A first · Saturday March 31, 2007 by Lily
On Friday, someone kindly offered 2 tickets for the Ideal Home Show on our local Freecycle. After discussing it with the men, I expressed an interest and was fortunate to be given them.
Ds decided, very excitedly, that he’d like to try travelling round a small specific area in London on his own whilst we went into the show, starting by taking the underground to Knightsbridge and then using his Oyster card on the buses.
We set off early to London. I should mention about all our train travel. Dh is retired but he worked for 45 years for the railway and so we have passes that enable us to get about at free or reduced cost. Actually, dh started work 6 weeks after he was 15, on an engineering apprenticeship. My own father started work at just 14, he supported his whole family as his father died young. How things change. The government in their wisdom are raising the school leaving age. My dad started in a colliery office as a lowly office boy and was Managing Director of a major company when he retired. Hmm, it’s easy to take these things for granted but I could gain some useful insight there with his grandson.
When we arrived in London, Rupert was keen to go. We bought the underground ticket and off he shot with, I hoped, the cautionary notes about standing clear of the platform/pavement edge, using toilets safely, stranger danger etc…all that mother hen stuff at the forefront of his brain. I fleetingly thought of the children now travelling round London in stab-proof vests and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, not well received!
We went to the show that was not really as good as I’d imagined. We certainly wouldn’t bother again. Dh got a bit bored, so about 1.30 he actually went off and joined ds, (I was told after that he doesn’t walk fast enough, so I guess ds now has the get around on his own bug.) Dh also went to buy the Eurostar tickets for Rupert to go to France mid April.
We returned home and watched the new Doctor Who and Casualty that R had recorded. He doesn’t watch a lot of TV. There was a time when we had wall to wall Simpson’s and he learned a great deal from the programmes. Now he only really watches The Bill, Casualty, Doctor Who, Life on Mars, Top Gear and Torchwood and Robin Hood when they were on. He listens to Radio One. He reads the local weekly newspaper.
Praps i should mention PC games and games machines. R has an XBOX that he only plays car racing games on (his choice), he did have XBOX live but didn’t want the sub renewing. He has a Gameboy but never uses it, and he never plays PC games, though I’ve bought the big, new popular favourites from time to time.This is all his own choice. When a new machine comes out I ask whether he’d like it and he always declines. Our older son was the opposite, he loved his PC games.
R still always asks for Lego for his birthday/Christmas. He has Lego that goes back over 30 years from his brother and we collect a lot from charity shops and Freecycle.
So where was I? Oh yes, ds now has conjunctivitis so we found some old drops, not good I know, but the best we could do at short notice. Why do these things always happen at the weekend? I see a trip to the Drs looming on Monday, with some reluctance, as he’s arranged to meet a friend at 9.30am as it’s her school Easter holiday now.
WHERE did that term go?
