A special day

Today is Jodies 15th birthday.

Fifiteen years ago today was a Sunday and on that Sunday morning I left the Clarendon Wing of the Leeds General Infirmary proud as the proudest thing you can think of, a peacock maybe, or, erm, another proud thing, but prouder

Our second born with the blondest hair possible lay sleeping with the female who had begat her upstairs inside the hospital, and a kindly nurse that recognised that a maternity ward was no place for a male had suggested that I go home and grab some sleep myself, after all, I'd had a long night waiting for the birth and I was shattered at having had to sleep in one of those comfortable maternity ward upright nursing chairs.

I'm currently skint after buying her an object of desire for a 15 year old - its another mobile phone - whenever you ask teenage girls what their object of desire is, its always a mobile phone, its just that the one they want is always different to the one they've got.

The one that she picked this year is tarted up in pink with whirly wierd designs on it, it comes with a designers label attached to it and is part of Nokia's l'amour collection - a very clever marketing ploy aimed at teenage girls who will pester their mothers for a replacement phone and then when that gets them nowhere will pester their father for all of three minutes before he backs down (like he always does) and shells out a kings ransom for something that is in fashion for these next few months.

My two daughters know the system, they know that the first approach for anything is through their mother and when she says no for the first and only time then its time to change tack and ask me, when I say no for the first time they are on the finishing straight, they only have to ask once more and its theirs, I don't know what this hold is that daughters have over fathers but its evil.

Tonight we go out for a meal at her choice of restaurant, so its a local place that masquerades as a sophisticated olde worlde bistro stylee place but actually only serves twenty different types of burger and pizza - its corny with plastic vines on the ceiling and fairy light twinkling everywhere and the food is ordinary but plentiful, but teenagers love it and its her birthday so I will tolorate the place tonight and chomp on one of their Dickens inspired burgers, probably the Pickwick burger which comes with a mountain of chilli con carne slopped all over the top - sounds disgusting, and it is.