I AM back. It is four weeks since my words last graced this outside leg of the paper.

You probably won't have noticed my absence because I've spent the last four weeks being completely overlooked.

We've had a baby. Our second. Admittedly, my part in this was - quite literally - only small.

But every time I ventured out of the house, I was besieged by questions: how's your wife, how's your baby boy, how's your elder daughter? Not a single one about how I was coping, sleeping in the attic with the cobwebs and the rubbish, an eight pound weakling having evicted me from my rightful place in the matrimonial bed.

Then I was weighed down with presents: flowers for your wife, clothes for your baby boy, colourful pieces of plastic for your elder daughter. All were gratefully received. But not one for me, not even a can of cheap lager to keep me entertained as I crept as quiet and as insignificant as a mouse around the house, desperately trying to avoid the floorboards I should have screwed down properly years ago.

Not so much dad at large, but dad feeling rather small.

THROUGH all this hardship, one news story has kept me sustained. Pushing the pram around the block at midnight with the monster screaming inside and the rain squalling in my face, one story has kept me giggling.

It concerns the Dean of Durham who is retiring to Canterbury Cathedral to become a "supporting clergyman". I have visions of him sitting in his pew in his long-flowing cassock, and as the bishop solemnly processes down the aisle, he jumps up, waves his scarf over his head and starts supporting the clergymen in the way the crowd at the Stadium of Light or St James' Park supports the footballers.

"You only sing when you're hymning", he could chant; "Come and have a go if you think you're holy enough". Or, as the Newcastle fans sing when their goalkeeper pulls off a miraculous save: "Hey Jesus, oo-ah, I wanna know how you save those souls."

FIREWORKS have had their customary bad press this week. Animal-lovers complain about the effect on their pets, neighbourhoods have sounded more like Beirut or Baghdad than Bishop Auckland, and firemen and hospitals have been stretched by the emergencies.

But walking through Darlington town centre just after eight on Bonfire Night, my heart gave a little leap of joy. The streets echoed with a joyous fusillade and the skies exploded in a beautiful riot of colour. Practically everyone of those explosions represented a family or a group of friends who had torn themselves away from television tosh like EastEnders to go out into the garden and share in an experience.

And then my warm thoughts turned to jealousy. For at the weekend I'd bought a big box of fireworks because this year, at long last, I could reasonably force my daughter into being old enough to enjoy them.

But after two Roman candles, she announced: "Fireworks are boring. I'm going in to help with the baby." And off she went. There is no greater feeling of insignificance than a dad in a dark garden, holding a lit taper, and with enough gunpowder to topple Saddam Hussein - but no one to say "ooh" and "aah" for him.