Friday 4th March 2016, 12 noon (day 1,653)

Today was Joe’s bithrday. Amazingly, I seem to as of today be the parent of a teenager. Yet it was a win-win situation for him, because almost the first thing that happened today was that we got the phone call telling us it was a snow day, thus a day off school. But he didn’t lie around doing nothing — I took him into Manchester instead, where it was just as revoltingly snowy.