A dog collides with another at the park, yelps loudly, and is back to chasing a ball thirty seconds later. A cat leaps off a windowsill, lands awkwardly, shakes it off, and carries on as though nothing happened. Most of what looks alarming during play is exactly that: alarming to watch, but not actually serious. …
Month: September 2026
There is something lovely about watching kids work out how to play together. One is desperate to score, another is figuring out where to stand, and someone else is busy talking to a teammate. It can be chaotic, but that’s part of the appeal. Much of what they’re learning has very little to do with …
Sunday teatime, and you’re standing in a hallway that used to be yours, holding a book bag and a slightly damp swimming kit. Handover. If you’re newly separated, that word alone can sting. Plenty of dads drive away from that doorstep wondering whether they’ve just been demoted to a visitor in their own children’s lives. …
Before becoming a dad, I thought time was dependable. A minute lasted a minute, a year took roughly a year, and Tuesday afternoons were longer than Friday evenings. There were exceptions, such as waiting for a takeaway, but the general system worked. Then children arrived and time abandoned all known rules. Fatherhood somehow makes life …
One of the strange things about being a dad is that you never really know which moments are going to stick. You can spend weeks planning a birthday, book an expensive day out, take hundreds of photos on holiday and assume those are the memories your children will carry into adulthood. Some of them probably …