Ten. Already.

It seems like I blinked and suddenly he's ten and I'm making appointments to visit secondary schools with him. I don't feel a decade older but I must be, because at my side, sometimes furious, sometimes away with the fairies but always loyal, creative, sensitive and intensely deep, is this young chap, who's no longer a baby, no longer a toddler, no longer a school starter.

He's approaching the end of his primary schooling and growing into a young man who chats with his mates in the back of my car, wears a beanie to school, styles his hair 'just right' and protects his right to a messy bedroom.

He has a burgeoning spotify playlist (thankfully he has a mainly decent taste in music) and a bookshelf weighed down with the classics. He's growing out of every pair of trousers faster than I can renew them yet he still lets me read him a bedtime story and kiss him goodnight.

Ah yes, these are indeed the golden days.