One hour ago our elder daughter gave birth to our first grandchild, Jake Akio Sokol, here in London at University College Hospital.
We know little apart from the fact that he (funny to use that pronoun – I suddenly realise he's now a person not a bump) weighs 7lb 14oz and that UCH is so overwhelmed by Britain's rising birth rate that they delivered three babies in a bathroom earlier today.
You winos may recognise the name Sokol. By complete coincidence the aunt of our son-in-law Charlie Sokol (yes, Charlie's Aunt) is Susan Sokol, co-founder of Sokol Blosser winery in Oregon, whose wines Nick was the first to import into the UK when he owned L'Escargot restaurant in Soho in the 1980s. Charlie is not especially wine-y – he works for Time Out and teaches capoeira – but his American father (who lives just outside Aix-en-Provence with Charlie's Japanese mother) is Susan's brother. Too much information, you may feel. Sorry. I am not quite with it.
All I realise is that I should have come up with an email circulation list to spread this very exciting news and I didn't, so I'm hoping that publishing this will help to inform those people I promised to keep in the loop and will not irritate others too much.
And here, in response to multiple requests from our daughter Julia's friends, is the first picture. He is clearly very alert, intelligent and handsome, don't you think?
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