Out on The Drags

Robbie had persuaded me to give him a day off on Saturday, he wanted to do what he calls 'the drags' which from what I understand involves travelling backwards and forwards on trains all day. On summer Saturdays Greater Anglia run holiday maker trains which allow people to travel from London to Great Yarmouth on a through train. They are called drags because there are no wires between Norwich and Gt Yarmouth so the diesel loco has to pull the train from Norwich. It takes Robbie all day because he likes to get full value from his Rover ticket. Yesterday we had to get up at 6am in order to get him to the station on time, but his legs let him down and he got back much earlier than planned. His pain level has been really bad recently, I hope it will ease off soon because we are running out of options in terms of pain management.

I had a lovely day, the weather was perfect and I had plenty of time to enjoy the beach. I went to Mundesley at lunch time, it was a very enjoyable couple of hours, it was such a lovely day. I also had time to have a nice long chat with 'the other Mrs Jones' I have missed her very much while we have been away.

Changed dimensions

Robbie has bought a new mug, and he spent most of Saturday evening holding out his mug for me to admire. It is a very nice mug (it should be at the price he paid for it!) but I can't get excited about a mug. On Sunday morning he sat down next to me to have a serious chat, he said he had measured the capacity of the new mug and as it takes more coffee he will require more sweeteners. He now requires two and a half sweeteners! I will not repeat my response in detail but I left him in no doubt that I have better things to do with my life than cutting sweeteners in half!!

Living Dangerously

I often go to bed before Robbie, partly because I need my sleep and partly because I prefer to listen to the radio rather than watch some of the scary stuff that he likes to watch on television. This works quite well for both of us but there is just one problem - Robbie! He doesn't understand the meaning of the word quiet and he always manages to wake me up when he comes to bed. He then falls asleep as soon as head hits the pillow leaving me wide awake unable to get back to sleep and fighting to hang on to the duvet.

On Monday night he decided to take things a step further. He wasn't quite ready for bed but he decided to come upstairs for a chat. He wasn't put off when he found that I was asleep, he just kept asking if I was awake until I woke up. So what was so important that he needed to wake me up at 1.30am? It certainly wasn't something that could be classed as an emergency even in 'Robbie world'. He wanted to inform me that the cat was suffering from flatulence! I told him loud and clear to 'go away' but I wasn't going to escape that easily. He went into great detail about the exact nature of the smell, then he started rambling on about possibly changing the cat's diet. By then I was ready to harm him and he made a hasty retreat.

The next day I asked him why he woke me up and he said he didn't think I was deeply asleep because I wasn't snoring - I give up!!

“You’d better tell His Majesty that many people nowadays like marmalade instead.” A A Milne

Sunday mornings are special, but this week I was not best pleased with Robbie when I woke up on Sunday morning because he had woken me up at 3am when he came to bed. Does he seriously think that I want to chat at that time in the morning? He always knows how to get around me, very sensibly he didn't try to make excuses he just apologised and then plodded off to make me a cup of tea. 

When he came back to bed he cuddled up next to me, looked me in the eyes and said that he had something to tell me. I wondered what he could possibly want to say, he looked very serious, then he announced that he had run out of marmalade! I told him that this wasn't the moment to be talking about marmalade, but he just gave me that lost little boy look that he does so well. Then he snuggled up closer and told me to make sure that I choose thick cut Golden Shred when I buy his next pot of marmalade. Sometimes words fail me!


The title for this post comes from the poem The King's  Breakfast by A A Milne.

The Differences Between Men and Women

I met a really nice man a couple of weeks ago. We had an interesting chat about all sorts of things including trains. He observed that men tend to obsess about things and women tend to obsess about people. That made a lot of sense to me because Robbie notices things such as minor changes if product packaging, bus numbers, car numbers, the design of post poxes and lamp posts, that sort of thing. I hardly ever notice those things, but I notice if someone is wearing odd socks, looks sad, or seems worried, things that Robbie  would probably not notice. 


Yesterday I received further confirmation that men and women have a different way of looking at things. My son announced to me that his English homework had been to consider gender stereotypes and to analyse the way that Robbie and I use language, then to present his observations to the class. Apparently is caused his teacher considerable amusement when he told the class that I'd told him that men almost always consider their cars (and trains) to be female, but I know for sure that my car is male because it is unreliable and expensive to maintain! He went on to tell the class that our use of language indicated that Robbie is submissive and I am dominant because I use imperatives and Robbie uses tactics such as hedging, fillers and hesitation in response. I have to admit that it feels a bit creepy to think that our use of language gives away so much about us (assuming his observations are accurate) we will have to be more cautious in future!