The best bit

15st 7lb, 1.5 units. When writing yesterday’s despatch on a not altogether brilliant week, I clearly failed to recognize two things.

First, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. My mind turns naturally to a court case recently featured in The Journal, about a “holiday from hell” in some supposed luxury hotel in the Dominican Republic (a concept you might have thought that any savvy traveller would instantly mark down as oxymoronic) in which the only people who ate well were the mice, dogs and birds infesting the kitchen and restaurant, while those guests who were daft enough to brave the fly-infested buffet table ended up with doses of amoebic dysentery so severe that they ended up shitting in the swimming pool while waiting their turn for a ride in the ambulance.

Yes, it was certainly a whole lot better than that.

Secondly, I forgot to mention that one of the absolute high points of my whole life occurred yesterday morning when I staggered downstairs into the dining room, feeling like death imperfectly warmed up, and The Baby looked up from his breakfast, calmly nodded at me and observed “Dadda”.

Now, through the minor miracle of the baby monitor, we know that The Baby has been spending a lot of time alone in his cot rehearsing for this moment by repeating “Dadadadadadadadadadadada” to himself, only at considerably greater length. But when he has been invited to repeat the performance in front of his proud parents, he has always just looked at us blankly and said “Guck”. This is, I am assured by someone who pretends to expertise in these matters, a very unusual noise for a baby to make. On the other hand, they do tend to copy the sounds they hear most often, so it could well be a near miss for … well, I don’t really need to spell it out, do I? Presumably it will soon develop into “Guck ogg”. Though, in fairness to me, Mrs H did reckon after my running commentary on motoring standards during our journey up to Northumberland that, if his first word was to be the one he had heard most often, it would probably be “Twat”.

Be that as it may, The Baby is now officially talking as well as crawling. Woo hoo. I am now devoting much time to asking the question “Who do you prefer? Dadda or Mamma? Come on, you can only say one of them. It really can’t be that hard.”