I was supposed to be chasing the Boy Wonder along Henley Street when I stopped to take this photo, and when he realised that I wasn’t following him I received a definite telling-off. We were on our way from BTP, where we’d had brunch, down through town to the Bancroft Gardens quay for bird feeding, and en route the Boy made up increasingly complex games, involving getting to a certain point in the street either first or last, while either treading on or avoiding the paving stone cracks. All you really need to know is: it was virtually impossible for anyone other than him to be judged the winner, even when following what they believed to be the current set of rules. Anyone who knows either R or me will be shaking their heads in bemusement at this point, and wondering where on earth the child can have inherited this competitive streak from.
Ahem.
Anyway, we made it to the river in the end, fed the birds, then set off back through the Gardens, where a man with a push cart was creating the most humongous bubbles from some long hinged bubble wands he was selling. The Boy was entranced. “Please can I have one?” he said. “Pleeease?? I love bubbles!” As it was no more than half an hour since we’d explained to him that it was quite annoying to be constantly asked to buy things, R and I hesitated, semaphoring messages to each other with our eyebrows, until I spotted the perfect way of not having to backtrack: “Talk to your Granddad,” I said, “and see if you can persuade him.” R grinned, said “I love bubbles as well,” and went off to the cart with the Boy in hot pursuit. The seller demonstrated the best technique, and promised that we could go and see him to have the wand topped up with mixture whenever we wanted, and then the Boy was away, making bubbles of his own. Five minutes later R announced that this was probably the best £4 he’d ever spent, and I found it hard to disagree.
This afternoon we went to the Regal Cinema in Evesham (“Why are we going to a cinema that’s further away,” Master Logical asked R as they walked past the Everyman in the middle of Stratford, “instead of just coming here?”) to see The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which I surprised myself by quite enjoying. The Boy thought it was excellent, though in places it was quite scary, and part way through he got out of his own seat and came and sat on my knee for the rest of the showing. By the time we emerged it was early evening, so we went straight home for dinner, bath stories, and bed. “Did you have an OK day?” I asked, as I was tucking him in. “Yes, I did,” he replied. “I loved it.”
Job done.
R: L2, C7, D21.
