Colm O'Regan: As I get older I'm slowly taking on some of my father's habits

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As I inch towards the age my father was when I had my earliest memories of him, I start to slowly take on some of his habits. His pronunciation of a cough (mmBLEUGHHHamm), the overwhelming urge to get the car into fifth gear as soon as possible, calling every passing dog by the name of one dog we had in the 90s, and these days, every now and then, it’s picking up other people’s rubbish.

Maybe my father started doing it to prevent cows eating Tayto bags but then it became a by-product of his Walk. He’d walk along the boundaries to see what people had thrown out of their cars. Most of the time he was muttering darkly about chip-bags. Sometimes he found a pint glass or weirdly, a working slate clock.