My youngest son was 6 on Friday. As is now traditional I took him and his elder brother out to eat; this time it was lunch rather than dinner but we still went to the same pizza restaurant. They both got small presents with the promise that his big present was waiting at my house. It was a nice lunch, we were all relaxed and we had a laugh.

When I left the family home he was 2. He’s not been shy about asking questions about why I no longer live with his mother, although the answers have had to be diplomatic rather than brutally honest. He is now a confident, cheeky 6 year old and I love him to bits. I sometimes forget that he’s still a little boy and maybe expect a bit too much of him. For all those times that I snap at him and tell him off when he wasn’t being that naughty I’m sorry. I hope he realises that when he’s saying “It’s not fair…” that most of the time it is fair and it’s the odd occasion that I’ve been a bit harsh on him. He is a smashing little boy, always ready to get stuck in in the kitchen and he puts his older brother to shame in the tidying up stakes.

He might be growing up fast but I have to remember that for all of that he is still just a little boy. One I’m very proud of and love very much.

I can’t believe it’s the third week in February and this is the first post of the year. I’ve neglected this blog so far as I’ve been thinking about doing something different and I’ve also been spending time on Twitter (if you don’t know what Twitter is then you’ve not read a paper or watched TV this year).

In terms of things I’d normally blog about a lot has happened; we’ve got rid of almost all the staff at work, there are now only two of us fulltime; the boys are growing up quickly and this is both exciting and challenging; I need an operation on my knee to trim a torn cartilage; we’re trying to get a weekend away to just be a couple rather than a pair of nervous wrecks and on top of all that my girlfriend has started a new job. Phew! Quite a year already, and it’s still only February.

Travelling into London by train is something I do occasionally and the microcosm that is the commuter train is always interesting. There are never enough seats and people protect their personal space with a variety of techniques; there’s the bag on the seat next to them, the sitting slightly sideways to give the appearance of taking up 2 seats, and a new one I saw this morning, sitting with laptop on knee with a notebook on the adjacent seat; the subliminal message being that to ask to sit would be disturbing their work as well as invading their space. As they say there’s nowt as weird as folk.

A few things have made me feel really proud of people recently. The first is my youngest son who had surgery to remove a lump from his neck. He was not phased by this at all; didn’t create a fuss when they anaesthetised him, didn’t make a fuss afterwards (to the point where he actually asked to go back to school after a few days as he was missing his friends) and has taken the whole thing in his stride. The second is my girlfriend who recently lost her job; despite being treated very poorly by her employer and having grounds to complain about her treatment she has remained dignified and professional throughout.

Both of them are shining examples of how to behave when life throws a curve ball at you and I am so proud of them.

Dropping the boys back and driving away still breaks my heart. When they cling to me and tell me how much they miss me I never want to let them go. Then I feel guilty and question again whether I did the right thing. The loss associated with not seeing them and not getting to tuck them in each night is horrible and as the tears come part of me remembers just how bad it was; just how abusive it was; the year of therapy to stop thinking I deserved it. Rather than feeling guilty I should be feeling angry that I’m here but somehow never manage it.

I have new neighbours; they’re originally from Hungary and last week they invited me round for a drink as an introduction. On the allotted night I was tired, had a load of things to do before having the boys for the weekend and was very tempted to make my excuses and rearrange it. My conscience got the better of me though and so I popped round with the only bottle of cold wine in my fridge. I was greeted warmly and given a choice of Hungarian wines that turned out to be very drinkable; given that my neighbour is the sommelier at a top hotel I shouldn’t have been so surprised. The wine flowed, the conversation was interesting, ranging from wine to Hungarian history to how to get our kids to practise their spelling. Time to head home came all too soon, I was enjoying their company and the wine. I’d gone from thinking that I’d just pop round for a hour or so before getting on with some chores to thinking they were really nice, interesting people and I’d really enjoyed myself. Sometimes making a small effort pays dividends; there’s a lesson there I think.

What is it about our European and American cousins that they find making a cup of tea so difficult. Even the ultra-lazy method of dropping a tea bag into a mug and adding boiling water eludes them. Instead they deliver a pot of hot water and a selection of individually wrapped tea bags. So instead of a nice refreshing brew you end up with a fairly insipid infusion that somehow masquerades as tea. It’s just not right.

Business takes me to Rome this week for 3 days. I’ve been a couple of times before but never seen any of the sights of this historic city. I hoped this time might be different. Sadly it looks like it’ll be the same story. Rather than just seeing the airport and the client office as per previous trips I can now add the hotel to the list of visited places. The hotel is close to the airport i.e. a good 40 minute taxi ride to the centre of town so sightseeing is difficult. To be honest Rome isn’t the sort of city I really want to wander around on my own, I’d much rather be with someone special and have the time to enjoy it. The time to visit for pleasure rather than business must be fast approaching.

I picked my kids up for the weekend this evening and was met with a request that in all honesty I should have seen coming. They want me to themselves this weekend; no visits to girlfriend’s house, no going out with girlfriend, or anyone else for that matter, just me and them. I think this is a request with different aspects; partly I think they were a little bored last time they came to stay as girlfriend’s sister and boyfriend were about to emigrate to New Zealand and so we needed some adult time to say our goodbyes (put that down to unfortunate timing more than anything else) but there is also a growing realisation that daddy does have a girlfriend and they’re thinking through the consequences of that, not least that this means that daddy and mummy will not get back together. Their next question is does daddy love his girlfriend more than us.

This weekend is about them starting to understand that daddy will always love them but that daddy’s girlfriend is important too. It’s about reassuring them and having some fun but also gently explaining that they don’t have a blanket exclusivity. The emotions of 2 small boys need to be handled carefully but there are other people’s emotions to take into consideration too. It’s a complicated dynamic and there is a careful line to tread; another example of how being a weekend dad means trying to find a balance and hoping you somehow get it right.

Yesterday I got the urge to listen to an old Brian Wilson album, he of Beach Boys and staying in bed for a decade fame. Surprisingly it wasn’t on my iPod although I know that I own the album. One of those that got lost in the split with my ex was the likely explanation. Since it was first released it has been re-mastered and now features demo tracks and Brian’s interludes about the album. It was available on iTunes for £7.99 and hmv.com for £6.99. Every little helps as someone keeps saying so I went with the cheaper option. Here’s what would have happened with iTunes. Click Buy, enter iTunes store password, watch download. Here’s what happened with hmv.com….

Find that hmv.com doesn’t support Firefox, dust off IE
Buy album
Get prompted that I need to download hmv jukebox and download manager
Start software download, box appears with click here when install completed
Software installation wants to close Internet Explorer, including the “click here when complete” window
Try to log back on to hmv.com – IE wants to open the site in a new window – this fails
Remove hmv.* from trusted sites list so IE can actually open it
Download manager pops up message saying that BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service) is not available.
Open services manager, see BITS is running
Google problem and find that need to start IE in Administrator mode so that it can access BITS
Download starts then stops
Restart download, duplicates of tracks already downloaded appear in download directory
Finally get album downloaded

Was it worth the £1 saving. No, absolutely not. This was far too painful. If the record companies are serious about thwarting piracy then they need to make sure that it’s a hell of a lot easier than this to download music legally.