I'VE had this nagging feeling for a while that time is speeding up. It seems like just last week that I was putting the tree and decorations in the loft after last Christmas and now it's time to put them back up again.

It may have been March when I finally plucked up the courage to balance precariously on the very top of the stepladder and hoist myself up into the darkness with a bin bag of baubles under my arm but it certainly wasn't last week.

The quickening of time is presumably a sign of getting old. I was having these depressing thoughts when the oldest boy showed me a YouTube clip of a 60-year-old balancing a pint on his forehead and then drinking it without using his hands or arms and I went to work with fresh optimism.

In other news, I've had a lot of people say 'you should put this in your column' in recent weeks.

People often say it before telling me something that would make Hugh Hefner blush or something that is better suited to the paper's town and village section.

The sentiment was shouted across a football pitch once after I'd just been felled by a knee-high, two-footed terror tackle.

'Stick that in the D&S,' shouted someone from the crowd.

I wasn't sure if it was abuse from an opposition fan or a suggestion from one my own team's supporters who was well aware of the difficulties of writing 400 words of interesting copy every week when often not a lot happens, but I have now duly obliged, albeit five years on.

Anyway, last week I scored two high-quality goals during a lads versus dads kick-about at the end of a Leyburn U10s training session and someone suggested the goals would make this week's paper.

Modesty dictates that I won't go on about the cheeky backheel and the bullet header which left the 4ft 2in keeper no chance although they clearly impressed the youngest boy who asked on the way home "do you still play for Darlington dad?"

I said I played 'in' Darlington (five-a-side in the Dolphin Centre once a week) although we both agreed it was pretty much the same thing.