A force of nature

A lovely day with Luca.  We enjoyed our usual running commentary on the morning drive over from Josh and Ruth's house to ours: noting buses, vans of various shapes, colours and sizes, sequences of traffic lights and so on. Luca is very much in that phase of 'why?' questions.  "What's this road called?" he asks. "Sheldon Rd".  "Why?" Short pause on my part, as I consider my options. "Well, each road has its own name, and this one is called Sheldon Rd." He accepts this. Then, "Why are we going on this road?" "Because it's the way to Walkley, where our house is." "Why...?" "Well, there are different parts of Sheffield; our part is called Walkley, and your part is called Heeley..."  I love all this.

Then we had good times in the morning, especially in the park, where Luca raced around the basketball court on his balance bike.  Beans on toast for lunch, and an energetic game of hide and seek in the house. After this we both needed a breather, and subsided onto the sofa for a while, watching the BBC's 'Hey Duggee' (the nearest thing I've found to the Magic Roundabout of years gone by, though lacking the hippy vibe).
It all unravelled a bit in the late afternoon, when Luca fell asleep in the car on the way over to Josh and Ruth's. He was furious with me when I had to wake him up, once we arrived; these days, he doesn't usually have a daytime nap, and late naps can mean a difficult bedtime. So there were a few tearful  iterations of 'Go 'way Nana' before Ruth arrived to offer a calming hug. After which all was well again.