These stories were published as Many Happy Returns more than twenty years ago, and they're now out of print. Reading them again, they seem very safe and cosy. When I wrote them, I was married with a baby and two older children. I wrote the kind of stories I liked reading them at bedtime: safe, funny, only mildly startling. I poke fun at parents like myself and touch on some of the things I find funny about family life. I wouldn't write like that now: the world is darker and more dangerous than most of these stories express. (It always was, but I had other things to think about then.) The exception is 'The Name is Billy Molloy', which deals obliquely with cruelty and injustice, not to mention nervous breakdown - albeit in the past, and at
a safe distance.
  Cosy stories about nothing in particular aren't much in fashion today, but
if you want to download one and read it, I don't think it will keep you awake. You may, indeed, fall asleep before you finish. . . I hope not, though.
  In order to download a story, just sign in (or, if you're a new user, sign
up). Click the link on the Sign In page and go to short story downloads. That's it.