I will endeavour to catch up this evening when the cottage goes quiet and still after the final dog walk of the day and after every soaked animal has been locked up safely for the night.
Last night Chris' brother, sister in law and nephew arrived for dinner.
The dogs braced themselves for the hug- fest that was Leo, and after a somewhat convoluted bedding in introduction boy and dogs ended up all together on the kitchen sofa , where Leo read them all passages from his Scooby-doo annual.
My experience with children is , as you would expect, rather limited. What I have learnt is that kids will find interest, enjoyment and humour in their own things....things that are often miles away from anything an adult could suggest and offer them........
Mind you toilet humour is always a good starting point when kids need their imaginations pricked....they love bottom jokes!
As a child our Liverpudlian grandparents would tell us amazing stories about the war. The May Blitz in 1941 caused over 2,800 casualties and flattened much of the city .. but all we children wanted to hear is the story where my gran was "blown off the loo" in the School Shelter during the December Blitz
We were told of the dreadful loss of life in the Durning Road tragedy, where an Edge Hill public shelter suffered a direct hit and 166 people died, but again all we wanted to hear was how My Uncle Jim, who was then around ten years old was rushed to a shelter in a pair of ladies high heel shoes and a chenille curtain when the munitions train exploded!
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| The wreckage of the Louisa Street Shelter |
The story of how my great grandfather died was a very different and sobering story for we children to listen to, for he was killed in the Louisa Street bombing of October 1940., a bombing raid that very nearly killed my grandmother, mother and uncle who were racing towards the shelter that suffered a direct hit at the time.
My grandmother recalled stopping in the road, as the bombs were falling, not knowing whether to run to the Louisa street shelter , where her in laws were taking refuge, or to take the chance to run to the local school which had a reinforced room in which they could hide.
They ran to the school, at the same time as eight people including her father in law, James Samuel Fry was killed in the Louisa Street bombing, a bombing that precipitated the family's flight out of the Liverpool to Wales.
This story always received the goggle-eyed respect and solemnity from her grandchildren that it deserved, and it proved to be a valuable parable and first exploration into the subjects of death for children who had previously had no experience of it...
Having said all that....... the story of how Gran got blasted across the floor with her bloomers around her ankles, still remains a firm favourite of mine even at 50!
Who said it is only kids that love a good botty joke.
