I’LL start this week with some unashamed boasting about my child’s achievements. I said I never would but I just can’t help myself.

I am the proud mummy of a Duckling One! Yes , my son, at the tender age of three, has only gone and got himself his first swimming badge.

He has been going to ‘lessons’ for some months now, which generally mean a load of songs and happy clapping games for the kids and the chance for us mums to have a good catch up on the week’s events.

However, last week it got serious with the news that a swimming badge was up for grabs if they mastered a series of challenges.

There may well have been a nudge from mum during the two-metre dash on a woggle, and he was possibly a couple of seconds short when floating on his back for the allotted time but, stewards’ enquiries aside, he came through with flying colours.

I could have burst with pride as the receptionist handed me the certificate and fabric badge that is crying out to be sewn on his little trunks.

His sporting prowess didn’t end there last week, as nursery also staged its sports day event. My blood ran cold as I remembered the shocking egg and spoon display that Ben gave weeks earlier in the garden where he knocked everyone else’s egg off in order to claim glory.

I positively anguished over how he would take certain defeat as some of the kids he knocks around with look at least six and a half compared with his diminutive stature. And I must have delivered scores of ‘it doesn’t matter if you win it’s the taking part that counts’ speeches in the run up to the big day.

Happily, I was pleased to see his win-at-all costs attitude did not come to pass on the sunny afternoon – quite the opposite in fact.

As he limbered up for the obstacle race, I crossed my fingers for a sportsman- like performance.

Far from the focused athlete he was happy to let girls – yes, girls – barge past him and, in fact, stood to the side to let a couple of his mates tackle the slide first.

Gentlemanly yes, but not the sort of thing I expect to see in a sporting arena. I made a mental note to drop the ‘taking part that counts’ speech from my repertoire.