A flying visit, and the curate's egg

I was off yesterday, and not working until 3:30 this afternoon, so I took the opportunity to sneak home for a brief visit, to break up what would otherwise have been a straight 3 weeks away. I got home about 1:00 on Wednesday morning, and left again at 9:00 this morning to travel back. The bit in between was largely enjoyable, but with one or two less palatable bits.
After chilling out yesterday morning, apart from doing a couple of minor domestic jobs and some washing, the sunny afternoon and the fact that my daughter is well into her summer school holiday tempted me to do something I haven't done for absolutely ages - go to our local pub for a 'beer garden experience'. My daughter and I walked the 15 minutes or so up there, and settled ourselves at one of the picnic tables in the garden, and spent a happy couple of hours chatting and generally enjoying each others' company. She really is growing up into an absolutely lovely person, even allowing for my paternal bias, and the fact that I love her to bits - good-looking, clever, funny, interesting, a good conversationalist, and on a similar wavelength to me in quite a lot of areas. And, of course, she's the only person who I see or speak to on anything like a regular basis who I'm 'out' to. I actually got quite emotional at one point - before I'd had much to drink, I hasten to add, it wasn't a maudlin moment - when I thought about, and told her, how much she means to me. She even managed to take the tears in my eyes in her stride, when many, if not most, 13 year-olds would have been cringing in embarrassment. Not for the first time, I counted my blessings that she's not a boy - if she was everything she is, and male, it could have made for some extremely problematic family dynamics.
Sadly, our closeness isn't universally approved of, or so it seems. When my wife got home from work, and rang to find out where we were, she came up to the pub to join us. By that time, the weather had deteriorated rather, with drizzle in the air, so my daughter and I had found ourselves a quiet corner inside, on a nice comfy leather sofa, and my daughter was propped up against me as we pored over a game she'd downloaded to her phone. When my wife came in and found us like that, she looked like she'd swallowed a wasp. It's a common refrain that my daughter is 'Daddy's Girl', and that she never speaks to my wife about anything of consequence, but yesterday was the worst example of her being overtly jealous about the issue that I've seen. It put a damper on what had been one of the nicest afternoons I've spent in a long time - my wife had barely sat down before she started muttering about going home, even though I focused more of my attention on my wife than my daughter after she'd arrived. It's a difficult situation to work out how to handle - I love them both, but it certainly seems that I've got more in common with my daughter.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B