When I'm worried about everything I want to huddle into your shoulder. I can imagine you'd be quiet, or you'd say something about your Granddad and what I could do. My first reaction was to look it up and find out what the chances were, and then to think for a long time before producing the silliest message, it wasn't even properly grammatised.

I think of how happy she was a week or so ago. She said that her mother wanted to teach her how to peel a potato without a peeler, because she was worried that she wouldn't know how and she'd get embarrassed at a friend's house. There are all those little things that you should have forever to teach your daughter. The fact of a year is the biggest whack; it's put a definite timescale on it. Knowing your own mortality is the fact of it; you can't pretend you're immortal because it's a definite, a definite day.