Thomas

G has been through a few favourite TV characters recently. She's had a long-standing interest in In The Night Garden, and was also obsessed for a time with The Adventures of Abney and Teal. But after a weekend away at a wedding, all it took was a small new toy for her to change her affections to a rather older favourite, Thomas the Tank Engine.

G's grandad got her a little battery-powered Thomas to go on her wooden railway set. And the picture shows what she then spent the greater part of the weekend doing. Round and round the track he went, until we rebuilt the track to put some more tunnels in, then round and round he went again. His battery eventually ran out, so I think I'm going to have to stock up on plenty of them to get through the next few weeks.

She's always enjoyed playing with trains, but the Thomas toy may well have taken this to a new level of fascination. On getting home last night, we let her watch a bit of TV as a reward for a well-behaved car journey. "I want to watch Thomas!" she said, excitedly. Our TV's on demand section has a whole load of them, so we're in luck as far as that's concerned. Although it's all the new series, so within two minutes of watching one episode I realised I have no idea who half the characters are. There's even a Thin Controller now, presumably to encourage the Fat Controller to attend his Weight Watchers meetings.

As it finished, G said: "I want to watch Thomas again!" I'm going to have to get used to that, for a while at least.