You want fries with that?

This 'picking Joseph up from school' malarkey is fantastic! I was waiting with the other parents outside his room (looking in through the window at him; very frowned upon behaviour) at ten past three and I was worked up. Actually getting butterflies because I was SO looking forward to doing something together.

Anyway, out he comes and we go to the shops to buy him a new drinks bottle (someone obviously took a shine to his last one!!), into the library for a few books and then off to eat.

"Where do you want to go to eat", I ask, knowing full well that a very nice Italian restaraunt was round the corner. "Would you like to go and share a pizza?"

"Yes", was the excited answer.

It was closed. And so was the next restaurant. And the next one. Well, it was only 3.30 in the aftenoon I s'pose.

We kept walking until we happened upon a greasy spoon. "How about sausage, chips and beans with bread and butter?" There's a note of pleading in my voice now as I'm pretty hungry myself. This was also met with a "yes" so in we went and ordered exactly that, with a tea for me and milk for Poops.

The verdict? Delicious we both agreed.

Food aside, in the brief silences while we ate, I took a second to appreciate the situation I found myself in. What a lucky guy. Able to pick my son up from school, walk around until we find somewhere we want to eat and then share one of those special moments that you can't plan; they just kind of happen.

We talked about nothing much in particular but it felt so-o-o-o good. Just the two of us, a father and his son in a greasy spoon in South West London; just two ordinary people but feeling for all the world like the only two people.

When we finished, we went and lit a couple of candles in our local parish church, ran for but missed our bus and walked home in the spitting rain. Amazingly, even I didn't mind getting rained on which is a miracle.

Must've had something to do with the candles we lit!!