You’re now 13, Toby, which means you are officially a teenager. Unsurprisingly, it’s been a year of great change and growth for you. So here’s a look back at your last 12 months. (Okay, I’m actually a month late with this post. But that’s life. I hope it’s worth the wait.) Not a boy, not yet a man You’re very much a work in progress at the moment. To paraphrase Britney Spears, you’re not a boy, not yet a man. The most obvious change over the past year is physical. You’ve shot up: you’re now 5’6″, the same height as your mum, and catching up with me fast. And, having always previously had a bar ..read more

Happy birthday, Isaac. I still can’t quite believe you’re now a fully-fledged 15-year-old. Which means it’s time for me to write my annual letter to you. Okay, your birthday was actually a couple of weeks ago, but I’ve found this year’s letter particularly difficult to write. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe it’s because you are now unmistakably a young man rather than a boy. (It’s hard to deny it when one of your birthday presents this year was a shaver!) And maybe it’s a tacit recognition that I’m struggling more than ever to define my role as a father to 15-year-old Isaac versus being four-y ..read more

All good things must come to an end. BlogOn closed the doors on its last ever bloggers’ conference last week. And while it was a bittersweet experience, we went out with a bang. I left with friends and memories that will endure long after the final slide was presented. Ten years and nearly 20 events is a pretty good run, really. I’ve attended each of the last 13 – possibly 14 – and BlogOn has always been my favourite blogging conference. Others were bigger and glitzier, but BlogOn was always more down-to-earth and more fun. And it offered speakers from the blogging community who were more inte ..read more

When empty-nesters tell you, “They’ll be gone before you know it”, there’s a natural tendency to nod politely while at the same time thinking, “We’ll be fine; plenty of time”. After all, time is a constant. Unstoppable, yes, but moving at a steady pace. We have so many days still ahead of us to appreciate our children. But then days become months; months become years. And before you know it, you’re looking back with wistful regret wondering where all the time went. Primary to secondary I was reminded of this last week when I took Kara to an open evening at her prospective secondary school for ..read more

August 9th, 1997. 25 years ago today. It feels like aeons ago; it feels like only yesterday. It was the day Heather and I got married. So today is our silver wedding anniversary. Do you remember August 1997? Puff Daddy and Faith Evans’ I’ll Be Missing You and Will Smith’s Men in Black topped the UK charts during the month. Tony Blair was still in his first few months as Prime Minister. At the start of the month, Jeanne Calment, the oldest person ever, died at the age of 122. At the end of the month, Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car accident in Paris. 1997 On August 9th, 6,500 miles away ..read more

After 11 trips to Butlin’s over a period of 12 years, I think we’ve reached the final chapter. We’re ready to close the book, put in on the shelf and start creating a new set of adventures. It’s not quite end-of-an-era stuff. No tearful, slow-mo farewells. No soaring string accompaniment against the backdrop of a setting sun. But it’s mighty close. From 2010 to 2022 The first time we went to Butlin’s, we only had the two boys with us. Isaac was two; Toby barely three months. We spent five days at Butlin’s Minehead managing naps and nappies, doing the gentlest children’s rides and introducing I ..read more

I was rummaging around in our loft the other day when I discovered a box of old audio cassette mixtapes. I’d forgotten I’d made many of these, but it made for a nostalgic trip down memory lane. Music is a big part of my life – and a big part of our children’s lives too. So many of my strongest memories come with their own musical soundtrack. In many cases, events are inextricably linked with particular songs. And conversely, certain songs (or collections of songs) are capable of instantly transporting me back in time. Several of the tapes date back to when Heather and I first got together. Jus ..read more

We were fortunate enough to have tickets last weekend for the hugely anticipated ABBA Voyage concert. Does it live up to the hype as everyone’s favourite Eurovision band returns after a 40-year hiatus? Here are my thoughts. High expectations The expectations for ABBA Voyage have been every bit as high as for a new James Bond film or the recent Top Gun: Maverick. Maybe even higher. People everywhere A sense of expectation hangin’ in the air Voulez-Vous After all, the band’s list of accolades is the stuff of legend. With estimated sales of 150 million records, they are the best-selling band of ..read more

It was just another Wednesday, when I received a notification that transformed a mundane ‘hump day’ into something altogether more uplifting. I’ve never been a big one for blogging/influencer awards and rankings. The former are often akin to a popularity contest: (s)he who has the most fans wins. And the latter is often biased, based on one person’s opinion, how many followers someone has and, in a few cases, whether people have paid to be included. I do rather like the UK awards and rankings produced by the PR and comms software company Vuelio, though. An expert panel determines their award w ..read more

We’ve been free from mandatory pandemic restrictions for a while now. Covid increasingly feels like a distant bad dream for many (though not all) of us. It’s much easier for us to feel that normal life has resumed. I’ve been negotiating that journey at my own pace over the past weeks. I kept wearing a face mask longer than many as a courtesy to others, but finally stopped over Easter. My social life isn’t yet back to what it was – which wasn’t all that much to begin with – but our family calendar is noticeably filling up once more. However, this week – more by coincidence than design – properl ..read more