Paddy started school today. Day one of about 2200. God help us. Or him.

Anyway despite there being some concern about his enthusiasm for the endeavour, he was very excited and more than happy to go. We're all very pleased.

I just hope he doesn't get bored. There should be enough to keep him going. I certainly expect him to pick up the reading quick enough. We'll see. I can only hope he can manage longer sentences than his dad.

We went to a peculiar ceremony yesterday. A Coming Of Age ceremony. It was held in a park for this nine year old guy we know and, as far as I can make out, he'd asked for some sort of naming ceremony thing and his humanist mother couldn't (rightly) have her son partake in a religious event, so she created this ceremony that, to be honest, I'd written off in my head as Hippy Nonsense before we'd got there.

It was, however, really nice. He chose an additional name (Cosmo); all his family said nice things about him (I found his grandmother's remarks particularly moving); the weather was nice and the spiritual nonsense was not so nonsensical. And of course, because every naming ceremony has to involve water somehow...

Cosmo is a totally cool kid and I hope he enjoyed his ceremony and understood how unique it was.