Pateroppotomusses

Paterusmaximus the First (House of Sinclair): My dad, captured in west coast sunshine a few years back, looking adventurous whilst actually crapping himself and gripping on for dear life because his friend always drives the rib boat round the Scottish west coast's beautifully craggy inlets way too fast. Over the years, in trying to feign nonchalance in front of his pal but in reality masking pure terror, he's probably lost enough caps while being bumped over the crest of choppy waves to accessorise a whole pod of dolphins. Back to the here and now and recently, among many Granda duties, he has mostly been helping Sam on the road to table tennis happiness.

As an aside my dad takes laughing fits, particularly at bad jokes, usually his own, where he giggles so hard he cries and can't stop. It's infectious or probably genetic, which I'm pretty pleased about.

Paterusmaximus the Second (House of Stuart): Ahh, my dearest Dave, in peaceful slumber many moons ago when months old Tess, Loki and 2 year old Sam snoozed beside him. He was wise to grab some sleep where he could in those days. Now the only pesky sod that wakes him up is neither 12 year old Sam nor 10 year old Tess, it isn't even the furballs meowing wanting fed or announcing their latest half dead kill. Nah, it's me. I get bored and wake him up, much to his annoyance. I did that today. What was supposed to be his day turned into him ferrying us and Sam's pal about, feeding us and at one point - while I got a bit excited running to dolphin watch at Torry Battery - offering to carry me when I did a spoony dramatic fall and sprained my ankle.