Ok. Now let me get this right. Monday is music lesson for..........then Beavers. Tuesday is swimming for two, which two?......then music for one straight after.............and Wednesday is swimming for one, then Cubs for two straight after..............and all homework has to be done by Thursday ...and you are home late from work 3 days this week, did you say........and then there is Church House Group to be organised for Thursday.....and I would like to escape to the Gym at some point.....and the garage needs clearing out ....and I have a meeting at school about..........is that on Tuesday or Wednesday?

“Daddy?”

“Yes, love?”

Story time is over, and the lights are out - but I’ve noticed my six-year-old son often uses his last waking moments to bowl me the kind of question that might stump a philosophy graduate.

Raymond Carver – the American short story writer and poet published a book in 1985 called “Fires”. It is a great collection of essays and poems. Included in the book is a wonderful and moving essay called, “My Father’s Life” and a poem entitled, “Photograph Of My Father In His Twenty Second Year.” He says, “The poem was a way of trying to connect with him” long after he had died.