Love A Laugh

Week Twenty: Sunday 11 – Saturday 17 February

You know, when I chill out and stop trying to be the funny guy, give someone else, like my wife and daughter, a chance, I find myself laughing so naturally and so much it does hurt!

My wife is a bit like my nemesis: quiet, shy and retiring; that doesn't stop her having a finely honed sense of humour and an acute ability to have me howling with joy. As for my daughter, she is the classic, original, hoot.

The vast majority of young children can surely raise at least a smile from the grumpiest of sods in the world. Their innocence, honesty and mimicry is enough to find you forming a smile with your mouth before you know it at the worst of times; at the best of times it has you, well it has me, with tears in your eyes, pain behind your ears and gasping for breath. Doesn't it?

It is nothing particular that my daughter does, she doesn't have a routine; more it is a spur of the moment comment, statement, action or behaviour, or combination of all three, that gets me going. I defy anyone to convince me that anything is more entertaining - apart, perhaps, from watching two youngish kittens playing/fighting with each other.

My daughter, any daughter, or child, knocks spots off the television. If you want to be entertained, and you have a child, especially one under five years old, just hang out with them and let them be. Sooner or later you'll be smiling, then smirking, then giggling, then roaring with glee and holding your sides, while wiping your eyes and rubbing your aching ears (doesn't everyone get a pain behind their ears when they have been laughing too hard and too long?)

The cheapest and most enriching entertainment around: chilling out, exiting centre stage and giving up the 'floor' to your wife and daughter.

Magic, priceless, endless and superb!