Who's The Daddy: Tables have turned now daughters are all grown up

Halloween, school proms and “Gotcha” days - that one day of the year when your Facebook account pops up with a picture of you and your once tiny puppy the day you brought him home, who is now the height of the kitchen table and sleeps on your bed whenever he wants.

We got our sighthound Walter on October 29, 2015, so Facebook keeps reminding us, and maybe because it was his special day, daughter #1 was very keen to see him, and if me and the boss were visiting her in her new flat in Salford anyway, could we bring him too so she could see him in her new home?

Sure, a stroll around Old Trafford and Media City doubles as a good old stretch of the legs, so we clipped him in on the back seat of the car and off we went.

As a child, daughter #1’s bedroom was like a shrine. White walls, neutral carpet with not a thing out of place. Fast forward 15 years and her flat is basically an extension of her old room, minus the High School Musical bunting.

It looks like a show flat and, get this, she gave me a proper grown-up dressing down for accidentally leaving the bathroom light on for 12 seconds. Oh how times change when it’s their name on the bill. She actually used a phrase that included the words “Blackpool” and “Illuminations”.

Years before the cost-of-living/energy crisis, yours truly used to perform laps of the house, switching off lights, TVs, plugs charging mobiles that had been at 100 per cent for hours, to be met with catcalls from everyone who lived here. It’s not often dads are proved right in a houseful of women, so let me have this moment.

So we all went for a stroll in the rain. Old Trafford’s pretty busy even on non-matchdays and when the boy Walter caught a whiff of a hotdog stand he did his best good boy face and the lady in the van gave him two free ones. He liked that a lot.

Then on to a bagel spot for lunch near the BBC where they gave him some beef and a little cup of milk. He’s never been to Salford before but after that picnic it’s one of his top 10 days out.

Big city life seems to suit daughter #1, she was off “out out” in Manchester that night, and daughter #2 likes Liverpool so much that after she graduates in a couple of years she’s very keen to stay.