I only have a 16 year old girl - so I think I've probably got it easy. Seems a bit of an emotional rollacoaster at the moment - and that's just me. You know - is she too close to the boyfriend, is she doing her revision, is she doing too much revision, is she relaxed about the exams, is she really worried and just not telling me, is she eating too little, is she eating too much and so on.

Then every now and then we get rays of sunshine when she seems really happy, we joke as a family and talk intelligently and I think now I have a young woman.

As for thrash metal - I think it's largely series of power cords played repetively. It has to be played loudly as you need to feel it with your body - not necessarily hear it. Tim took Cat and her boyfriend down to a large concert last Saturday. She says that she will never go to a concert with her father again. Why? because he got badly sunburnt and she had to look after him!!!

Back to teenage boys. I remember when I went to university I had little brothers when I came back they were both over 6 foot so beware of the growth spurts. At the time my mother had to hide food in places such as the washing machine to have any chance of having some left at the end of the week.

All the best Morticia

Julie