2017

If you say it, that could mean just after a quarter past eight in the evening. It’s of no consequence to this piece. It is irrelevant, but I just wanted to tell the truth about what I was thinking as I typed those digits. Right now it’s 2342.

Four years ago today, I became the proud father of a baby girl. Our beautiful baby girl. My beautiful baby girl. She was so tiny, so fragile. I held her in my arms for the first time. Many tears were shed, albeit this time the nurse had no need to pass me a paper towel to wipe the snot from my upper lip. I was as happy as the day my son was born, some six and a half years previously. Slightly happier, perhaps, as I’d remembered to bring a handkerchief. Prior knowledge, you see. Prior knowledge.

They said it would be easier with the second child. They were right. Probably. But in those first few minutes of her life, the sadness gripped me once more. The tears of joy mingled with tears of sadness that I was already in my late fifties. I don’t feel I need to explain that one.

Today, I am a couple of hundred miles away from my children, so I am unable to give my daughter a birthday cuddle, nor tickle my son’s back. (He loves that, just like his daddy.) This bloody virus has done it again. Double-jabbed, quadruple-tested, but still forbidden from going home to share strawberry birthday cake. Small sacrifices to ensure everyone is safe. Something like that.

On the plus side, this tiny detail has cheered me up…

Yes, according to the automatic translation, we call our baby girl Batman. Of course we do. Batman. Holy Cow, Robin!

Bloody computers. I really should ‘rate this translation’.