My son is compiling his birthday invitation list. The birthday isn’t for six months, but hey, it pays to be prepared. What I think it’s really about is working out how to deal with new friendships developing at school at the same time as letting go of some of the old ones he had at nursery (which wasn’t in Lewes). I was surprised to see the name of one boy from nursery, because they didn’t get on. We ended up in the Eye Hospital A&E once after a stilt-swinging incident that didn’t seem accidental. I probed a bit about his name being on the birthday list. The intention of being armed with a big sword was mentioned, symbolic vengeance clearly planned. Infant Tarantino. Our chap is increasingly becoming his own man. You have some influence as a parent, but you don’t always know half the impact of what you do. I taught him his home address and phone number to tell a grown-up in case he ever gets lost. When I picked him up from lunch-club, the attractive and very nice woman who runs it, told me that he had invited her to our house ‘whenever she’d like to come’ and given her our full address and phone number. Impressive. He didn’t get his suave chat-up skills from me. During a game of kiss-chase at primary school (do they still do that I wonder?) I hit a boy over the head with a bag containing a flask. Head wounds do bleed an awful lot, I seem to recall. The playground’s a dangerous place. Especially for boys.