Totes emosh

I am a level of knackered tonight I hitherto thought impossible! We have been filming all day. Like ALL day, documenting a seriously important milestone in the project we're working on. It's all a bit terrifying. This is the point at which we allow other people in, and have to start sharing and being malleable. I've always been a bit of a one-man-band, so this is somewhat problematic for me!

I realised today that it is almost exactly thirty years since I started senior school, which means I've known my dear friend Tammy for as many years. It's actually her birthday today, which gave me cause to send her a cheery message, whilst deep down I was feeling really emotional. I used to hear old people uttering cliches like "where do the years go?" I used to want to throttle them, and say, "you know exactly where they've gone. Time passes. Get over it..." And then suddenly you're 41. Suddenly you're in a thirteen year relationship like the one your parents were in when you started senior school thirty years ago. And part of you wonders how it all happened.

I see my God children and want to tell them just how much they've grown and give them a quid to spend on an ice cream. I'm turning into my Grannie! God, how I sometimes miss my Grannie!

I got inexplicably tearful today because the project we're working on is very close to my heart, and forces me to reflect on my life as a five year-old boy in a dusty market town in Bedfordshire. Again, the years tumble away, and the memories, which I once considered indelibly etched on my little grey cells, don't seem to be that easy to access anymore. I see a haze of sunlight instead: generalised images of rounders matches, teddy bears' picnics, kagouls, ABBA records, Nuclear Power No Thanks stickers, kiln parties and home made bread dipped in cider vinegar. The memories which remain, invariably take a moment or two to sharpen, but so many are gone forever; simply evaporated in the heat of those long summers.