So here’s the challenge – I’m going to try and get my son to eat beetroot.

Why beetroot, I don’t hear you ask?

Well, a couple of reasons.

Firstly, although the wee man has an aversion to all vegetables, beetroot sits right at the furthest edge away from what he finds palatable. It’s the polar opposite of McDonald’s chicken nuggets.

While you can think of ways of hiding a carrot or a pepper in his dinner, it’s pretty hard to disguise a beetroot with it’s hard ruby flesh and powerful earthy taste.

The second reason? I have a lot of beetroot.

My da has an allotment and uses every inch of it and his back garden to grow his own produce. He loves to grow fresh fruit and veg and I love to cook them.

Apparently this has been a great year for beetroot.

Like I said I have a lot of it.

A beetroot mountain.

So what to do? Well, there’s no point in serving my son a beetroot, walnut and goat’s cheese salad. I’m thinking something sweeter might work.

Looks like it’s baking day.

The theory is I get him involved in the process of baking. If he takes part then he’ll feel some sort of ownership and be more inclined to eat what he has helped to make. Like all theories, it’s great while it’s in my head.

So I think we’ll have a go at making a beetroot loaf cake. Loaf cakes are not too challenging, not too controversial and most people seem to like them. They’re the Eamonn Holmes of the baking world.

I’m a keen but limited baker. I’m impatient and sloppy but I love to have a go. In a culinary world now dominated by Paul Hollywood Bake-off precision I’m from the ‘It might look like shit but I guarantee it tastes good’ school.

The first job is grating one good-sized beetroot. I hate grating, and grating beetroot is the worst. Soon my hands, the chopping board, most of counter covers, some of the cupboard doors and a fair portion of the floor are dappled with purple juice. I look a bit like Lady Macbeth.

I could use a food processor to do this but that would mean digging it out of the drawer, spending half an hour searching for all the bits, cleaning all the dust off it, wondering why it won’t start, realising I’ve put the blades from my spiraliser in it by mistake….I decide to stick with the grater and stained fingers.

I use a basic loaf cake recipe that I think originally came from Nigella. Equal quantities of butter and caster sugar creamed together (about 250g of each), add some lemon zest and beat in four eggs, one at a time. Then add the grated beetroot and, well, pretty much anything you like. I throw in a couple of handfuls of dried fruit but chocolate chips, nuts, dates, cherries (Christ I’m starting to sound a bit Jamie Oliver here).

When I bake or cook anything I love to use what I already have knocking about the kitchen (hence the beetroot). The best sort of cake is the one I can make without having to go to the shop.

The last step is adding plain flour (about 300g and a teaspoon of baking powder) and it’s at this point that I bring my son in. Any earlier and I know he would have got bored and already drifted away.

I interrupt his game of head-butting the kitchen table and get him busy with the spoon. As he stirs flour goes everywhere; on the sideboard, the floor, over both of us. It’s only later in the evening that I discover a fair dusting somehow ended up down the back of my underpants.

Then I get him to help me pour the mixture into a prepared loaf tin. He is completely captivated by the bright pink dough which seems like something from a sweet shop. The beetroot gives it a glowing artificial look, like those tiny jars of food colouring they sell in the shops. It seems to appeal to the young mind. He insists on licking the spoon and dipping his fingers. I’m beginning to think I may have pulled off a master stroke here.

An hour in a medium oven does the job. My son returns to stare through the glass door a couple of times before disappearing upstairs to tell mummy about his cake.

I allow it to cool before slicing. The fabulous pink hue has softened to a harder crimson colour which magnificently speckles the loaf like a crazy tree with scarlet leaves

My son can’t wait to try it. He……..

Well, where did you think we were going with this? I love a happy ending as well as the next person but come on, it’s my boy we’re talking about here.

The truth is he nibbled a little bit of the cake before asking for a bag of Quavers. Perhaps he was made suspicious by my eagerness to get him to try it. Maybe he spotted the trap. Perhaps his ‘vegetable radar’ was just too keen.

Maybe it was mummy telling him that beetroot turns your poo bright purple which put him off.

But he did try it, so technically, if not morally, I did win the great beetroot challenge.

Plus I was encouraged by the interest he showed in the processes of making the cake. How he seemed to find the same joy that I do in turning a range of modest ingredients into something which is more than the sum of their parts.

I’ve a feeling we’ll be having lots more baking days together over the years. I can’t wait.

The following are all things that I have recently caught myself saying out loud.

Even though I’m now a stay-at-home daddy they still make me shudder and wonder what is happening.

1 That’s a quare drying day.

2 Take your shoes off before you go into the good room.

3 This hoover just doesn’t have the same suction as the old one.

4 Rinse that mug out when you’re finished otherwise it’ll stain.

5 Make sure and clean those dishes before you put them into the dishwasher.

6 Close that door and keep the heat in.

7 There’s a quare stretch in the evenings.

8 It won’t be long till Christmas now.

9 Don’t open the new milk until the old carton is done.

10 Is there tea still in the pot?

I’m visiting my dad’s house this morning.

While I’m downstairs having a coffee and a chat I send the wee man upstairs to play with his uncle Giggie and auntie Kirsty.

For a while there’s the usual riot. Laughter, howling, screaming.

Sitting downstairs we can hear the thumps and shakes on the ceiling above us.

The grown-ups chat for some time. Then I realise something is strange.

It’s all quiet. Too quiet. Noise is welcome. Quiet means there’s something to worry about.

I call up ‘What’s going on up there?’

The wee man shouts back, ‘Nothing’.

Strangely I’m not reassured.

I go up to my room. Giggie has introduced him to the computer and he’s happily playing something called Rocket League.

His concentration is fierce and his eyes are dancing with animation. He is waggling his little feet with purpose.

Don’t get me wrong, he’s played computer games before.

But there’s something undeniably grown up about him  now sitting in his big uncle’s chair, holding the controller and staring at the huge screen.

I can’t think of any moment where I’ve seen him look less like the baby I want to remember.

I’m simultaneously a proud daddy with a little tinge of sadness.

It feels like he’s now on a course from which there is no turning back.

He gives me a little nervous glance, looking for assurance.

I tell him. ‘You’re doing just fine buddy, you’re doing just fine.’

​

This is my wee man buzzing around Connolly Station today.

The pictures have obviously been speeded up but it works.

It seems to sum up how I feel running after him all day, dealing with his changes of direction and whim.

The nice Polish woman selling the tickets asked us if we’d come far.

‘Just down from Belfast.’

She smiled to reassure us that we’d come to the right place, rather than falling for the seductive charms of any of the vastly inferior rival tour bus operators. I relaxed a little.

‘How long are you here for?’

‘We’re going home later today.’

This answer seemed to encourage her to tell us about the merits of the 48 hour bus ticket. I listened patiently as she listed all the things it would allow us to do in Dublin tonight. When we wouldn’t be in Dublin.

For a moment I wondered if I should change our departure plans, just so her labour wouldn’t be wasted.

Instead I opted for the 24 hour ticket. In truth all I really wanted was a two hour ticket but that didn’t seem to be on offer today.

Then she asked if we preferred to go on the red line or the blue line.

Huh?

My wife stepped in at this point to take charge. She often does this just at the point when my general social idiocy is about to be exposed. She’s good that way.

Then I paid. I’m originally from Ballymena and as I handed over the money the old Jimmy Young joke was in my mind. ‘I only want a ride on the bus, not to buy the whole thing.’

I didn’t say it though. I’m not sure the charms of Jimmy Young ever made it as far as Poland.

‘The 24 hour ticket will be valid until this time tomorrow,’ the woman told me helpfully.

‘And your time starts now,’ I think she said. At this point I’m imagining the Countdown clock in my head.

We headed to the top deck of the tour bus. After our walking odyssey the day before, carrying a four-year-old around the tourist attractions of the city, I was looking forward to something a little more sedate. At least we would be sitting down.

But seeing that the only available seats were at the back of the bus, my son now decided that he wanted to sit at the front. This immediately thrust him into bad form and was a wound that festered and spouted yucky hissing puss throughout the trip.

I don’t usually give advice but if you are looking for a simple way to see all of Dublin’s rich and varied selection of roadworks then the bus tour is surely the best way to do it.

Also it’s worth going onto the top deck because you are able to see so much more of the top deck of all the other tour busies.

My main problem with any form of tourist attraction is my inability to retain a lot of the information as it is relayed to me. I decide I’m going to try really hard to concentrate this time. I’m not going to let my mind wander.

The bus pulls out and a recorded voice begins the commentary.

‘If you look to your left you will see a magnificent building with a green dome….dah di dah, la, la, la, tweety birds.’

Having a recorded rather than a live guide leads to difficulties with co-ordination. Often the architectural wonder or historical artefact is nowhere to be seen when we are being told about it.

We are informed at one point that there is a statue of Oscar Wilde on our left but when I turn all that is there is a Lidl.

Between the bouts of commentary Bob Marley tracks are played to us. I didn’t even realise Bob Marley was from Dublin. At least I’ve learnt one thing today.

All the time my son is sitting on mummy’s lap seething that we can’t sit at the front of the bus. Of course he has decided this is my fault and scowls at me each time I smile.

Then he tells me he hates the bus and wants to go back to the wax museum. This is the same wax museum that I carried him from kicking and screaming yesterday. Yesterday when he spent hours asking me when we were going on the bus.

A number of passengers get off at the Guinness factory, no doubt attracted be the offer of a free pint of stout.

I spot a free seat at the front and make a dash for it, knocking German tourists flying like skittles.

Mummy carries our boy forward and he sits in my lap, a brilliant panoramic view of the Georgian area of Dublin now visible to us.

I bask in the glory of being a good daddy, not allowing any circumstance or German tourist to stand in the way of what my son wants.

But I need my accomplishment to be validated. To have my son acknowledge what I’ve done.

‘Hey buddy, this is much better now, isn’t it? We can see everything up at the front.’

No answer.

I look down and realise he’s asleep in my lap, his face heavy resting against my stomach.

And so it remains for the rest of the tour.

I don’t know of any city quite like Dublin. Any that is so full of stories, so immersed in its own sense of history.

Soon I begin to worry there just aren’t enough streets to accommodate the names of all the writers, revolutionaries and political giants whose accomplishments need to be commemorated.

My son awakens just as we’re disembarking. We dander around for a bit, stopping for a coffee and a chat. But we’re all pretty much spent and soon it’s time to head for home.

As we’re walking back my son spots a couple of living statues. They are dressed as two old men sitting together on stools, painted black, like dirty iron.

My son becomes more animated than he has all day, insisting on dropping coins into their hat to make them bow, until my last reserves of Euros are drained.

He spends so long staring that in the end one of the men holds his hand out. I expect my shy, sensitive son to back away at this point. Instead he steps forward and gives the painted hand a firm and confident high five.

And so it is over. My son walks away beaming. I lift him and he puts his head on my shoulder as we head back to my car. I can tell he is thrilled with his Dublin experience.

We’re having a family break down in Dublin for a couple of days.

I decided to be bold and undertake the journey in my car.

So we headed off down the A1, across the border, a quick pit stop at the Applegreen and then onwards to one of my favourite cities.

My son doesn’t like long journeys so we decided to play a harmless game of I Spy.

As a method of making the time pass  faster it proved to be spectacularly ineffective.

‘OK son, it’s your go.’

‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with R.’

‘R good. Let’s see, is it road?’

‘No.’

‘Rain?’

‘No.’

‘Uh….Renault?’

‘No.’

‘Um….I don’t know….radio?’

‘No.’

‘I give up, what is it?’

‘Dolphin.’

The time seemed to pass slowly.

Eventually we reached the city. Here my plans started to unravel when the amount of money I had budgeted for the trip was soon spent negotiating the various toll booths.

With a little help from Google Maps we found our guest house which is right beside the Aviva Stadium.

The stadium itself is quite impressive in an upside-down ashtray sort of a way.

A combination of trains and trams brought us into the throbbing cosmopolitan heart of the city.

It was at this point my son decided he’d lost the use of his legs and mummy and I spent most of the rest of the day carrying him around.

We decided a trip to the National Wax Museum might give him a separate focus.

It’s pretty underwhelming as an attraction but my son enjoyed burrowing through the tunnels in the children’s section.

I was just glad to have a few minutes with him off my back (take that literally or metaphorically, whatever works for you), so I sat at the side of a display featuring Superman, Batman and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Just resting.

I’m often accused of being lethargic and I suppose I had found a position which was comfortable.

All I know is that when I turned around there was a mother and her two sons watching me. 

When I stirred the poor woman jumped in the air proclaiming ‘Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, it moves!’

My boy is a sensitive soul so we decided to avoid the horror section. 

Unfortunately the display devoted to the politics of Northern Ireland had much the same effect and sent him running and screaming from the building.

Dutifully we trudged around a few more attractions, mummy and I taking turns with the weight until we wearily gave up and headed to a Greek restaurant for dinner.

One helping of ice-cream reinvigorated our little man and as we arrived back at the guest house exhausted, he found his eighth wind of the day and started to run around excitedly.

As I write this I’m sprawled on the bed, mummy’s on the sofa and our son is doing laps of the room, singing the theme song from Horrid Henry and trying to wrestle me onto the floor.

I like to know that he’s aware that these are special family days; times to be remembered when things are a little bit rougher.

I ask him if he’s had a good time. He shrugs. I ask him what the best part of the day was.

Immediately his face brightens.

‘When we stopped at the service station.’

Tomorrow we’ll do the bus tour.

But for now, it’s bedtime. Mine, not his.