Mummy, on time and engagement.

1. Alec pops out another word -- "Mummy!" Sometimes he gets it muddled and it comes out as "Mee-moo". He uses it lovingly on me, and on my possessions (my handkerchief, my apron hanging on the door and my slippers), as if they are a part of me that I have carelessly left lying around. He has been saying "Dad-dad" for about two months now, and I've been waiting for my own word. I've read that it takes two years for a child to understand that his mother is a separate person. Giving me a name must be a step in this direction, though he doesn't use it to call me yet, and a wicked part of me finds it very sad.

2. "It's a railway cottage," he tells me over the phone about his (newish) home. "There's the railway line at the bottom of the garden... in fact, listen!" and far off there's the rumble and squeal of a train going by.

3. The news makes Nick and me very happy. It makes us recall our own engagement, and we tell the story (polished smooth with wear) once again to each other.

Anecdotes, pub bub and time to look.

1. Now that I am a grown-up, I can call my parents' friends out on their anecdotes. "Did that actually happen to you? I've heard other healthcare professionals tell the story about the chocolate brazils."
"Weeeellll, it might not have." But Tony tells it better than anyone else, and he has some new tales of medical horror to share.

2. Poor Alec, he woke up from his morning nap and I was too busy getting ready to go out for lunch to give him any bub. Now it's an hour after his normal lunch time and he's still waiting to eat. "Bub-bub!" he says, his face flushed red and his eyebrows knotted into ugly angry lumps.
Granny tries to distract him with a toy car: "Brmm brmm. Not bub-bub time, we're in a pub and we're about to have lunch," she says.
"Give him to me," I say. "Of course you can have some bub."
My mother is, I think, a little mortified, but it cheers him up no end, and when the food comes he eats a sausage and a half and an awful lot of mash.

3. Everyone has gone and there is time to sit and look at the beautiful book they brought for him. It has sound-effect buttons, and Alec like moving my finger to the one he thinks is appropriate to a given point in the story.

Tickle, trim and sticky.

1. To tickle Alec and hear him giggle.

2. He's looking wispy, so I take him to the barbers.
"I'll do it," says the barber, "But if he cries and thrashes around, that's it, no more."
We have to wait 15 minutes, and there are no train magazines, just car and angling ones. Alec is very good, apart from once when he bolts for the door, but I quickly catch him and bring him back.
When it's his turn, Alec sits on my knee (I give him Baby to hold). "Make him look like a man, please," I tell the barber.
"Oh no, let's leave that a while yet," says the barber anxiously.
Alec continues to be good and patient though the snipping and turning -- I think he is pleased to be tidied up.

3. I'm a bit loath to take Alec home with his lollipop, as he is very sticky and quite dribbly, so we stroll up and down the High Street for a while. I keep pulling him out of smart boutiques which have opened their doors in the heat: "He's sticky and unlikely to buy anything," I explain. And I have to lift him off the step of a jewellers which has in the (now rather smeary) window a TV playing a looped video about diamonds.

Jubilation, refuge and free.

1. As we come out of the pool we pass two mahogany-coloured men on their way in. "What are you wearing?" one of them asks, pointing at the other's very brief Union Flag swimming trunks.
"Someone's got to, for the Jubilee."

2. We come to Tim's house on this hot, hot day. It's cool inside and the light is soft. And godfather Timothy is pleased to see us, too. He is even enthusiastic when Alec climbs down and then up the kitchen step for the seventeenth time.

2b. A particularly excellent (soft and fresh with a surprising filling) chocolate doughnut from Gregg's.

3. That moment when Alec disengages and rolls over, and I can go downstairs to join Nick.

Butcher's, produce and night duty.

1. To go into the butcher's on a Saturday and listen to all the men spending big bucks on big meat.

2. To pick a few salad leaves and herbs from the garden.

3. I am glad I volunteered to take out the bins, because there is a white sickle moon shining above the buildings at the end of the street.

Seedlings, snugglepod and nature documentary.

1. I notice two green shoots which look like sunflower seedlings in the middle of the strawberry pot. The person who is meant to scatter birdseed on the ground each morning would have some explaining to do, if he could talk. Still, we can pot them on and he will enjoy watching them reaching for the sky.

2. The attic is too hot so Nick is sleeping on the sofa bed in the front room (it's the old snuggle pod from the flat). He leaves it up when he goes to work, so Alec and I retire to it after breakfast and chores. We watch an episode of Ivor in the drawn curtain twilight, and have some bub. When he gets home from nursery, he obviously remembers because immediately points to the sofa bed (which still hasn't been put away) and says: "Bub" and then "Toot-toot". 

3. "Today I suddenly felt like watching a nature documentary," says Nick. So we find one on iPlayer (it has badgers in it) and watch it, lolling on the snuggle pod.

No card, better length and through the door.

1. In one shop there is a musician playing a song about not being able to get over someone, and an area surrounded by a white plastic fence. Inside are some cakes and some wine and some people sitting in rows of seats that are too close together. There is a sign saying: "Exclusive event for reward cardholders only." I don't have a reward card.

2. The hairdresser pauses and says: "It hangs much better at this length, doesn't it." I am in complete agreement,  having lived with the wrong length for six weeks.

3. When I go to pick Alec up I see through the glass door that he is in the rocking chair having a cuddle with the nursery manager.