Sodor Disaster

One of the things which most little boys seem to have in common is a love of trains, and in particular Thomas the Tank Engine and his annoying little friends. I have written about this at length before!

One of the first things little boys learn through the Thomas the Tank Engine stories is that railways are inherently unsafe. Sodor is a place of landslides, collapsed mine-shafts and condemned bridges. Disaster lurks around every bend in the tracks...it *should* terrify them but they love it and spend hours re-enacting the stories and in Noah's case, piling on even more carnage.

He has a thing for accidents where the vehicles fall into water. No idea where that one has come from but be it cars, trains, planes or helicopters, they all end up up submerged. "He's fallen in the water!" he chirps, like little Jim from Round the Horne...over and over and over again...twitch...

Here you can see Spencer, demonstrating exactly what happens to an express train when it runs out of track at the top of a hill. Altogether now..."He's fallen in the water..."


H went on a 'whole school' trip to the panto today.

I sent in the permission form last week. The form had two sides. The first side sensibly had contact details in case of emergency, what year he's in at school etc and a space for a signature. The second side said at the top "If needed for a group passport..." then things like 'Can the child swim fifty metres and details of vaccinations etc. So I filled in the GP details at the bottom but not the rest. The form was sent back because I didn't fill in all of side two. In the end I wrote 'yes he can swim 50 metres...so if the ferry to Milton Keynes sinks you should be fine'. And 'Yes he sleepwalks, so if the panto is a boring one you might have to watch him in case he wanders off!'

Fortunately H's form teacher Miss W. has a sense of humour, and I suspect she needed every ounce of it today, spending several hours in the company of half-a-dozen coach-loads of over-excited primary-age children.

H was shattered this evening but he'd definitely enjoyed himself. He wanted peace and quiet after all the noise though, so sloped off to his room to make things with Meccano. I suspect Miss W. is doing the grown-up equivalent...lying in a deep bath, clutching a glass of wine and rejoicing in the fact she doesn't have to do it again for a whole year!

Just read this back and realised how well I can waffle for England about nothing very much really. This journal is a rather terrifying insight into what goes on (or doesn't) inside my head isn't it?