IT has been a recurring theme of this column over the past 25 years that us dads – well men in general come to think of it – get the blame for everything.

Yes, I know it’s a generalisation, but let me tell you about last week’s “bread incident” as an example.

It began when my wife phoned me at work to say she wanted to meet me because there were some potential “bargains” she was interested in at Thomas Watson’s auctioneers in Darlington town centre. She likes a bargain, my wife, and it can be dangerous when she’s left to her own devices, so I agreed to meet her outside The Black Olive delicatessen, on the way to the auctioneers, at 1pm.

Well, as things turned out, it wasn’t that straightforward. Try as I might, I couldn’t escape from the office and it was six and a half minutes past one when I got to her. I could tell she wasn’t happy because her lips were pursed and she was looking at her watch.

We had a look round the salesrooms and, to my relief, I was able to persuade her there was nothing we really needed. We parted on reasonably good terms, with our joint account undamaged.

The next day, I called in at The Black Olive for my healthy salad box lunch.

“Ooh, were you in trouble yesterday?” asked the nice, friendly lady behind the counter.

“Why?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s just that your wife came in here to buy lots of rosemary focaccia bread – and she said it was your fault because you’d kept her waiting outside.”

Naturally, this came as a bit of a surprise to me. I had no idea that my wife had been compelled to go into The Black Olive to buy lots of rosemary focaccia bread in the six and a half minutes I was late. I don’t remember ordering anyone to press her face up against the enticing shop window and push her inside to place an order.

“How come it’s always my fault?” I asked Mrs Black Olive.

“Oh, that’s just the way it is with men,” she said, sympathetically.

She went on to tell me how it had been her husband’s fault when she’d crashed the car.

Clearly, crashing the car is a lot more serious than buying some rosemary focaccia bread so I pressed her for further details.

“Well, he talked me into changing our car, and I wasn’t used to driving it, so it was his fault when I had a bump,” she explained.

“I was absolutely furious with him at the time.”

So, do you see what I mean? Whether it’s buying bread, or crashing the new car, in the end it’s down to us men. It’s our fault and always will be.

I’m not even sure I like rosemary focaccia bread that much.

The things they say

AT a recent meeting of the 33 Club in Eaglescliffe, I was told about a little boy called Gavin who’d been having art classes at Fairfield School in Stockton.

Gavin had come home with a completely black sheet of paper.

“Oh, what have you been drawing?” asked his mum.

“The night,” replied Gavin, matter-of-factly.

“Well what about the moon and the stars?” ventured his mum.

Gavin put on a stern face, clearly unimpressed by the line of questioning, and declared: “There were no moon or stars that night!”

THANKS also to Mary, from Darlington, who stopped me in the street the other day to tell me about her son Thomas’s ambitions which have been fuelled by Tim Peake flying off to the space station.

Thomas, five, announced: “Mum, when I grow up, I’m going to be an astronaut – but you’ll have to come with me because I don’t know how to make chips.”

This is all a bit of a worry because Mary’s scared of flying.