Moving swiftly on

As readers of Neil's blog will know, we've been pretty busy moving house and acclimatising to life away from the noise and bustle of London. I won't go into all the details here, but we feel we've definitely made the right move and it's very exciting to think we're now living in the house that, all being well, Oscar will spend the rest of his childhood in. And when he's sixteen and starts resenting us for making him live somewhere this quiet, we'll just pack him off to Brighton, which is twenty or so minutes down the road, to top up his urban grittiness. I'm living proof that parents are hard-wired to worry needlessly, as I'm now fretting that living somewhere this nice won't prepare him for the real world.

Oscar is, like every other toddler, completely self-obsessed and absorbed into his own little world of discovery. It's strange that a little person with so little ability to empathise with my feelings can make me feel so happy and make me laugh so much.

In a moment of sentimentality earlier today, I gave Oscar a big hug and whispered in his ear that mummy and daddy loved him so very much and would always love him, no matter what. He looked me straight in the eyes, slapped me on the cheeks in the style of Eric Morecambe, and said "more biscuits".