As you may have guessed from the title, today was the momentous day that Piglet started walking.

I am henceforth to be found training for the one hundred metre sprint at the 2016 Olympics. After all, I am going to be running after him from now on and he is FAST.  Very fast, for somebody who has only been walking since this afternoon.

Anyway, it’s lucky that I finally managed to get a picture, albeit a blurry one, as I actually missed the first few steps.  Yes, missed them.  HIS VERY FIRST STEPS.  My firstborn child’s most exciting milestone, and where was I?  Oh yes, I had my back to him, and was buying a can of diet coke and some cheesy chips (for me, not Piglet.  Put down your phones people.  There will be no social services involvement regarding the nutrition.  Piglet’s sudden burst of energy was not caused by trans fats and aspartame.  No need to make like that bloke on the tube who accused me of feeding Piglet diet coke because I was HOLDING A CAN and was therefore complicit in the destruction of my innocent child’s milk teeth and start having a go, OK?)

We had taken a trip to this exciting destination

And before you ask, no it wasn’t Wales.  Piglet did not take his first steps in the Land of My Fathers (great-grandmothers, more accurately, in his case.  The Land of Piglet’s Fathers is *technically* America), nor did he take his first steps on the M4 (put down your phones people).  He took his first steps in a place called Severn Beach.  See? There’s a beach.

OK there’s no beach, but there is a River Severn, and there is also a cafe called Shirley’s Cafe, although it is the sort of place that is more likely to be pronounced “caff” than “cafe,” which probably explains quite a bit about the sort of place it is.  The sort of place that, in the words of my companion, probably “hasn’t changed since 1992.  Or 1942.”  The sort of place where the most appealing morsels on offer are a Diet Coke and a plate of cheesy chips, and where one can purchase a second hand plastic windmill for £2, or a Jane Fonda workout video from 1986 for £3.  I didn’t think the prices were terribly competitive, which was probably why we were the only customers.

Anyway, my companion (my brother’s girlfriend) was looking after Piglet while I purchased our nutritious lunch, and I suddenly heard words to the effect of “ooh he’s walking!”  I turned around and Piglet had literally taken his first steps, walking towards me, and I HAD MISSED IT.  ALL FOR THE SAKE OF SOME CHIPS AND CHEESE.

I have to admit, I did doubt at the time that he had actually walked, just like I doubted when he shouted “AJ!” at the dog in the local cafe the other week that he had actually understood that the dog’s name was AJ (why do all Piglet’s significant milestones take place in cafes?  Oh yes, because we are always in them), until we were waiting at the bus stop the other day and another dog walked past and Piglet stopped what he was doing, pointed at the dog and yelled “AJ!” at it repeatedly.

And so it was that later this afternoon, I heard those very same words “He’s walking!” again, this time from my mother.  And what was I doing?  Oh yes, I had my back to him again.  I missed it YET AGAIN.  However, this time I rushed into the living room, and Piglet did it again.  He WALKED, ladies and gentlemen, he WALKED.  It was a bit like that scene in the Bible when Jesus heals the paralysed man *I IMAGINE.*  He literally got up, and walked.  And suddenly he was brilliant at it!  It was as if he had been walking his entire life.  It was if he had got up out of the womb and WALKED, and said “hello Mum, I’m your son. Shall I WALK to the boob or should I wait for them to stitch you up first, yeah?”

With bated breath, I now await the destruction of Granny’s entire house, and possibly the world, by a marauding toddler.