Happy Birthday Tommy

My little nephew Tommy is three years old today… or as his father just described it to me on the phone a moment ago, “THREE years old - f#ckin’ hell Neil - where did the time go? And there’s such a thing as sleep you say? Sorry mate, no idea what you’re talking about.”

I think he’d been drinking.

I don’t have any recent photos of him but here are a couple of my favourites from past years. The first was taken when he was only eight months old I think but you can already see a cheeky, mischievous look in his eyes. I couldn’t say for certain but I’m pretty sure he’s gripping either a catapult or a little girl’s pigtails just out of shot.

The second was taken during a family holiday to the lovely Scottish island of Arran in August of last year. Nearly two years old at the time you can see he’d already developed and enhanced the family fondness for exotic European lagers. Sadly, his mother Rona (my sister and the woman in black who’s feeding him the beer with that crazed maybe-this’ll-get-you-to-sleep look in her eyes) was taken away by alarmed social workers shortly after we returned to the mainland. Tommy misses her of course but he’s been assured she’ll return safe after her two year custodial “holiday” in the country.