My son turns four in a few days, and it feels big. Four years is a lot: the tenure of American presidents, the gap between World Cups and, to a lesser degree, European championships. Four years is the first age at which I have definite, clear memories of my own life. My first day in reception class, the smell of cheese sandwiches and hugging my teacher’s shaking legs as my mum left the room. There’s a vertiginous sense that the record button in his brain has well and truly switched on, and I should make a better effort not to say the wrong things.
He starts school in September so maybe it’s best he doesn’t go there thinking I’m actually the world’s strongest man, that I used to work with three of the pups off Paw Patrol, or that giraffes look so weird because they’re originally from Mars, but travelled all the way to Earth in search of their favourite food, burgers and chips.
