As I begin, I do not know what I will write; not a good thing for a Cowbird story! What is that saying? 'I have written you a long letter as I did not have time to write a short one.' Was it Mark Twain?

Anyway, 6:20 am on a Sunday morning and I hear a cry of 'Baba' (dad) coming from downstairs. I stumble down and snuggle up to my son. 'You could try and sleep a little more. Babies wake up this early, seven year olds sleep till eight thirty.' But the day has begun.

And what prompts me to write is a sudden realisation that my favourite thing in the world is when he says, 'Baba...' in a tone that suggests that I might actually know something.

'Baba, did you know...?', 'Baba, why does....?', 'Baba, do you realise...?', 'Baba, do you think....?'

I like to imagine that the tone is full of love, replete with affection and overflowing with trust.

I do not know that answers to much of what you ask me but I probably know where to find them.

USB? Universal Serial Bus
Bedrock? The rock under the earth
Uranium? An element
I wish I were pink. The pink world wants to be brown, the brown world wants to be pink! We are just one world and differences are what makes it fun.

In time, you will also discover Wikipedia and grow up and I will be redundant in terms of information and advice but hopefully I will always keep your trust. I promise to work hard at that but know, as Wear Sunscreen says, 'Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.'

In truth we all make it up as we go along - the only advantage you have with me is that I freely admit I am doing so!