Pentland sky

Back in Edinburgh. It’s all been a bit of a whirry blurry intense time. From my first call to duty taking P to maternity at 3am on Monday morning for the initial triage, home again with her and she and A leaving for hosp at 10am, P, my lovely daughter looking so pale and uncomfortable for the final run in. Me and A’s mum didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Classic man like I went and washed the car. Between getting pound coins and paying for diesel K had been born at 13:15. I was shuttling T to and from nursery, learning those particular ropes. Moving out to a hotel on the edge of town and next day wandering around York until they came home on Tuesday.

I left today after replacing a toilet seat that had lost its moorings. I felt not dissimilar but in a different way. Relief and happiness mainly : that it all went so well, that T was so lovely with his new brother, that I worked out how to clip his car seat and get in line with his strictures on how we open the car door together, Grandpa. And that Kit has arrived, and has such loving parents. And that he is such a gorgeous bonny laddie.

How my Mum would have liked to hear about all this. I hope you’re catching something of this, of the excitement going off down here, perched on your cloud, your feet tap tapping.

‘Two is good’, she’ll be saying, her trembling hands reached out to greet the child, ‘But me’, she’ll be saying, ‘Ne ho fatto cinque. Five. Bambini. Beat that if you can.’