Lunch, with children.

I met my young godson and his family for lunch. They were over in Edinburgh for a couple of days. We had arranged to meet at Harburn Hobbies - a toy model shop in Leith Walk. It is a wonderful shop: full of Airfix kits, model trains and Corgi cars. Whenever I go there, it takes me back to my childhood, and whilst my godson and his sister worked out how many toy horses and zoo animals they could buy with their birthday money, managed by their mother, their father and I wandered around in a daze of memory and nostalgia.

We then went to a pizza restaurant down the road. There is a lot of negotiation with the children about what they are going to eat. It wasn't much easier for the adults - choice can be difficult. The children get all their animals out and play on the table; the adults join in too.

It was good to see them - I have known M. and S. for many, many years. (Getting on for twenty five. Jeez.) The children are great - a very good advert for conception.

My godson started telling jokes - badly. Apparently he read them off greetings cards in a post office - but they were deeply sexist: were I to tell such jokes, I would be pilloried. I wonder where he gets it from?

We caught up on gossip. An ex-lover, L., is divorcing her husband; there is a lot of it about (I had a conversation with another friend last week where he list the number of our contemporaries separating; but that is a whole different post!). The last time I saw L., we kissed as we did the washing up after her sister's dinner party. (Her boyfriend was out of the room.) J. had cooked gnocchi, which I had never had before. [Actually, that's bollocks: the last time I saw L. was a few years later, when we bumped into each other on Broughton St; no kissing was involved.]

After lunch, we went to the tropical fish shop next door to the pizzeria. It was fascinating: all these tiny fish - little piranha, tiny barracuda (though the notice said they grow to a foot or so, these were just a couple of inches long). Vivid red and white prawns - also tiny. Angel fish. Others that looked like stand-ins for Nemo. I looked for a squid - colossal or otherwise - but though the only molluscs were some snails.

Lunch, with children.

I met my young godson and his family for lunch. They were over in Edinburgh for a couple of days. We had arranged to meet at Harburn Hobbies - a toy model shop in Leith Walk. It is a wonderful shop: full of Airfix kits, model trains and Corgi cars. Whenever I go there, it takes me back to my childhood, and whilst my godson and his sister worked out how many toy horses and zoo animals they could buy with their birthday money, managed by their mother, their father and I wandered around in a daze of memory and nostalgia.

We then went to a pizza restaurant down the road. There is a lot of negotiation with the children about what they are going to eat. It wasn't much easier for the adults - choice can be difficult. The children get all their animals out and play on the table; the adults join in too.

It was good to see them - I have known M. and S. for many, many years. (Getting on for twenty five. Jeez.) The children are great - a very good advert for conception.

My godson started telling jokes - badly. Apparently he read them off greetings cards in a post office - but they were deeply sexist: were I to tell such jokes, I would be pilloried. I wonder where he gets it from?

We caught up on gossip. An ex-lover, L., is divorcing her husband; there is a lot of it about (I had a conversation with another friend last week where he list the number of our contemporaries separating; but that is a whole different post!). The last time I saw L., we kissed as we did the washing up after her sister's dinner party. (Her boyfriend was out of the room.) J. had cooked gnocchi, which I had never had before. [Actually, that's bollocks: the last time I saw L. was a few years later, when we bumped into each other on Broughton St; no kissing was involved.]

After lunch, we went to the tropical fish shop next door to the pizzeria. It was fascinating: all these tiny fish - little piranha, tiny barracuda (though the notice said they grow to a foot or so, these were just a couple of inches long). Vivid red and white prawns - also tiny. Angel fish. Others that looked like stand-ins for Nemo. I looked for a squid - colossal or otherwise - but though the only molluscs were some snails.