You wouldn’t think that the scrubbing and stripping of a wooden deck could mark a major rite of passage.

But today a very proud boy, who is after all nearly four and therefore in no need of a regency in matters of garden maintenance, passed into full manhood when his Daddy allowed him the holy grail of toddlerdom, the left-hand cockpit seat, the keys to the city of adulthood, the conn of the liner of family life…the trigger of the pressure washer.

The face says it all.