In June 2012 I wrote a short children’s comedy called The Stork, about ten-year old best friends Jack and Patrick, as they discussed where babies came from. It was intended to be an antidote to the darkness and depression that sometimes permeates my words, but a few months later I wrote Robotosaurus Rex, which was another snapshot of these two boys’ childhoods; this time as they talked about time travel. Over the last few days I finished writing When We’re All Grown Up – the third tale in what I now am beginning to see as chapters in a larger project that I had not planned at all.

I have no immediate plans to write a fourth entry in this series, but The Jack & Patrick Chronicles (as I now see these stories) do lend themselves to other conversational adventures. Kids talk about a lot of stuff – some of it banal and meaningless, but a lot of it is interesting and worthy of some lightly humourous exploration.

Before I know it I could have something much larger on my hands.