Monsoon

"Oh my GOODNESS!" said the Boy Wonder as we stepped out of the car outside the National Museum, into a total monsoon. "I know!" I said, shrugging up my jacket hood as my wet hair began dripping cold water down the back of my neck. "Good grief!" "Good grief!!" he agreed. "Oh my DAYS!"

Two and three quarters, and he's already got weather conversation nailed.

While discussing what to do with our afternoon we'd given the Boy a free choice of park or museum, and  it's lucky that he chose museum, because if we'd been in the park during this cloudburst we'd probably have wound up swimming. As it was we were merely extremely wet by the time we made it indoors, and after sitting on some pretend lava (made of glowing and slightly warm plastic) for a while to watch a film about volcanoes, B ran pretty much full tilt through the whole of the rest of the Earth exhibition, no doubt warming himself up even more, and drying himself out at least a bit. We then went to the café, where R and I had coffee and shortbread, and B had apple juice, a KitKat, and about a third of each of our biscuits. "Mmmm," he said in appreciation, dissecting the last chunk of chocolate out of my shortbread and handing me back the crumbs. "There you go. Tha's for you."

Bizarrely, the monsoon had moved on and it was now sunny and warm outside, and the Boy announced that he wanted to go to the park. R began explaining that it was now too late to get to the - "No," said B. "I mean the Museum park." R and I looked at each other and shrugged - Cardiff is full of parks, but we weren't aware of one specifically attached to the Museum. I suggested Bute Park, behind the Castle, and we began making our way towards it, but it turned out to be one of those places that never seems to get any closer, however far you walk and however many roads you cross. Instead we wound up in a little garden with a parterre (also apparently dedicated to the 3rd Marquess of Bute because there's a large statue of him among the flower beds), where the Boy invented a fascinating game of collecting fallen begonia flowers from the gravel and posting them into a hole in one of the privet hedges. This kept him completely engaged for about twenty minutes, right up to the moment he realised his hands were muddy, declared an emergency, and demanded to go home so he could wash them.

In other news, Burglar Bill seems to be a hit - although oddly for a child who gets bought small gifts on a regular basis, B seemed a little flummoxed when I first gave it to him. "But why have you bought it?" he said. "Just because I thought you'd like it," I replied, and he suddenly went a bit giddy and pink, as if he didn't know quite how to express what he felt about this. The book then went on the table in the playroom, and sat there admired but unread, as if it had a kind of totemic status, until I finally announced that I was going to read it to Granddad, and picked it up and began. B then rushed over and climbed on the sofa between us, and though it's a longer and more complicated story than anything else I've read to him, he listened intently to the whole thing, and asked lots of questions about the things he didn't immediately understand. Before we went home he asked me to read to him again, which I take as a sign of approval.