Lila was 4 yesterday. It was a watershed moment. As 4th birthdays always are. She suddenly picked up the Times and read it, washed up her bowls after lunch and ironed three of my shirts. You know its not true because I haven’t worn 3 ironable shirts in the last year.

For her birthday we took her to choose her very own goldfish. They don’t charge you 5p for the plastic bag filled with water they put it in. Because if you refused to pay it would die. And we took it to her house and introduced ‘Goldie’ to her new home. For the next… for the rest of her life. Or his life. If Goldie is a boy-fish, he’s not very well hung. Anyway, the ‘rest of his life’ could be limited because he/she is living with Joey. Who is as much danger to animate as to inanimate objects. I have the scars to prove that.

Lila is having a party today, just 3 of her friends allowed, in the garden, with a n’entertainer. So yesterday we had a wee tea in our garden. Because ‘outdoor activities’ are allowed since Monday, I decided that ‘eating cake’ is definitely an activity. So we had one of Lila’s great-grandparents present and a great aunt. That way observing the rules totally. The rule of 6. From 3 or 4 households, exercising (their jaws) outside in a group, distanced a bit. Except Joey. Who simply refuses to get the whole ‘2 metre’ thing. On the grounds, as he says, that a ‘metre’ is a random construct invented by a Frenchman and therefore may not work properly on the under-2s. And you can’t argue with that. Well, you could try but he’d have already run off to destroy some daffodils.

But Lila is 4. That is quite amazing. Not because ‘time has flown’ or ‘it’s like she was just born’, but because she acts like she’s 18 and speaks like she’s 25. She is a force of nature.

Happy Good Friday

A xxxx