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The circular aspect of life repeated itself this morning. I have been talking to my father at regular intervals over the last week about his own income tax affairs. He has some quite insignificant issues which he thinks need sorting out with HMRC, and in his own inimitable style, has been working himself up into a frenzy of anxiety about this. Yesterday I was disturbed quite early by a telephone call from him during which, over about hafl an hour, I finally persuaded him to take his minor problems to one of the local accountants in the place where he lives. Job jobbed, I thought. Finally, after a week of aggravation a result and a way forward, and much less stress for my poor, long-suffering mother. This has turned out to be far too easy. This morning he has announced that he has decided not to take his problems to the accountant, instead he is going to work them all out himself. Oh, the control-freakery of it all! You just couldn’t make this up. After week of upsetting all and sundry in his lack of control he has decided that doesn’t need any help, and is going to feed his own anxiety still further.

I was very calm, for me. I hear him and there is a mirror held up reflecting my own behaviour. I repeat this little mantra “don’t end up like him, don’t end up like him”. Perhaps I already am, and what a depressing thought this is. We had a rational conversation where I asked him why he asked for my advice and then took no notice of it, and he didn’t answer. I ended up telling him I hoped he had an enjoyable day, and left it there. I wonder how long it will be before I get another call updating me on his progress, and whether I will be able to tell him to stick his tax problems where the sun doesn’t shine.

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