Sussex columnist: Scared my children are growing up too quickly and seeing lots of shows in Sussex

​It had come up in her photo memories, and while it was lovely to reminisce about our evening spent with Dr Karl Kennedy, it was also really shocking that it had already been a year since the show.

When you’re a kid a year might as well be an eternity, but the older you get the years sure do seem to start to fly by.

I think that’s what led to me having quite a panicked dream last night about my children growing up too quickly.

I can’t get enough of hugging and kissing my children. Yes, I might moan at them often to get dressed and get ready for school, but I’ll always be there to give them a big sloppy kiss as they head through the school gates. I know it might sound ridiculous, but in my fitful sleep a kind of panic gripped me. That as my children get older, the opportunities to hug and squish them will decrease. There won’t be ready access to their chubby cheeks as they get older and deem themselves too cool to hang out with me. School drop-offs and the hugs and waves that go with them will be replaced with the children walking to school on their own, keen that their mum – almost certainly destined to become the most embarrassing person to walk the earth – not be seen anywhere in public with them.

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At ten and five they won’t be leaving home anytime soon, but realising a year can whizz by that quickly has definitely got me feeling a bit unsettled.

My plan now is to get in maximum hugs in while I can.

And while this is not altogether related, do other people think that the best smell in the world is the top of a baby’s head? I said it to a friend the other day, and they didn’t know what I meant!

Ever since my children have been born, I have been obsessed with smelling their heads. To be honest, I still do it now. There’s just something about their sweet little scent that I can’t get enough of.

It’s not even just my own children. If you have a baby, I will want to sniff their head! Something to do with pheromones, maybe?

Aside from getting myself into a frenzy about time, we’ve had quite a busy week. We went to London on Saturday as my husband’s uncle had kindly bought tickets for us all to see Matilda the Musical.

I absolutely adore musicals, so being able to take my children to see one in the West End was such a treat. Especially as they’re both obsessed with the Netflix film based on the stage show which came out in 2022.

As always happens when I see a show, I got that niggling feeling that perhaps I’d missed my calling to be on the stage. It just looks like such fun up there. Never mind that fact that my husband and family will (cruelly) tell you I can’t sing, I can’t help feeling that just maybe it should have been me up there playing Miss Honey.

Career regret aside, it was so sweet to hear children in the audience singing along to the songs (my son included) they knew and loved.

What I like less about taking children to London is trying to keep them safe. I sound like a country bumpkin who has never been to the big city before, but there’s something about the big smoke that just seems more fraught with danger than little ol’ Worthing (thinking about it, perhaps I was just having a nervous week?!).

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Navigating trains and tubes, huge escalators, large crowds, making sure they don’t get lost… even though a large portion of the day was spent sitting down, I felt quite exhausted by the time we got home.

We also had a delicious meal at Issa Sushi in town. I think I’ve said it before, but I would actually like to have their massaman sauce on tap, somehow.

And I was lucky enough to go and see Sister Act the Musical and Cluedo 2 at the Theatre Royal Brighton, and Diversity at the Brighton Centre.

Perhaps just call me Worthing’s premier patron of the arts?!