I've been reading Duff Mckagan's (erstwhile Guns 'N' Roses guitarist) autobiography of late, and while the opening half of the book was choc-full of so many of the debauched rock n' roll incidents you read such prose for, the latter half has degenerated into the account of his "middle years". No longer is he snorting cocaine off a transvestites ankle atop the Eiffel Tower, in it's place is pages (and pages and pages) of endless details of his family life, and how beautiful his kids are. I think I'm finished with this book now. The irony of this is that with my attention no longer diverted, instead I can devote a little time to regaling you with boring stories of my family. Aren't you lucky? Here we go.

Handwriting - what a fascinating place to start. Tracking Luca's improvement over the space of a week, he began on the right hand side and ended the week on the left. What an improvement. His writing is already more legible than my own. I'm not kidding. Even doctor's can't understand my scribbles.

He's not dancing here, although it's a jaunty pose to be sure. This is at Union Terrace Gardens in Aberdeen's city centre, taken on one of our sojourn's while his Mum was at Boot Camp. We were playing football surrounded my some of the oddest student's you've ever witnessed. Ripped tights, half shaved heads, jugglers (yes really). Luca, of course, decided to play "passies" with almost every one of them. I wasn't embarrassed at all. Not even slightly, not even when I hid under a tree.

Two seconds after this picture he booted the ball into that group of students. This was when I hid under the tree.

Probably enough Union Terrace football photo's now? We went to a nearby picture shop to buy pictures for the house once we'd finished our game. That wasn't a very interesting story.

Here he is watching cartoon on my Ipad. This blog is getting better and better.

A cute photo at last. Fire up your Laserjet printers, I expect to see this image framed and up on your wall next time I visit.

Having tea with Granny Jo. I took 6 different pictures of this same scene, and on every one either Mum was smiling, or Luca - never both at the same time. I tossed a coin to decide which smile you'd see. It landed on tails.

Luca clearly horrified with the fact it landed on tails

My finger. Remember my manky nail, the one that went black after trapping it in a door? The nail eventually fell off. Apparently it takes at least 6 months for a nail to grow back, so I now have several months with which to gross Carole out. Not that I needed a missing nail to do that.

Car hunting now. As my embarrassment levels can no longer withstand driving an old lady's car (my Yaris) the time has come to trade in and buy a new car. Luca proceeded to poke this Landrover Freelander continually with a stick, purely to show his disdain for it's mundane colour. I let a 5 year old make far too many decisions for me.

THIS is the one you want Dad. I don't think we could get parked at the cinema though. Unfortunately.

Rather a sense of deja vu now.

At the funfair now, this is Luca in the hurricane machine with Julie, my cousin Kieran's partner. I always find it odd calling him my cousin due to the age gap. Even disregarding age, I act old. I don't know why. I'll blame my knees for arguments sake. Luca was a bit wary at first (he'd only ever met them once, they live in the Glasgow area) but was gutted when they left. 

I'm sure Luca's stone moved. Granda, however, has not stood upright since.