Me:Â Look, all the people in the cafe are mothers and daughters.
Her: Well, everybody is somebody’s child.
Me: True.
Her: Except God, of course.
Me: Well, no, Mary was God’s mother.
Her: I didn’t realise that Jesus and God were brothers.
Me (anxiously though, you know, quite pleased as well that she’s getting the hang of family relationships – I have drawn family trees on the back of envelopes to show her how third cousins work, degrees of cousinship is such a useful thing to know and it’s a bit like public procurement or state aids, so few people know anything about it that even showing a little knowledge is enough to gain you much admiration): No, um, actually, you know, I might be wrong there, I think God is actually Jesus’s father, though of course the Trinity is one of those theological mysteries which are, um, mysterious.
Her: Can I have lemon tart?
