Half way up the stairs

sits the peep toe crisp eating gangster street urchin.

He's my son.

I'm so ashamed that he has been wandering around in socks with holes in the toes. He thinks it's funny.

But then, this is the boy that went to school two weeks ago with his shirt on inside out all day and didn't realise until he got home...
"how would I have noticed?" he asked at the time. "I put my jumper on this morning, I wasn't even awake".
"Did no-one say anything to you when you took your jumper off?" I asked.
With an alarmingly good impression of an early teenage monosyllabic response he shrugged his shoulders, looked at me disdainfully and said "Nope".
How silly of me to think that it was a problem!

He thinks he is cool, wandering around with his toes poking out of his socks, whilst he wears his favourite fedora.

I'm fearful that somewhere back along the family line I am going to find a link to "The Mob".

Half way up the stairs is a new comfy place to sit. Or rather, it's the place where he pokes his head through the bannister and asks for food or drink before retreating back to the soundproof cavern that is his room.

It smells of boy.

Boy smells of holey sweaty socks. Maybe he is making gorgonzola in there?

Spent over an hour on the phone tonight - mum, Nana, Great Aunty Rose and my other Aunty Rose, who is GRRRREAT but not in the sense of age. Lots of chit chat about this whole family tree business. Arrangements made. Laptop, scanner and me are travelling over to Crosby on Thursday night and I am going to scan birth certificates, old photos and then adopt a journalistic approach to gathering as much information as I can from Aunty Rose about the Lloyd side of the family.

Great Aunt Rose, in whispered tones, warned me that one of my relatives a couple of generations back was "born out of wedlock" and she paused, with great effect, as though waiting for me to sound shocked. She sounded so very relieved when I let her know that I was already aware of this, and that equally, it appeared through one of my lines of enquiry on the paternal side that there might be a similar situation. I tell you, it would appear that there is intrigue to be uncovered along the way!!! How exciting.

I'm also going to adopt a traditional approach as well with my Aunty Edith - strictly speaking she's not my Aunty - she was my Grandad's niece, his sister's daughter. Great Aunty Aggie, her mum, is still alive, 94 years old, but she is very frail these days. I am hoping that Edith will hold clues and stories that will open some doors to the Lee side too.

In having all of these conversations, I found out that I have a shared project with another family member, and so we have agreed to share information between us.

It's becoming an obsession. I now need to be far more organised and methodical otherwise it is going to get messy and run away from me.