I must be getting old. I am certainly feeling it.

Fairly early on Friday night I felt zonked, worn out, and ill, so I had a lie down for an hour. This was at 8pm. I woke for the toilet around 12.30am, then again around 2.30, when I went down, read for an hour, then went back to bed!

How much sleep does a grown man need? Saturday was a lazy day, with nothing much happening other than popping out to an auto place for some paint. The police van I passed didn’t seem to appreciate my overtaking them and decided to follow me all the way to Halfords on a local retail park. I like to think of it as my own, personal, police escort.

Sunday Mum came around with my nephew. Actually he is my nephew’s son, so I guess that makes him my great nephew and my mum his great grandma. He is about 6 years old and full of beans. A typical little boy. I was outside, painting the VHT paint on my exhaust when he came out and announced he was cold.

I told him to jump up and down and run on the spot. So he did. Until his little face was red and he was all out of breath. And no longer feeling cold. Aren’t kids easy to please? Bless him.

He wanted to sit on the bike, so I let him climb on and he proceeded to ride it around on the spot, making lots of vrroooommmming noises. He tells me he is going to have a baby sister. Not a brother, he is quite convinced that he doesn’t need nor want another brother. That’ll be three kids then, each with a different Dad.

He has had a tough time really. His mum and Dad split up, she got back with an ex who was violent, social services were already involved, the kids where taken away and went to live with her parents, then her sister. Finally, she got rid of the violent boyfriend, now she has the kids back, a new boyfriend and it seems she is pregnant.

I am hoping this one turns out to be a) much nicer and b) more of a constant for them.

Kids are resilient. And I don’t agree with molly coddling them. But they need a safe and secure environment too, with decent role models.