I talked to my older brother who was older when I was younger and he told me stories I completely forgot about. I was definitely too tiny in some of them and frankly just neglectful in others.

One is called the bathtub story, the second is the nanny, and the third is summer home netting. No wait, there's also one more called Cheburashki!

Turns out that I was a really joyful and ridiculous kid, and I think that I honestly got it from my Dad, he was a ridiculous silly dumb and smart and odd little man. If it wasn't for the drinking I think he would've made so many more people laugh. This is my effort to show you just how silly this imperfect little afro sporting Russian man was.

Bathtub story, It started during a house party where my mum and dad invited lots of of folk that I guess were from work and the neighbourhood. I was about 1-3yo at the time. During this party it made sense to give dirty Anthony a bath, so a bath was drawn, then as my mum comes back to put little Anthony in the bath she find a drunk and naked Dad taking a proper bath.

Fair enough I guess.

He gets out, puts on his clothes, goes back to the party, my mum draws the bath again, and steps away. He's back in the bath naked again. Just using my imagination I'm picturing him sing silly songs in a drunken stupor. And then after a while he finishes and finally leaves.

My mum probably made fun of this silly drunk man, having a bath during the party he started. Oops.

Finally my mum I bet thought, he finished, he's not bound to bathe again right?

Third times not the charm again she draws the bath and he's in there.

What a man.

Nanny story, This one's really short and feels like a sitcom. I never knew but back in Russia I had a nanny. Of course my mum walked in on my dad kissing my nanny. And what did he do when she saw? He walked right up to a lamp and very seriously started to change the bulb. With a very focused expression. I imaging him with bright red cheeks. I didn't have the nanny for long.

Grandpa is always right, Turns out that my Dad had a thing for trying to be smarter than his Dad. We were at a country home, one with the Shrek type outhouse. Out in the middle of Russian no-where it's customary to have a small wooden house to go to for summer vacations. A Dacha. Well at this dacha the mosquito netting on the door was broken. It simply wasn't staying on.

After he passed I saw some of his paintings that he left behind and I can clearly imagine how he tried to pin the mosquito netting onto the door, in a very odd, incongruent mishmash of nails, pins in a method that resembles more of an art project than any kind of handyman work.

Well my older brother told him at the time, that well, the method you're using probably won't work quite right, how about you try this other method of pinning it into the door frame, just like Grandpa does.

That set the silly little afro man off.

Cheburashk, I was 5 or 6 at the time, I think. My dad took a habit from his parents of going to a specific part of the woods to have a picnic, he did it when he was small, and as me and my brother grew up we would also go and have a picnic.

It was always a drive from what my brother told me, and on the way there we would always be a stop for cheburashkis. These are kind of like hot pockets but filled with meat and potatoes and cheese. Just oh so good, nice and crispy and tasty. So imagine stopping every single week for one on the way to your family picnic.

And then one day, it started to feel like we weren't going to stop for our weekly savoury snack. This line sounds so much better in Russian but forgive me I can't write well enough and don't trust google translate for this. Rather, at the back of the car I said something along the lines of "I guess I kind of really want a Cheburashk" There's something about the joy and simplicity of this that makes my brother laugh and made my mum and dad laugh that I can't completely put a finger on but that's it. I guess I kind of really want a treat.