that relationship.

GRANDAD AT LARGE

THE last Dad At Large column revealed that my wife and I are going to be grandparents. I admitted that it had come as a bit of a shock to one as young as me but I’ve been heartened by the response….

Sue Campbell, who lives near Gainford, in County Durham, wrote to say: The best things about being a grandparent are being able to do all those things you loved doing as a child, without embarrassment: sitting on the grass making daisy chains; constructing sandcastles; reading Pooh bear stories; making a toy car go brmmm, brmmm, skipping. Especially skipping. Enjoy.”

John Petty of Hurworth-on-Tees, near Darlington, who has four lovely grandchildren – Joseph, Lucy, Alexander and George – said: “You should just bypass children and go straight to grandchildren. It’s much more fun.”

Wife Liz added: “Your grandchildren are the reward you get for not strangling your children as teenagers.”

Liz, by the way, says she loves talking to her grandchildren about what they’ve been up to at school and she’s learned loads lately about dinosaurs and Anglo Saxons.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

THANK you to Lindsay Parker, of Durham, for passing on the conversation which took place with her little girl Sylvie recently… Sylvie and her dad were looking out at the nesting blue tit perched in its box.

“Let’s call him Bluey,” suggested Dad.

“Let’s call him Titty,” replied Sylvie.

“Let’s not,” said Mum.