If it wasn’t for marriage counselling, she wouldn’t be here

Are we going to Dollymount Park today?” my eldest daughter asks.

My wife and I are taking English friends on a tour of Dublin.

“No, we’re going to Dollymount Strand,” I say.

“Is that near where you and mummy went to marriage counselling?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “That wasn’t Dublin. That was Kildare.”

Our friends are shocked that our children know we went to marriage counselling.

Dollymount Strand is beautiful even on a stormy day, like today. When the sand dunes come into view, my eldest daughter asks me to play ‘chasies’ with them, as of old. I reluctantly say ‘yes,’ for my back isn’t what it was when we last played here, five or six years ago, when only two of the children were mobile, and the baby was in nappies.

The three of them scatter like rabbits. I give chase, pursuing my second daughter. Before long, however, I am puffed and hide among the reeds. When she comes close, I leap up. She bolts at the sound of my laughter, which I find impossible to repress. I am a child again.

Next, I chase my youngest daughter.

Am I really this old, I ask myself, as she gallops away from me? Yes, I am. Parenting has taken its toll — carrying a child on each hip in the early days.

I hide in a crevasse and lie in wait. She strays close. I pounce. “Pause!” she shouts, crossing her fingers at me. “I need a drink.”

I hand her a bottle of water, then lunge at her. She recoils. “Only joking,” I say.

She smiles, drops the bottle and is gone again within seconds.

“Time for a break,” I say, knackered. I buy them off with the promise of hot chocolates in a nearby café.

“Do your kids know everything about you?” my friend asks when we sit down in the restaurant.

“Well, not everything, but most things,” I say.

He is surprised. He and his wife do not to tell their children much.

“Look,” I begin, pointing at my youngest, who has her nose stuck in a hot chocolate crowned with marshmallows. “If it wasn’t for marriage counselling, she wouldn’t be here. It’s a beautiful part of her story. I couldn’t imagine life without her.

“We were one of the lucky couples who worked things out,” I say.

“So, basically, there is no need for people to hide from their kids, is that what you are saying?” he asks.

“Well, you could put it that way. Of course, if you’re 53, you’re in the sand dunes, you’re puffed and your legs won’t carry you — well, that’s a different story,” I say.

He laughs loudly.

My youngest looks over at us. “Daddy,” she says, “Don’t write anything about me in the Irish Examiner this week. It’s my sisters’ turn.”

Well, I don’t quite tell her everything, do I?