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caddymanBack in the office to find that all has been madness in my absence. Who cares? I wasn't here.
Having just spent the week in the company of two of the three of my sister's offspring plus a cousin thereof (I'm sure there is a group word for nephews and nieces, but it escapes me if ever I knew it), I have been struck by just how little it takes to keep the blighters happily occupied, and just how powerless adults are to do this for them. Essentially they need the company of someone approximately their own age. Obvious, but not always achievable. Anyway, by bringing along a six year old cousin, we managed to entertain the seven year old niece. Surly fourteen year old nephew was less lucky, and managed to display a quite remarkable lack of imagination in keeping himself amused.
I remain in awe of those who make their livings successfully entertaining children, both from their endeavours in and of them selves, and because of the humiliation these people will put themselves through in the name of their calling.
I remember when the eldest was born, I nurtured the find hope that as only, and therefore favourite uncle, I would be the one to provide the kids with the one toy they always remembered fondly in later years. Everyone has one, I think, and it is usually a teddy bear or similar stuffed toy.
Anyway, in my hopeful ignorance, I bought my eldest niece, now on the verge of her eighteenth, a rather large Mickey Mouse in the mistaken belief that all kids liked Mickey Mouse. They don't. In fact, it's probably only a small minority who do; the world of Disney is built upon a corporate lie (as if that's news of any sort). I doubt H even remembers the damned thing, and certainly no-one knows its current whereabouts. My mistake, move on.
Of course, when Tom was born I tried again. I forget what he ended up with, but its fate was not dissimilar to that of Mickey. I doubt that we still have it around anywhere, after a number of house moves.
Anyway, I thought that was that. Two kids, two toy failures.
And then, unexpectedly, a reprieve. Ten years younger than H, the youngest, Sarah-Lou came along - one last chance to fulfil the ambition of providing the perfect toy.
This time I bided my time and waited. I would hold off until she was old enough to show some kind of preference, and accordingly, sometime around her second birthday, it became quite clear that her toddler brain was besotted by the Telly Tubbies, particularly La-la, the yellow one.
So, Uncle Bry purchased a large talking La-la for the youngest niece, and she took to it like a duck to water. In her own toddlerish way, she loved it and hugged it and called it George. I accounted myself satisfied with the result and ticked off a minor ambition as fulfilled.
Until a couple of months later when I happened upon this same child cheerfully burying La-la in the sand pit in the back garden, in what would, I surmise, have been an unmarked grave had I not happened by.
Kids are a mystery to me.
In other news, I appear to be developing Woodbine fingers since moving almost exclusively to smoking roll-ups. Time, perhaps, to buy a whippet and a flat cap and hail people with a cheery "Now then."
Having just spent the week in the company of two of the three of my sister's offspring plus a cousin thereof (I'm sure there is a group word for nephews and nieces, but it escapes me if ever I knew it), I have been struck by just how little it takes to keep the blighters happily occupied, and just how powerless adults are to do this for them. Essentially they need the company of someone approximately their own age. Obvious, but not always achievable. Anyway, by bringing along a six year old cousin, we managed to entertain the seven year old niece. Surly fourteen year old nephew was less lucky, and managed to display a quite remarkable lack of imagination in keeping himself amused.
I remain in awe of those who make their livings successfully entertaining children, both from their endeavours in and of them selves, and because of the humiliation these people will put themselves through in the name of their calling.
I remember when the eldest was born, I nurtured the find hope that as only, and therefore favourite uncle, I would be the one to provide the kids with the one toy they always remembered fondly in later years. Everyone has one, I think, and it is usually a teddy bear or similar stuffed toy.
Anyway, in my hopeful ignorance, I bought my eldest niece, now on the verge of her eighteenth, a rather large Mickey Mouse in the mistaken belief that all kids liked Mickey Mouse. They don't. In fact, it's probably only a small minority who do; the world of Disney is built upon a corporate lie (as if that's news of any sort). I doubt H even remembers the damned thing, and certainly no-one knows its current whereabouts. My mistake, move on.
Of course, when Tom was born I tried again. I forget what he ended up with, but its fate was not dissimilar to that of Mickey. I doubt that we still have it around anywhere, after a number of house moves.
Anyway, I thought that was that. Two kids, two toy failures.
And then, unexpectedly, a reprieve. Ten years younger than H, the youngest, Sarah-Lou came along - one last chance to fulfil the ambition of providing the perfect toy.
This time I bided my time and waited. I would hold off until she was old enough to show some kind of preference, and accordingly, sometime around her second birthday, it became quite clear that her toddler brain was besotted by the Telly Tubbies, particularly La-la, the yellow one.
So, Uncle Bry purchased a large talking La-la for the youngest niece, and she took to it like a duck to water. In her own toddlerish way, she loved it and hugged it and called it George. I accounted myself satisfied with the result and ticked off a minor ambition as fulfilled.
Until a couple of months later when I happened upon this same child cheerfully burying La-la in the sand pit in the back garden, in what would, I surmise, have been an unmarked grave had I not happened by.
Kids are a mystery to me.
In other news, I appear to be developing Woodbine fingers since moving almost exclusively to smoking roll-ups. Time, perhaps, to buy a whippet and a flat cap and hail people with a cheery "Now then."