I have a new routine. Isn't that wonderful? It's a morning thing. Paddy gets me out of bed at 7am or thereabouts (he's remarkably regular), I either get him dressed or dressing gowned up, and he then refuses breakfast and goes to watch TV. I eat cereal while waiting for the coffee to brew and then drink same sitting at the computer. After coffee and surfing, is shower and dressing and thence to work, leaving around 8:30. Half an hour of current affairs on the radio, followed by half an hour of whatever audio book I'm listening to (currently A Short History Of Nearly Everything) and I'm in work. It's a very relaxing way to start the day. And doubtless fascinating to you all.

The only real point of interest about all this is my recognising that I need to schedule time for stuff. For ages I've been saying I don't have time for that when I really mean I haven't made time for that. So shunting my daily surfing to breakfast time, and setting a particular time for the audio books, means I have them under my belt very early on. I'm not kidding myself that I'll be able to make time for everything I want to do -- there are too many things demanding my attention for that -- but it's a first step. And I've made it.

One other thing I find myself routinely doing these days is killing wasps. Which is odd, to say the least. On four occasions I've found wasps in our bedroom and bathroom. It's December, guys. Fuck off and die already. I know that there was a hell of a lot of wasps around during the summer, but really, now is not the time.

I'm finding myself getting oddly excited about the prospect of Roisin crawling. She gets up on all fours from time to time and when she does I go into full anticipation mode expecting her to crawl off somewhere. I get a physical reaction, I'm so excited by the idea and I really don't know why. I mean, it is exciting, but I was never so enthused by the idea with the other two.

She's a fucking charmer though. This morning she was lying beside me in bed, giving out, and when I rolled over to say good morning, she beamed, pulled herself over to me and kissed me on the lips. It was very deliberate. What a way to start the day.

It almost threw me off my routine...