The first year

T is a year old tomorrow. I have just finished putting together his trike (present from both of us), and wrapping his mini Bristol kit (the first stage of indoctrination from me).

At exactly this time last year, I was sat, a month earlier than anticipated, in Lewisham Hospital, reading out chunks of Peter Ackroyd's biography of Chaucer to my wife as we waited. Eight hours later I became a dad.

Has this year changed me? Certainly, but I'm too close to it to know how. It's been a great year, though.

I hope he likes his trike.

Ill child

T is ill. He was a bit funny on Sunday, had a rash on Monday, and the doctor advised him to stay home. Mrs C stayed at home on Monday, and I had him on Tuesday. Tonight it's obvious he's got some sort of stomach bug and I'l be home again with him on Thursday.

This is the first time he's been properly ill, and the first time that I've had that parental thing of not knowing what to do. Doc said it's not serious and I'm sure she's right, but T is unhappy and obviously doesn't know what to do with himself.

Meanwhile, I'm uncomfortable with the fact that we've got to ride it out and, beyond cuddles, there's not much I can do.

Interesting reactions from colleagues, though. Very clear that the unspoken assumption from some is that it is my wife who should stay home and not me.

Just who are you to say that?

Of all the poor benighted cultural institutions in this country, the one that attracts more ill informed comment than any other is the humble public library. Last weekend saw another classic of the kind, as the Observer's Hephzibah Anderson added her complaint.

I don't rely on, but I do use Lewisham's libraries. They're nothing special, and do provide me with access to the information and books that I need when I need them. Like the time my broadband fell over and I needed to get online, or when I needed a travel book, or that text for my evening class.

But it's since my little boy has come on the scene that they have come into their own. T so loves his trips to Bounce and Rhyme at Lewisham that he goes for a second helping at Crofton Park. In doing so he's learning to communicate and to engage, and he's learning to be at home in the library, which I hope provides a foundation for him to help him learn and to have fun throughout his life.

I'm a fan of libraries, no question, and (as regular readers of this blog now) as a committed localist I have an understanding of the role they play in local communities.

Which is why I get so upset when I read articles like Anderson's. They want to kick T out of the library and replace him with a mini-Bodleian. They just don't get where libraries are now.

Libraries are about providing access to information and to literature in settings that are appropriate to the communities that they serve, and this goes completely against the 1950s views of Anderson et al.

The public library exists so that those who would otherwise be unable to access the information and literature they need can do so in a setting that is social and communal. That vision needs to be constantly refreshed as technologies, society and places change.

Libraries never were about being palaces of books, but the argument that they were and that they should be again is sadly dominant in our broadsheets and amongst our cultural commentators. They drown out the voices of those who actually understand libraries and know their role in national and local life.

Anderson as good as admits this:

Like plenty of people who count themselves supporters of public libraries, it had been a while since I last stepped inside one.

So, who is Hephzibah Anderson? If she's not been in a library for years, what else qualifies her to pontificate on what they should be about? According to Jewish Quarterly, she is:

deputy fiction critic for The Observer, Fiction Editor of the Daily Mail, and a visual arts writer for the Evening Standard. She sits on the editorial board of the Jewish Quarterly, and writes regularly for the Jewish Chronicle, the New Statesman and Zembla Magazine. She also reviews for BBC Radio London and BBC Radio 2.

So, we can safely assume that she knows nothing about what libraries do and what they are about. Sadly, this doesn't stop her or her colleagues in the arts pages, or novelists (now, there's a producer interest!) lecturing the rest of the world.

Such people are the only obvious participants in what is a very one sided debate. Let's hope local councils listen to their communities, not the siren voices of the Sunday papers.

Lost: one ladybird and one snail

T has an arch from which hang toys which we stretch across his buggy to entertain him when we're pushing him about.

Earlier this week he returned from a stroll round Hilly Fields without the ladybird mirror and the snail that plays 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star'.

If anyone finds aforesaid snail and ladybird, then do let me know here at Non-Provincial Lives.

Urban rain

This evening has been depressing. The rain has continued to lash down and I have not had a chance to plant the beans.

London rain - at any time of the year - beats you down.

How different to the exhiliaring thunderstorm that we got caught in on Brean Down last weekend. As it whipped in suddenly from the Bristol Channel it actually tasted of salt. After it had passed, we watched another move up the Somerset Levels, with some very impressive lightening as it moved towards Glastonbury.

T loved it. He was in the backpack and ended up under my coat and was so excited he shrieked. When he really gets caught he'll learn.

Goodbye to the Memorial Ground

So, it's definitely happening. The Memorial Ground is to be demolished. Two years from now a new all-seater Mem will arise, far removed from the Ground that I have known and grown up with.

There's regret that T will never stand on the terraces and watch Bristol with me as I did (and still do) with my Dad, but I know things have to move on.

Be that as it may, now seems an apposite time to recall the words on the Memorial Gates which I have passed hundreds of times on the way to and from my place on the terrace, and which, for me, has always made this more than a rugby ground.

IN PROUD AND GRATEFUL MEMORY OF THE SERVICES RENDERED TO THEIR COUNTRY IN THE GREAT WAR BY RUGBY FOOTBALL PLAYERS OF BRISTOL THIS GROUND WAS ESTABLISHED. AND IN THE WORLD WAR OF 1939-45 THE RUGBY FOOTBALL PLAYERS OF THIS CITY GAVE THEIR SERVICES AND THEIR LIVES. TO THEM ALSO IS THIS GROUND A MEMORIAL.

Bristol Between the Wars
Originally uploaded by brizzle born and bred

Fatherhood

T is five months old and is growing and changing all the time. It was only in January that he first started to smile, but now he has this wonderful little giggle that he does when I play with him. I love the way that, when presented with something new to see, he goes quiet and his little head sweeps slowly from one side to another, and then back again, as he takes in whatever is the object of his fascination. Every day something is new, and it is fantastic.

I'm not sure that I have changed that much. That's not to say that I haven't, just that I'm still too close to whatever change has occurred to really understand it. It is odd, though, to think that only a few short months ago it was just the two of us and now there are three. Strange to report, but I have difficulty remembering just what life was like without him.

It all feels very much of the moment, and although we are already booking nursery places, future days seem a very long way off. On the subjects that the Sunday papers say I should worry about, I have not given any thought to. Which school and university is not a concern as yet. I am also not boring people with trivial statements about how I will disown him if he doesn't support Bristol. I'm not, if the truth be told, thinking about markers that have to be reached in the short, medium or long term.

The reason is, I'm sure, that my overwhelming ambition for my son is just that he is happy. How he achieves that is something I will have a huge part in, but, ultimately, it is down to him. I need to help him find the way, not show him a path and, anyway, I'm just enjoying T being T too much at the moment to think of anything else.

Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery and Spring

A small baby is a wonderful thing, but it does mean that you can't get out and about as much as you did, so long walks or cycle rides in the countryside are on hold at present.

Time spent in Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery, though, is bringing me close to nature and ensuring that I am not totally overwhelmed by concrete, litter and the outpourings of the internal combustion engine.

Dodging showers, T and I wandered through today at the end of a walk that took in Hilly Fields and most of Brockley. In the short time that we were there I saw a green woodpecker, a jay (I think) and watched some rather confident robins watching me. The sound of birds singing dominated all. There were bluebells and primoses. One grave was covered in primroses of different colour, and I wonder if some mourning relative planted them years ago, and even now they are blooming though whoever planted them is long gone, and whoever they were planted for long forgotten.

Liverpool - Capital of Culture?

To Merseyside, to stay with the in-laws (T's first trip north).

Some discussion of Liverpool's status as Capital of Culture. Maybe it was the Scouse demographic I was conversing with, and my survey was less than scientific, but there was almost universal cynicism.

It has had it's problems, but it would unfair to read failure into the year from this alone. Especially if the city is shrewd enough to use it to change perceptions. However, it's off to a loser from the start if it can't sell the vision to the locals, even if it successfully convinces the outside world that Liverpool has changed.

Nice Sunday

To the Village Taverna in Lee for a very pleasant lunch in the company of friends. Ostensibly to celebrate my birthday, this was more of an excuse to catch up with people over a surprisingly non-boozy lunch. It was just the right place to be, as it wasn't crowded and people could pop in and out as they pleased.

A year ago this would have been a very different gathering. Now there are three new people (including T) who didn't exist twelve months ago, and from our lunch companions there will be two more new arrivals by the start of the Autumn.

It was a good time to pause and take stock. Our lives are entering a new phase, events this week might herald my job moving in a more positive direction, and, when we got home, we found out that Bristol had won at Newcastle - the first time they have recorded two away wins on the bounce since March 2006.

A good weekend.

Sand Point and Woodspring Priory

On our last full day in the West Country before returning home I was anxious to go somewhere very different to our life back in London. I wanted to go somewhere quiet, clean and lonely. The weather was windy and sharp so I knew that my best chance was by the sea. So, it was to a finger of land jutting into the Bristol Channel, Sand Point, that we headed on Monday. My parents drove us, and it gave T his first experience of the geography of his paternal heritage. Not that he paid much attention, spending most of the time wrapped up tightly and sleeping in spite of the chill March winds.

To the best of my recollections, I'd not been here before. Yet, it is just this sort of landscape that I consider emblematic of home. Like the Levels to the south, the land has been reclaimed over centuries from sea and marsh and is cris-crossed by rhynes, ditches and rivers flowing slowly to the Bristol Channel under broad and often stormy skies. Although, particularly near some main commuter routes, the villages are becoming less tatty with their desirable houses and new estates, the closer you get to the sea the more lonely and separate the land becomes, the keener the winds and the sharper the sense of solitude.

The other motivation for coming here was Woodspring Priory. I wanted to see this place, and it didn't disappoint. My first impressions were of small site, huddled against the eastern end of Sand Point, but, on the southern and seaward side, exposed to harsh storms from the Bristol Channel. As we parked the car my mind's eye could see the monks, battered by winter storms, living a tough existence at what must have felt the edge of the land. A punishing life befitting an institution set up to atone for the murder of Thomas a Beckett.

This may have been how it was at its 1210 founding, but as I wandered around the site it was obvious that communion with nature and solitude were not the only things to inspire its former inhabitants. Now surrounded by a disused cider orchard and some unperturbed sheep, it was clear that this was not necessarily the last resort of the ascetic or penitent seeking hardship. This was reflected in the structures they put up. Agricultural use after the Dissolution obviously saved much of the priory's fabric. In the small museum there is enough archaeological evidence in the form of delicate carved faces and colourful floor tiles to show that there was more than bare stone walls to keep out the cold. The impressive vaulted ceiling in the tower was a particular delight.

Leaving the Priory, we drove to Sand Point. My parents, my wife and T remained in the car while I braved the elements. I wanted to be outside and breath good air, and I wanted to be close to the sea for the first time in months.

I climbed the hill from the car park, and to my surprise found myself alone. I followed the footpath along the ridge. To my left, a steep slope led down to Sand Bay, and in the sky above me a kestrel used the upward draft of the sea wind hitting the ridge to stay aloft. Rabbits hurtled across my path and took refuge in the brambles. To my right I could look up the Severn Estuary, to the Severn Bridges and the towns and industry of South Wales. Yet where I was felt as far as it could be from dirty air, traffic and people. The further I went along the ridge, the more steep slopes gave way to rocky cliffs battered by waves. The path now dropped dramatically with the decline in the ridge and soon the sea met the land. On three sides of me was water. To the north, the calmer estuary leading to Bristol and the Severn. Ahead of me clouds scudded across the sky and the sun broke through and illuminated the sea between the islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm. I looked down the Bristol Channel and I could see that the sky to the west was clearing. The hills of Exmoor rolled down to the sea in the far distance, and glancing across to the extremities of Wales I ascertained the mouth of the Channel and the open ocean beyond.

I remained there for a few moments, breathing in the salty air and feeling the spray on my face, then turned back the way I had come.

Going home

I was born and brought up on the edge of Bristol, where the city runs into the Somerset countryside, and - despite the fact that my family are still there - I've not been back since July last year. My wife's pregnancy and T's birth saw to that.

All that is about to change. We're heading West in a fortnight's time to stay with my parents. T's days so far have been, bar one or two forays across London, spent with Lewisham as his northern boundary and Sydenham as his south. It's certainly made life easy, and I am daunted by the prospect of getting him to Charing Cross, down into the Tube, then out again at Paddington. All of this without even considering what happens if he decides to bawl his eyes out from the second we leave the capital until the instant we step out at Temple Meads.

An adventure it will be, and it won't stop once we get there. I'm arranging for him to meet my school friends in what is still for most of them their local pub, and then there's the big question of whether I squeeze him into Ashton Gate for his first Bristol Rugby match (the derby with Bath). All this, and then we have to do the journey in reverse.

For me, this journey always, and will always, be like going home. We'll be making this trip with T for years to come, but there will be a difference in the way he feels about it. For him, going to the West Country, whether his paternal family are there or not, will always be the trip out, and he'll be on his homeward stretch on the way back to London.

Our garden

This is one of my favourite times of the year. It's still cold enough for the sharpness and keenness to reminder you that winter is still in charge if it wants to be. Yet, you can feel the onset of spring as the crocuses, snowdrops and primroses begin to show.

This year our garden has been covered in flowers. This heralds a changing season, and is whole new experience for our baby, T, who was only born in November, and is on the verge of seeing brighter colours and lighter days for the first time. Of course he won't remember it, but in the same way that he loves looking at fairy lights or sitting on top of my head, I hope he enjoys it all the same.

Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery

Despite having lived here for five years, I had never visited the cemetery that is five minutes walk from our front door. Just before Christmas, I took our baby, T, out for his morning walk on a very foggy day. Instead of heading up Hilly Fields as per usual, I went to Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery.

It was incredible. The mist hid all of the surrounding houses and it felt as if T and I were in some wood far from anywhere with gravestones providing the undergrowth.

As a resource for local wildlife, the value of the cemetery is obvious. But are the community appreciative of what is on their doorstep? There were few people there when we visited, nor on subsequent trips but local interest there obviously is. The question is, I suppose, what is the benefit that it brings and how to best secure that?

The renewal of Ladywell Fields shows that the Council is investing in our open spaces, but the purpose of a park is a lot more obvious than a largely disused cemetery. Of course, it is important to the local environment, but its value goes beyond that. It tells the story of this area for a period of its history, and that is an essential underpinning to any sense of identity for a place.

However, given the changing population of this place, and the declining numbers visiting the graves of their loved ones, Brockley and Ladywell Cemetery is increasingly cut off from the life of the community around it as much as it was from sight by the fog on the day of my visit.

I hope that the various community activists focusing their attention upon it are successful in their ambition, and I hope they, and the council, sensitively manage the tension between the cultural and the environmental value of the cemetery.