Categories: uncategorized
Date: 29 July 2006 12:04:54
The week with Smudgelet has come about mainly because of a brilliant activity programme for Year 8 children moving to high school, as part of which we have shipped Tiddles off every day to a workshop where he has learned basic car maintenance (oh dear, oh dear..... no, you are NOT going to practise on the Kangoo, even if you do now know how to check and adjust the brakes!!!) and has built a motorised go-kart. It's been a great experience for him, not least because I've sent him off on the bus each day and left him to come home independently. I feel those apron strings a-fraying!
Meanwhile Smudgelet and I spent a fun-filled quiet afternoon while grandad slept busily constructing a model aeroplane. Even I was quite impressed with the results! Mind you, it was quite a fiddly business and we both got rather.. er... stuck into it! Good job it was Bostik and not superglue! Smudgelet was delighted because Grandad saw it as he came into the room and immediately identified it as a Fokker D-VII. Sometimes there's a bit of communication difficulty between my oldest and youngest menfolk but within minutes Grandad was sharing stories about the way warplanes were built and Smudgelet was soaking it all in.
Then we got chance for a day on the beach, just him and me. A real treat, as far as he was concerned (though I was a little wary of the fact that this would mean my lying in the sun time would be replaced with playing in the sand time!) It was lovely. We went to Sandown - his choice, but a good one as it turned out. He swam the Channel to France to fetch me some croissants, and then dug to Australia but, as there was nobody awake there he decided to come home again.
I offered to make my way over to the beach cafe for drinks and set off across the sand. What a mistake! As I took each successive step, the sand got hotter and hotter. It was like walking over burning coals. Hot Hot Hot! I tried bravely to persevere, but eventually found myself exactly half way between the cafe and our deckchairs and unable to take another step. I leapt into the shade of another family's parasol and gestured madly at the playing Smudgelet to attract his attention. All in vain. I had to shout. To the general amusement of that entire section of the beach there then ensued an episode of a mummy shouting "Smudgelet, can you bring me my sandals!!!" and a malicious little so and so replying "What was that mummy? I can't quite hear you?" and "Did you say please?" before eventually remembering it was him I was getting the drink for and so rushing to the rescue... while staying well out of range!
He got his comeuppance - while sitting on the deckchair to desand and dry his feet, the deckchair suddenly tipped forwards and there he was, trapped, feet buried deep in the soft boiling sand to left and right, chair on top of him and no way of escape ... totally at the mercy of his mother whose replies of "What was that Smudgelet, I can't quite hear you, did you say please?" were rather obscured by the fact that she was too busy giggling hysterically!