More fun time with my granddaughter Catrin
Earlier this week, the Labour Party held its annual conference in Manchester and both parents of my granddaughter Catrin were attending parts of the event, so we looked after her for a couple of nights and a couple of days. We had lots of fun together and, as always, she was so chatty and funny.
We drove over to the Bekonscot model village in Beaconsfield. This is a delightful location which has been open since 1929. We’ve taken various children there over the years, including Catrin’s daddy when he was a little boy and Catrin herself almost two years ago [see account here]. She is now so much taller and was able to look down on the model buildings and features and enjoy even more the rides and the playground.
Catrin looks like a model herself
Catrin makes a friend of Noddy
The Three Stooges:
giant teddy, little Catrin and old granddad
That afternoon, we took Catrin to see a film which is now something of a regular feature. This time, it was an animated movie called “The Boxtrolls” [my review here]. She knows all about trolls from “Frozen” and other stories and these are very cleverly represented through stop-motion capture. It’s a little bit scary for young ones though, so Catrin held on to my hand most of the film and sat on my lap for the final third. During the credits, she went to the front of the cinema to dance to the music.
Next day, I took Catrin to one of London’s museums at South Kensington. Catrin has been to them all before but we’ve never managed to see the dinosaur gallery at the Natural History Museum because it has always been so crowded in the holiday season. This time, we were able to have a good look round and all went well until we came across a real dinosaur.
When I’d finished taking some photographs, I realised that Catrin had disappeared and that the dinosaur had gobbled her up. But I attacked him with great ferocity before he could swallow her and rescued her. I think it was a T-Rex but I had no opportunity to check out the type of dinosaur. Once I’d rescued Catrin, we had to run – to the museum shop to buy her a dinosaur egg which at her home was placed In warm water and revealed her own baby dinosaur.
Throughout her time with us, Catrin was just so good – no tears, no tantrums, always obedient – and so much fun. We played lots of games and had so many chases and tickles. She is a credit to her wonderful parents. The only problem was night times – she woke in the night both times and needed attention and she was up early both mornings wanting a play companion. So I had much less sleep than I need and the night after she went home I slept almost 12 hours.