Close Encounters

Close encounters of the wildlife kind can be exciting. Just ask Granny and Grandad who were with us for this:

Alternatively, they can be rather uncomfortable...literally...such as this:

This is a close up of the lining of the inside wall of my right trainer.

I tried to put it on this morning and couldn't think how the lining had got so old and rumpled overnight. Taking it off, I noticed a hole, and when I tried to squeeze whatever was inside back out again, this fellow appeared.

Here's a better look at him, post-extraction, and before we returned him to his natural habitat:

On a completely unrelated note, we arrived out here with 5 or 6 matchbox sized cars, and now the car basket is full to overflowing. Where did they all come from?

The Mancub is feeling much better from his weekend bug. He is also still as vehicle-mad as ever. He can see a traintrack in a piano keyboard or a solitaire board. Our sofa is a near-permanent car-park. At one point he abandoned fluffy toys in the cot and had to sleep with a car in each hand. He still asks for the toy grey jeep which we owned for about 3 weeks before losing it, about 5 months ago. Slightly more distressing is the fact that his bed-time phobias now seem to include vehicles. Fear has been a recent development and Kitty has taught him how to say "Mancub scared..." It's been followed by, predictably, "dark", sensibly "car" (when walking along the road), but now we have a bedtime phobia. It's not the bogey man, it's not monsters under the cot. Each time he is put down to sleep he declares "not want big plane come close Mancub!" "not want it come in cot!!" and we have to reassure him that there is no big plane coming to get him. Where has this come from??

And just to end, a pirate in the living room.