The boy celebrated his 2nd birthday on the 29th. Well, I say 'celebrated', more of a bewildered acceptance of all the attention, gifts etc. It must have been even more confusing coming after what must have seemed a very similar day 72 hours earlier.

Here he is on Boxing Day at Seaford (Sussex) - where he concerned himself with the more familiar tasks of popping bladderwrack, cooing at the odd surface of slabs of cuttlefish, and engaging in the hermetic process by which three particular stones are chosen.

In honour of his second birthday, I have reworked our web album of him, to a single set of 30-odd photos from his first two years - family and friends may be interested...