On deliberately making yourself sad.

Anyone who has broken up with someone, or who has experienced the death of a person they love knows very well how to do this. You play songs, very loudly, that make you cry, that have too much emotion attached to them, that take you to places you really shouldn't be. Often you do this when you've had too much to drink, which I have, and when you aren't actually keen to go to bed yet, which I'm not, for the principle reason that I have a vague hope the alcohol might go out of my system in time to feed the baby.

I must just point out that I know this is wishful thinking. The baby is clearly just going to sleep very well this night.

Probably that makes me a bad mother.

So.

Playing sad songs.

In fact it's not so much making yourself be sad as allowing yourself to be sad. I think it's probably cathartic in many ways, actually.

The way I personally do it is to play songs that either remind me of being small, or play songs my Dad loved.

The best one for me is 'Dreamer' by Supertramp. When I hear this it makes me whirl around like a little girl in a party dress with a full skirt. And sing words like 'stupid' really loudly. Eternally, I will be six when I listen to this song and I cannot reframe it or move on and I don't really want to. I like the fact that I have a tool which takes me back to a place I can't go otherwise. You know, I don't often get to wear a party dress in my mind or in real life, so when I do I really relish it.

When you have your father near you are sometimes able to opt out of being grown-up. You can slip back into the child role, you can be the little girl who doesn't have to make decisions, or find the money, or fix it, or know things, because your Dad is the one that does that.

And that's why it's fabulous being six. Just for a little bit. Instead of being adult and sensible and Mummy, and 'in charge' and 'making the dinner' I get to shriek and dance and jump up and down and act a bit silly and twirl around and be someone's little girl with no responsibilities.

And when I do that I can really, properly remember my Dad.