A brief history of time

It's fourteen years since my eldest son was born.

Yes, he's changed, he's grown, he's now very much a teenager. But something about Mateo is immutable. I have often said he's like a stick of rock, through the middle of which runs the word 'Mateo' - because that is who he is and who he will always be.

As a child, he was fascinated by natural history, by animals both living and extinct. He loved stars and space and the unknown. He still does.

Despite being a whizzy about sort of child, he had the ability to watch and concentrate on the things he liked for long stretches at a time. And whilst he no longer chooses to whizz much these days, he can lose himself in a book, an idea or a project he's working on for hours, even days on end.



We celebrated quietly today as the plan was to go to the Science Park in Granada - except it's closed on Mondays. We're going tomorrow. Mateo will move through the exhibitions identifying things he didn't already know - I am hoping there will be some things still left for him to be fascinated by!

So today, we opened a few presents and ate cake.

Yes, Mateo wanted some weights

What you can't quite see is a jar of black gold - Marmite!

And a very  big cake...

Just behind Mateo's head is a little collage of photos of when he was a baby. I have been hunting high and low for a photo I know we have of him when he was less than a year old. He had a habit of taking every book off one of our bookcases and always, always picked out the same one, once got all the books on the floor infront of him.Agreed, he only chewed it a bit - he didn't read particularly early - but the book?

Every time!