THE baby is teething and I’ve only had four hours of sleep.

It’s only £1, remember.

The baby and I like to watch gangster movies at 4am when she can’t sleep – the kind we can’t watch when older children are around who would be disturbed by all the swearing and violence.

This time it was Heat, which features the first on-screen meeting of actors Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. The baby is more Pacino than De Niro.

She toddles around the house babbling “I say what I mean, and I do what I say” and “ I gotta hold on to my angst. It keeps me sharp, on the edge, where I gotta be” at inappropriate moments when we have visitors.

When it’s mum’s turn to take her downstairs, they probably watch Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals.

World Cup fever has gripped the house and the youngest boy is having lots of fun collecting the Panini stickers.

We, sorry, he, can’t lay his hands on Brazil players Hulk and Oscar so if anyone has swapsies please get in touch.

We presumed the middle boy was in his room watching the Peru game but it turned out he was watching a YouTube video of someone else playing a football computer game, which he suggested was kind of the same.

The number of people watching other people playing computer games on the internet is huge. It’s been likened to how children would once gather round a video game in an arcade.

I wouldn’t know as we didn’t have video arcades growing up in the Dales – we had rivers, trees, little respect for other people’s property and easy access to live ammunition.

It’s great to see that a scheduled bus service has returned to the sunny side of the dale, albeit on a use it or lose it basis.

The dark side of the dale doesn’t have such a threat hanging over their service, although have a greater risk of rickets. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

Talking of playpark activities, we visited the council park near the river at Richmond.

“Unloved” is how the baby described it , although she did point out that who needs decent play equipment when you can watch other people take part in physical exertion on a computer screen – or a bike race.