At 2 (and nearly a half, as she is so keen to point out), it seems that Tallulah now has a major issue with me. I am increasingly, and frequently chastised, and I believe unfairly.

You are OLD Daddy.

That, it seems, is even more of a bad thing for her than it may be for me. The fact that my fortieth birthday floated quietly past last week, and that I may be in a perpetual mid-life (dear God) crisis, or more accurately a series of mini mid-life (again, really) crises isn’t enough.

She is intent on compounding matters. It seems that she has realised the ignominy in going through much of the next years of her young life with a near octogenarian hanging on her arm; never mind the fact that a large percentage of my peer group (and a fairly large number of her friends’ parents) are the same age, if not older than her poor, aged father.*

It did seem for a while that this was a readily exchanged metaphor for bad for Lula; when asked why I was receiving another (admirably effective if I do say so myself) row from my daughter it was not because I had been naughty specifically to incur her wrath; rather I had now passed into the realms of the old.

My mother was increasingly unimpressed as I got older as well; it seems that she had a magic calendar which meant that her age alternated between thirty-seven and thirty-eight for the better part of two decades; an ingenious ruse that she, and many of my fabulous female friends can (eventually) pull off without Dorian Gray-esque props, soft lighting at all times or Harley Street polyfilla.

I have written here before that 40th birthdays are to be embraced by parents of both sexes (including my much, much younger wife- she was practically a child bride; or so it seems now to hear her tell the tale).

Save for anything else it offers a legitimate reason (excuse) to get many of your favourite people in the world together, stay up late (ish) and pretend you’re still cool (if you still labour under the almost certainly erroneous assumption that you ever were).

Such is my (only just realised in an epiphany while typing) desperation to drag matters out that I am having an Edinburgh, and a London leg for good measure. Meanwhile, my increased trips to see my PT and the gym in general point to ego more than health, while the (hugely welcome and even more necessary) birthday presents of face creams, a massage and a facial was, in effect, an MOT.

Much more relevant is the fact that I am unquestionably happier and healthier than I have ever been, although granted, there are differences and I am not one to discount the merit the gay abandon of our formative years.

However, I am not alone in finding a sense of contentment, peace, purpose and downright joy which borders on the annoying and self- congratulatory, and it is thanks to Oran and Tallulah.

I remember having a conversation with a friend who had discovered he and his partner were expecting. He had found, as had I, that joy and optimism mingle with some sense of trepidation at the road ahead.

This can be compounded (as I have said before) by well-meaning acquaintances stating with no small measure of perceived schadenfreude that parenthood means that you will be exhausted from their cradle to your grave, never see your friends again, grow to hate your partner, and effectively become an embittered, destitute hermit save for ferrying your constantly crying, ill, ungrateful offspring from point A to B.

I offered a different analogy for parenthood which dawned on me with Oran’s arrival – pick a defining diamond of a moment in your life; a party, bar, club, festival or holiday when you looked around and saw your dearest friends all in perfect sync- carefree, joyous, basked in youth and bonhomie. Now multiply that moment by the largest number that springs to mind. That, my friends, is enough to make an old man very, very happy.

*Granted, older by months, if not weeks. Or days.