Who's the Daddy: Taxi driving days are all over

Well okay, maybe that, and also the day you get the keys to your first home, and getting married, and your kids being born, and being on the Stretford End the night United lifted the title for the first time in 26 years... alright, there are a few things that top it but not many.

This week daughter #1 shopped around for, test drove and bought her first car - a move which has made me and the boss more or less redundant because, as she informed us as soon as the bank transfer went through, she can drive herself back to uni in Liverpool now, and give her little sister a lift when she starts there in September. Daughter #1 passed her test four years ago and is a far better driver than yours truly. The only reason I bother driving is because public transport is ruinously expensive and completely unreliable.

Daughter #1 likes it because she’s good at it and even offers constructive criticism when I’m behind the wheel. For example, “Come on, Grandma! It’s Saturday not Sunday!” When you’re test driving cars you know when you’ve found The One. Daughter #1 certainly did. About 30 seconds after turning the key and putting her foot down. The beaming smile said it all. Not too big, not too small; not too powerful, not too puny; and surprisingly the insurance wasn’t a total four-figure mickey-take either. Once the car’s been serviced, MOT’d, valeted and gone through a number of checkpoints we expect that’s the last we’ll see of daughter #1, and probably daughter #2 for that matter, for quite some time.

McDonald’s drive-thru at 1am? Don’t mind if I do. Covid restrictions lifted for the first time in months and I’ve just got the keys to my first car and they’re on the same fob as the keys to my student house where all my friends live? I’ll see you when I see you. Don’t wait up.

Parents kept awake all night by teething babies, I’ll say this for you, they might be louder than a smoke alarm at 4am and twice as scary, but at least you always know where they are.