Had a great trip to see Sarah and Alan - our old neighbours - last weekend. There’ something very reliable and reassuring about old mates. Such a great time - just hanging out and nipping out to Crickley Hill for a walk. Thanks for a great stay guys… Piccies here

Katie and I went to the hospital this morning to get a picture taken.

Four years on, we finally got to catch up with old college friend Rachel and her daughter Bea this weekend. Great to see old mates and ponder how the hell the girls have grown up so quickly. Had a nice evening at the bonfire at the White Horse down the road, and some traditional sparkler fun.

It’s Lily’s first ever half term - and yesterday we had the day together - and what a corker it was.

We dropped Katie off at work in the morning then went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park to look at the Andy Goldsworthy retrospective - a really good choice. I’ve enjoyed Goldsworthy’s tactile simplicity in his art ever since I first came across his work in the late 80s, but it was lovely to see a five year old girl doing ‘wow’ and genuinely being taken aback by the semi-magical feel to some of the large scale installations. Very satisfying.

Lily was also interested in the other artworks dotted around the sculpture park, and made a point of rushing up to every male bronze figure and ‘touching their diddlers’, almost methodically.

We walked three miles during our trip so were a bit tired when we headed away.

The afternoon took us to the cinema to see Ratatouille - a fantastic film from the Pixarstudios.

Today our little girl reached the grand old age of five. It’s been a busy week for her with starting school and we just decided to have a small party for family and a couple of local friends.

Her new school friends sang her Happy Birthday which I’m sure will have made her feel very special, and we did all the great party things on a lovely warm September day - very memorable.

The best bit (for me) was putting her to bed last night and her asking me how tall she’d be in the morning. Great thinking, Lils. “Just the same size” I told her in a killjoy, tired dad kind of a way. I missed the opportunity this morning to tell her she’d grown… I’ll do it tomorrow.

Piccies here.