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.
