My son has come home. It’s been five years. He’s changed. He weighs less for a start. He doesn’t drink any more; and he eats only vegetables and runs every day. In Holland, where he lives, he goes to gym every day, too. But that’s not why he weighs less. It’s because he has removed from his face a considerable quantity of waste metal that was previously bolted on. Age has happened to him. He went from 25 to 30 and in the intervening years he has shed rings, studs, chains, little dragons, stars, and all the hooks, nuts, bolts and paraphernalia that hold them on. When he walked down…

SORRY I missed last week. I was on a boat. A yacht, actually. Sailing down to the Whitsundays. And if anyone else tells me what a lucky bastard I am I’ll keelhaul them. This wasn’t a holiday. This was work. Delivering a yacht back to its owners as quickly as possible. Three sweaty blokes trapped for seven days in a space the size of Holden station wagon, but without any of the luxuries. And no bitumen under you. Just water. Lots of it. With holes in. I didn’t know that. I thought water found its own level, which is generally flat; but it’s not true. Out there beyond Magnetic Island…

My Christmas dinner has just bitten me. Well, all right, pecked me then. But when your Christmas dinner is the size of a rottweiler it feels like you’ve been savaged. I’ve seen turkeys in butchers’ shops! They’re about the size of a football… maybe a soccer ball. But not when you add on all the pomp and circumstance. Kitted up, they strut about like something out of a gay mardi gras; all feathers and hot air. And teeth. The bastard drew blood! There are two of them, actually. My daughter gave them to us. They were given to her, but after a couple of weeks she thought it would be…

IT’S my 30th wedding anniversary in two weeks. Fifty is gold, 40 is ruby, 30 is pearl. Quite fitting really, considering I look on marriage as a boat. Not so much a pearling lugger as one of those full-rigged ships, with a cloud of sail set on every yard, slicing through the ocean on a fair wind, decks scrubbed, brass gleaming, everything ship-shape. That was before I sailed in one. Now I have modified my view. I am not cynical about it. Just more realistic. As life unwound (or is that unravelled?) it happened that I sailed a lot of real ships. Big buggers, bristling with masts and more sails…

MUM has arrived. From England. For a month. Unstoppable as a supertanker, but slightly smaller. I thought they’d have to remove some seats from the aircraft to accommodate her, but when she came through customs into the arrivals lounge – she’d shrunk. I guess that happens when you’re 86 and you’ve got osteoporosis, arthritis, diabetes, an ingrowing toenail and a memory like a goldfish. She’s here, but I think her brain, like her luggage, is in Bangkok. It’s been two years seen we saw her, and she’s changed. Last time, we occasionally ferried her about in a wheelchair, when her legs were tired. Now she occasionally — rarely — walks,…