Being Maddie’s Dad

Highlights and musings of a Dad and his daughter growing up.

  •   Yesterday was the annual Abbots Hill Carol Service at St Albans Abbey. Despite getting to the Abbey about an hour early I only managed to get a seat behind a gigantic pillar, couldn’t see a thing for the whole…

  • We’ve moved on from just having a stall at Maddies school fair to setting up a pop up studio mostly so people can have photos taken with suitably silly Christmas props but also because it helps promote my St Albans photo…

  • When I was a kid Halloween was a low key precursor to the main event of Bonfire night. I seem to recall the odd attempt at apple bobbing and trying to make a lantern out of a turnip but these…

  • Premier League again! Maddie’s first Premier League game as a Watford fan was against Arsenal and after a promising start to the season we had high hopes going into the game. We also had front row seats which made for interesting…

  • It’s becoming a challenge to come up with a novel idea for birthday parties as most of the obvious ones have been done but I think Lish won the prize this year for her indoor surfing party (not least because I…

  •   Maddie’s skiing has come on in leaps and bounds and this year she did her first black run in Samoens, not only that but it wasn’t pisted and she didn’t fall over! Proud Dad moment! Just hope I can…

  • …but we did have good seats at Wembley arena to see all the top ten from last years show, most of whose names have long since passed from memory even in the short time since the series finished. Perhaps I…

  • Maddie has been to a number of football matches, mostly at Vicarage Road although we did go to the play off final at Wembley last year. Well this time it was England vs Denmark so in one sense Maddie couldn’t…

  • We discussed learning different instruments as I think learning to play music is rally important not to mention good fun. I was favouring the piano and have given Maddie a few lessons already however Maddie decided she would like to…

  • We had a lovely short break in London as a family just before Christmas, might seem a bit weird when it’s only 20 mins on the train from where we live but it was really good fun. We stayed in…