I am at the airport on the first leg of my Jamaica trip. There is a mad woman next to me muttering to herself about her passport and where she might have put it. What is it about travelling that turns people into lunatics? For all I know she might be perfectly normal in her home surroundings, but right now I’m tempted to call in the men in white coats.
Yesterday little Leo had a big day. In the morning he had school, once home we played in the garden, then he was forced to play mummy and baby with Bea. Bea is a far stricter mother than I am, so Leo was subjected to severe tellings off and not allowed to breathe without permission. He also had to carry Bea’s other “baby” around for most of the afternoon until Bea decided it should learn to swim and dumped it in the pool.
We baked a chocolate cake and took it to the river to eat it. Leo’s girlfriend Astrid showed up and so Bea lost her baby. Astrid and Leo are so sweet together, padding about, holding hands and whenever she can she steals a kiss. We spent the rest of the day by the pool where Leo did belly flops (rather sweetly called Angel jumps in French) from the little pool to the big pool to impress Astrid.
At 8pm he was exhausted. He collapsed into bed, weeping with tiredness.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
“Oh Spiderman,” he wailed, tears pouring down his face. “I love you so much.”
There’s no accounting for taste.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007