Well I made it to the Children's Parade yesterday morning, though I'm not sure quite everyone understood the word 'children'...


... unless they were from a special school for kids with premature aging disorders.

But still, at least they were easy to spot, which is more than can be said for Lisa's nephews. The theme of this year's parade was 'Inventors & Inventions', so with that very much in mind, their school had told them to dress up as... um... a brass band. I'm sure it made sense at the planning stage. Armed with this knowledge, I was naturally confident of spotting them, especially when I turned up outside the Theatre Royal (five minutes late) and found that each group was carrying a banner featuring the name of their school. Apart, that is, from the group of adults dressed as matches, who seemed to have forgotten theirs. No wonder they were red-faced.

Anyhoo, the good thing about children is that they don't walk very fast, so having failed to spot Lisa's nephews through the crowds of illegal street sellers hawking coloured fluffy things (kids will buy anything), I had time to cut through the Pavilion Gardens and make it out into North Street before they came past again. This time I successfully located the right school, saw a lot of papier-mâché wind instruments and a teacher dressed as a tuba, but somehow missed seeing anyone I knew.

No matter. With the three-year-olds flagging past Gap Kids, I had ample time to make my way across the Old Steine to the pier, where I secured a prime vantage point (ie. stood in the road) as the parade entered Madeira Drive. Despite standing about three feet from a procession of kids who by now were travelling at about half a mile an hour, and being close enough to get a whiff of Colgate from a child dressed as a toothbrush, Lisa's nephews were nowhere to be seen. So having given myself three goes, I decided they must be off sick that day, and reluctantly made my way back along the seafront towards home.

At which point I caught up with the parade and saw Lisa's sister approaching the finish line hand-in-hand with her son, who was dressed as a brass band member in the kind of colours which would be visible from space. There is no way they were there on the rest of the route. I'm convinced they hid in the toilets and just nipped out for the last hundred yards.