Day At The Beach

We took advantage of another sunny weekend by going to the beach yesterday. Blackpool is less than an hour from where we live, although we opted for the rather gentler option of Lytham St Annes down the coast instead.

I last visited when I went on holiday there as a child, I think when I was eight or so. From what I could recall not much has really changed, except the fading seaside grandeur of the place has faded considerably more.

The beach is still pretty great though. G wanted to make sandcastles so we invested in a bucket-and-spade from one of the kiosks (she picked a Thomas one, obviously). The sand was a bit too dry on top, and we had to dig down to find some slightly damp sand so her sandcastles could maintain a bit of structural integrity. We also had lunch on the pier followed by ice creams, then I bought a stick of rock, so our day out was basically the complete seaside experience. Couldn't find anywhere selling rollmops though, so might have to try Blackpool itself next time.

The jumper G is wearing in the picture betrays the fact that despite the beautiful sunshine and cloudless sky, the sea breeze meant it was actually a bit chilly at times. In true British seaside style, next time we go I'll be taking a windbreak.

Ugly Duckling

As G has grown up a bit, her TV loyalties have switched from wholesome favourite CBeebies to the slightly brasher fayre of Nick Jr. This is mainly because it's where she can watch Peppa Pig and Thomas the Tank Engine. Those shows are also available on Channel 5's on-demand service, which has led to our family becoming possibly the biggest users of Demand 5 in the country.

But she can still be tempted back to Auntie for the odd programme, in particular the recent Ugly Duckling special with the Northern Ballet. I say 'recent' - it was on at Easter and we must have watched it most evenings since.

G often likes to show off her ballet moves in the living room, but since she discovered the Ugly Duckling this has become an almost nightly ritual. The picture shows her in full swan mode.

Sunny Bank Holiday Weekend

We had beautiful weather for the holiday weekend. But although we spent most of it out in the open, I started on Friday by taking G to the National Football Museum at the Urbis. She's a little bit bigger than the last time I took her there, back when the impressive building in the middle of Manchester was still a museum of popular culture. Now that she's playing football herself, I thought it might be fun to take her for a look around the new collections.

The picture shows her sitting on some seats from the old Wembley, although the exhibit which really took her interest was the cabinet full of huge silver trophies. The old Football League Championship trophy was in the middle, but it was the even bigger, shinier and gaudier examples dotted around, awarded for various long-forgotten minor tournaments, which she kept pointing to. When she comes back from football, or ballet, or whatever, with her first little medal, I'm sure it's going to be kept extremely shiny.

There was a food festival at Salford Quays on Saturday. We went along, and Mrs J raided the stall selling macarons. As confections go these have always confused me, mainly because I was brought up in Scotland where we have macaroons instead. Also confusingly, G wanted to eat the blue one. And so she had a blue tongue for the rest of the afternoon, as did I, after I helped finish it off when she didn't want any more:

Cake has been a regular theme of the time I've spent with G over the years. There was a lot around on Sunday afternoon at an event called G Festival 2013, held in Swinton as a charity fundraiser after a girl from the local area who died three years ago. After having lots of fun blowing bubbles and on the bouncy castle, we went to the cake stall and found an appropriate one for G. Although she doesn't much like icing, so I had to have the actual bit with the G on it:

Monday was the warmest day of the weekend, and just as well as we went to the East Lancashire Railway in Bury for another day out with Thomas the Tank Engine. The success of our last visit to one of these events in Llangollen in February was only slightly dampened by the fact it chucked it down all day, so it was particularly good to have a day of train-based fun without having to scurry around under cover all the time. G even had a dress on, and got to meet the big guy himself:

She was less keen on the Fat Controller ("but I'm very shy" she said, intently), and needed a good bit of prodding before finally agreeing to sit next to him. Less prodding was needed to get her to toot Thomas's whistle. She talked about this moment all the way home. This would have been extremely tedious, but we only live a quarter of an hour away. Which was just as well.

National Railway Museum

Last week being half-term, there were more entertainment options than usual for my two days of the week at home with G. On Thursday, swayed by a leaflet Mrs J had picked up somewhere, I decided to take G across the Pennines to York, for her (and my) first-ever visit to the National Railway Museum.

I was a bit apprehensive about this. York is, after all, a good hour-and-a-half away by train, which makes it a three-hour round trip. That's nothing if you're in the car in the evening and G can snooze away in the back seat, but trying to keep her entertained for that length of time, without becoming That Guy With The Annoying Toddler, looked a more challenging prospect.

As it was, the journey over was fine. We had a table to ourselves, and when she wasn't staring wistfully out of the window (as shown in the picture above), she kept herself amused by pointing out all the things she could see. Despite having lived near the Standedge Tunnel for a couple of years, she was completely baffled by it when the train passed through ("We're in a tunnel daddy! Why?"). Eventually, she gave up trying to make sense of the outside world and started playing hide-and-seek, which was about as successful as it normally is.

We got there, and the museum being helpfully located right next to the station, we were soon here. I let G wander off to explore a bit.

Along with all the old trains, there were various child-friendly activities on offer, which helped explain the rather unusual museum clientele which seemed to consist entirely of retired folks who like to trainspot, and under 8s. One of these was a model Thomas The Tank Engine display. As G pushed her nose up against the glass, the woman said to the children assembled: "Look, there's a blue engine down there, that's Thomas". G replied, insistently: "No, that's Thomas over there, he's got the number one on him!" I think at G's age that still counts as cute rather than irritatingly brattish, but I accept it's a close call.

We looked at other trains, both model and real, and rode on a steam train (green, so inevitably, "Percy") in the goods yard. The BBC's Thomas rival, Chuggington, was also well represented. Once G saw the play area full of various Chuggington track and trains, I had to write off the next part of the afternoon.

With time before our return train ticking by, the only way to get G to leave was to promise to buy her something from the museum shop on the way out. "I want Annie and Clarabel!" she announced within about 1.7 seconds of browsing the toys (keen observers will know that they are Thomas's coaches).

And so her wooden train set at home is now busier than ever. But considering she had been beautifully behaved all day, and the museum only cost a £3 donation to get into, I'd say investing in a couple of little carriages was a small price to pay.

Day Out On The Railway

We had a long weekend away in Shropshire from Friday to Monday. The destination was chosen partly because it's close to where we live and could be reached easily enough on a Friday evening, but largely because we we near the Llangollen Heritage Railway, which was holding a Thomas The Tank Engine day on Sunday.

I was quite looking forward to this, but G's excitement was on another level. Kind of like her birthday and Christmas put together. "Look, it's Thomas!" she shouted as we walked through the town to the station and saw an engine painted bright blue. It wasn't difficult to see why she was so impressed. With lots of noise and steam everywhere as he trundled up and down the track, he certainly bore a much stronger resemblance to what the real Thomas might look like than supermarket Santas do to Father Christmas.

Thomas was doing short rides up and down the station, but we also went on a longer journey on a different train. The picture shows G with it. Because of the vaguely green colour she immediately decided this was Percy, and did "choo choo" noises much of the way.

Trying to get G to leave at the end of the afternoon was a bit harder. Traditional inducements, in the form of a promise of a "special treat" or even some chocolate were met with a firm "no thank you". I told Mrs J to bring out the secret weapon: "If we leave now, we can go and get some ice cream" only to get another "Um... no thank you!" in reply.

So, there were inevitably some tears, but G had got over it by the time we walked across the road to the sweet shop. And, equally inevitably, she talked about Thomas all the way home.

The Real Percy

They were running steam train rides at the Museum of Science and Industry over Christmas, and we decided to take G along for a go on one. The trains were only going a short way, along the track in the old goods yard that is now the museum, through the former Liverpool Road station platform, then backing down another bit of track, before retracing the route to the start. But that was more than enough to get G very excited.

Our engine was green, and G quickly assumed this was the real-life Percy. It's Percy who, according to the song now permanently seared into my brain, always brings the mail on time in Thomas The Tank Engine.

"Look! Percy's going!" she said as the engine moved off and the steam poured out all around us, with the sort of excitement little girls usually save for fairy princesses, or One Direction. I may have to give in to Mrs J's suggestion that we start taking her to dance classes, if only to balance things out a bit.

Christmas With Thomas

This is what we spent a good deal of Christmas Day doing. That is, sitting around on the floor, playing with trains. Having repeatedly shown over the past few months just how much she likes trains, and Thomas The Tank Engine in particular, G's stack of presents from Santa had a certain loveable blue character as a prominent theme.

It actually started the night before, as G got some new Thomas pyjamas. She liked these so much, she didn't want to take them off on Christmas morning during the serious business of present opening, as shown here:

She was full of energy, largely because she didn't actually wake up until 8:30am. Having completely missed the stocking beside her bed, she sleepily trudged into bed with me and Mrs J as she often does.

"Has Santa been?" asked Mrs J. In response, G looked rather blank. "Do you want to go and see if Santa's been?" G trudged back to her bedroom. Then, eventually, "Oh! Santa's been with my presents!" Maybe next year she'll cotton on a bit faster.

Besides Thomas, Mrs J saw to it that G received a lot of arts and crafts, and she was eventually persuaded to leave her now-much larger train set alone for a while to do a bit of drawing.

There's no doubt who G's biggest hero of the day was. She didn't even need any prompting to do this picture of Santa in one of her new activity books. Although having coloured in the hat and shoes in an appropriate red, she then scribbled his face in red too. Maybe he just seems completely red to her, because the rest of us are so pasty-faced from staying in every day to avoid the Salford rain.

After the trains and the pictures came the food. This year, G was particularly fond of the sausages and the parsnips, but wasn't tempted by any sprouts. She cleaned everything she had on her plate, as you might expect.

It's a good job she likes Christmas food, because we've still got a fridge mostly full of the stuff. It seems we over-catered for our own stomachs just as much as we over-indulged G's interest in Thomas. Not feeling too guilty about either though.

Accent

I suppose it had to happen. But the speed at which G has gone from a fairly generic toddler-type voice to a broad Manchester accent has taken me a bit by surprise.

At her old nursery, she picked up a few words with a bit of an Oldham sound, which she occasionally dropped in ("mun-keh" was a particular favourite of mine). But those seemed to have faded away since we moved to our new place and she started at a new nursery in town.

That was until last week. One day, I noticed G had started talking like a Manc. It seemed to come on almost overnight, but it was definitely there. A sort of verbal tic in which she goes up-then-down during a sentence, then up again at the very end. Not just as a one-off though, this is now how she says every single sentence. As you can imagine, it gets slightly wearing after about the 5,000th time. It's going to take a bit of getting used to.

Until that day, G is better seen rather than heard. So toys like this Thomas the Tank Engine jigsaw which she spent ages quietly doing, then taking apart, then doing again on the kitchen table, are my current preferred entertainment for her.

Wrong Daddy

I was away for the weekend, and I came back to find that G's infatuation with Thomas the Tank Engine continues. This is her tonight after she'd been reunited with her favourite little train. This morning, before I took her to nursery, there were tears at the breakfast table when I told her she wasn't allowed to take him with her.

"I want Thomas!" she repeated, wailing plaintively. I was unmoved, but only because I have developed the instinct that parents have for this sort of thing. A typical toddler tantrum is over in a minute or so, but the kind of epic tantrum that would ensue if Thomas got lost at nursery, well, that just isn't worth thinking about. "Thomas will still be here when you get back later," I reassured her as we got in the car, to which I got a very doubtful look in return.

As I went to pick G up, I was walking down the corridor towards her room when one of the nursery nurses came by leading a little boy, who was black. "Daddy!" he said, pointing towards me, hopefully. "No, I don't think that's your daddy," she replied, with the air of someone who had already had to say the same thing several times, probably in quick succession.

I didn't wait to hear if she went on to explain precisely why I was unlikely to be related to him. Besides, this all demonstrates another truth of parenting that I have discovered: three-year-olds may be able to talk more, but they still aren't the best recipients of any kind of logic.

Playdate

We had a trip up the road to Aberdeen last week, so G could see a couple of friends, including her first meeting with a baby boy over from Australia. It's a long drive even without a recently-potty-trained toddler in the back, so I was prepared for a lengthy and miserable journey. But G's new-found love of Thomas The Tank Engine helped no end.

After a bit of a snooze on the way up, she managed to use the potty at a service station then spent a couple of hours quietly watching Thomas chuff his way about Sodor (the DVD I'd brought was mostly from the Ringo Starr era, obviously). So no trouble at all.

The return journey on Friday evening was even more successful. I hoped a night-time drive would help her sleep, and sure enough she dozed off in front of the DVD before we'd even reached Dundee, not waking up again until we were passing Lancaster. "Where's Thomas?" was the first thing she said, rubbing her eyes, as I'd unplugged it as soon as I'd realised she was asleep. So she got an extra half an hour or so of train-based fun before we finally made it home.

You might consider all this TV to be a bad thing, and I suppose it is, but it's infinitely better than a long drive on your own with a whining toddler. And for that reason, the portable DVD player remains one of the great inventions of mankind.

Our actual stay in Aberdeen, cold and surprisingly snowy even though it's only October, was well worth the trip. G is a couple of years older than the little ones we went to see, but she managed to play nicely and share the toys without too much persuasion. However, as the photo shows, she preferred to get me to join in with even more ludicrous games of hide-and-seek.

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.