I remember my dad having a triple heart bypass and mitral valve repair in St George's Hospital, Tooting, on May 17, not coming out of intensive care until nearly four weeks later, June 13, and spending another week in a room on Benjamin Weir Ward (with shingles!) before being transferred to Kingston Hospital, from where they are talking about moving him to Tolworth, where they have better physiotherapy facilities. I didn't mention the blood clots, for which he had a follow-up operation on May 18, the temporary renal failure, the AF or the post-op confusion. I will remember why I have found it difficult to update this blog recently.

I remember my first and only drum kit - various pots, pans and biscuit tins with my mum's knitting needles for drumsticks - which I played alongside various jazz records in my dad's collection. There was Lionel Hampton, Lee Wiley with Billy Butterfield, and Eartha Kitt singing St Louis Blues and Long Gone John from Bowling Green.

I remember a time when supermarket car parks used to be empty on Sundays, so you could learn how to drive a car in them.

I remember when we weren't allowed to run car boot sales on Sundays.

I remember having a drink with my schoolfriends in the Hand in Hand, next to Wimbledon Common, on the night my sister was born in nearby St Theresa's Hospital. It was snowing.

I remember my summer job at Lyon's in Wimbledon. There were several regulars who would come in and make a glass of milk last all morning. I used to wear Levi jeans that I had bleached a bit too much, and finish the look off with one blue sock and one white sock. One of my colleagues, who was a bit simple but was well respected by the manageress because he had been working there for so long, lived in a nearby Dr Barnardo's home, and another was a German woman. My abiding memories are of the flavour of the tea, which was apparently a secret blend that you couldn't buy in shops, and of my favourite breakfast there, sausages on toast with HP sauce. And people asking for "milk and a dash".

I remember my dad coming to pick us up after the London to Brighton bike ride one year and taking us to a pub away from the main drag to celebrate our achievement. There we were, all Lycra-clad with a chamois gusset, when we realised the pub we were in was very much a gay pub. Not surprising in Brighton I suppose.

I remember Letts Schoolboy diaries.

I remember the Spirograph. They never seemed to come out quite the way they should, largely because the pins would always move in the cardboard backing.

I remember Airfix kits, which I loved glueing together but could never seem to be bothered to paint. Or, if I did, I would make a complete mess of.

I remember refusing to wear turn-ups, mainly because I had gotten away without ever wearing them at school.

I remember in the senior class at primary school the only boys who wore long trousers were those who were unusually tall. There were only one or two of them.

I remember learning how to make French toast by watching Kramer vs Kramer.

I remember going to one of those hi-tech entertainment exhibitions at Earls Court or Olympia and being amazed at the number of people (me included) standing transfixed before a large screen DVD presentation of Roy Orbison's Black & White Night. Forget synthesisers, just serve up some good old-fashioned rock'n'roll.