Families are odd things. I’m not an anthropologist or a biologist with even a basic knowledge of which species stick together as families past adolescence, but we humans tend to. We maintain contact and loyalty to, and responsibility for those whom we share the closest matches of genetic code.

Genetics dictates that we shouldn’t reproduce with those whose genomes are closely matched with ours. And this is a good thing. Yet we are glued to those in our family units from birth until the various branches of the family tree die off an leave us.

Some families aren’t that close. Offspring move on and maintain little contact with siblings and parents. For some, this seems the only way to survive adulthood, but it’s more akin to budding off of yeast than the reproductive methods of higher organisms.

Like them or not, our families are our reference point. They’re where it all started, they helped to form us into who we are now. For better or worse.

I had to take my dad shopping this afternoon. I had to take my shopping to the worst possible place on earth: Farnworth. To Asda in Farnworth, to Lidl in Farnworth, to Tesco in Farnworth. My sense of duty to my family meant that I had to spend time in a place that I consider an inbred-ridden hell on earth with a dad who glares and shouts his way through life. He shouted at people crossing the road, the price of Fanta. He shouts to ask a question.

Still, I love him. He’s the one I used to follow around as a child, we were inseparable. He’s the one who used to come and wake me up at 6am when we were on holiday in Italy and we’d walk to the beach together in our matching flip flops and hats; we’d go to the bakery and store to bring back provisions for breakfast (focaccia over here is awful, by the way). He came to find me when I got lost on the beach. He’s the one who is quiet, observant and it’s him who knows when I’m “not right” without me having to say a word. He is kind, generous and gentle, with a huge heart, but a fierce temper.

My mum adores him, and he her. It’s a beautiful thing, their devotion to each other. They fall apart without one another. When they are together, they bicker and shout, but each night, my dad carries my mum’s handbag up the stairs to their bedroom.

I have been observing my folks for over forty years, wondering why they are together, how they stay together, what with my dad’s grumpiness, my mum’s pessimism. All the arguments and toil, my dad’s moods, us lot to contend with. I guess, they’re just soulmates. They love each other beyond doubt and always will.

They screw you up, your mum and dad?

Only if you let them.