This Uncle thing isn't so bad.

(Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

 I finished folding the newspaper with a final flourish and proudly displayed my handiwork ."And that's how you turn a newspaper into a Millwall Brick!" I  announced to the three people sitting opposite me. 
 There was a moment of silence. Our train rattled through Wolverhampton, a stern drizzle pattering against the windows, while the two blonde little girls on the other side of the table regarded me with the good-natured bemusement I had grown used to. Their dad, however, was giving me a different kind of look. The one that says "How are you related to me?"  
"D" he said, carefully. "Should you really be showing my daughters how to make a blunt instrument?"

 Up until relatively recently, I would have told you quite forcefully that I couldn't stand kids. "Too noisy, too smelly, you can't hold a decent conversation with them and their taste in popular music is usually appalling."  Something like that, anyway.

  Then something unexpected happened. My little brother became a Father and as a side-effect, I became an Uncle.
 I was, to put it mildly, unprepared for the role. I've never even had any pets of my own and the geraniums I kept trying to grow all died miserably. For somebody who spent his entire life dodging responsibility, this was quite a big thing to spring on me.

  You want to know something I've never told anybody? You want to know the most scared I've ever been in my entire life?

It wasn't the time I went in a cable car and discovered that while heights make me uneasy, being half a mile up in the air, suspended by a bit of string scares the everliving crap out of me.

 It wasn't the time I suddenly realised that the aging teddy-boy advancing my way wasn't just having a laugh but really was one wrong word away from glassing me.

It wasn't even the time I fell into a river three years before I learned how to swim and failed to drown only because some passing boy scouts had just been practicing their lifesaving.

When I think of being scared out of my wits, I picture my brother gently placing my baby niece into my arms for the very first time.
"What if I drop her" screamed my inner voice "What if she has fits? What if she starts crying...what if...what if...what if..?"

  By comparison the first time I was asked to keep an eye on the girls while mummy and daddy nipped round to Asda was a walk in the park. (Switch the tv on, make sure they keep away from anything with an edge or electrical components and pray desperately that they don't need their nappies changing on my watch. Job done.) and as time went by something weird happened.

 I started enjoying being around little Ivy and Rose (pseudonyms, obviously)

 (Now when I told their father that I was planning on doing this piece he specifically asked me not to publish any pictures of his little girls. I'm cool with that.  Once a picture is on the net, you lose all control of where it ends up and some alarming things can happen. Google "Scumbag Stacey" if you don't believe me.

So instead, I want you to close your eyes. Picture two little girls standing in front of you. One's 10ish, the other a little bit younger and they're both blonde, cute and beaming at you. That's them.)

  Being an uncle might be a lot of responsibility but it's also a lot of fun too. thanks to my little friends I have all sorts of happy moments to think back on when I'm having a bad day.

Rose as a toddler, marching happily across a field clutching her ball and burbling away to herself.

Ivy trying to reach the chocolates carefully stashed away on top of the bookcase. When jumping up and down didn't work, she strode briskly into the next room and re-emerged dragging a stool. 

Rose and Ivy happily planting flowers in their dad's back garden.

The three of us taking a strong-willed West Highland Terrier on a tour of Stafford's backstreets. 

The four of us sat in my front room, clutching enormous doner kebabs and watching cartoons.  

 This is the sort of thing that stops me turning into a grumpy old man.  It turns out that being around happy children is good for the nerves and the soul.

  It's later that same day . We had to sprint to catch the train home and now we're sprawled across the seats, footsore and utterly knackered. I pull out the big bag of comics I'd bought in Birmingham and moments later Rose, Ivy and I are engrossed in the pretty pictures. Their dad is looking bemused again but I don't care. We're sharing a moment.   

 When it comes right down to it, when I became an uncle, I got a front-row ticket to the best show in town. I also got a gold-embossed card that says "You have a legitimate reason to stop being grown up. Have fun with it."

And I have.

Hey girls...Uncle D loves you.

That's all folks.