I was driving. N was watching me intently from the back seat - or so I assume as I was, of course, giving my full attention to the road rather than to the two-year-old sitting behind me. Her view is rather improved since I thought of removing the headrest from the unoccupied passenger seat.
"What's that stick?" she asked.
After working out that she was talking about the gear stick and explaining that it was how I could tell the car how quickly I was going to need it to go, there was a silence, either of intellectual satisfaction or possibly complete incomprehension - it can be difficult to tell the difference while giving my full attention to the road.
"My car has a broken stick," she announced after the next junction.
"Then you won't be able to drive it," I said. "You'll need to get it fixed. The shop where you bought it will probably be able to do it for you." It is a pretend car, often found in unlikely places such as parked behind the armchair near the television or, occasionally, resting under the washing that frequently airs behind the sofa (one of the many joys of the second-floor-flat life).
Some time later - in fact, on the return trip - she told me that Winnie The Pooh and Aunt Larlie had come to visit and had mended the broken gear stick.
(You probably know Winnie The Pooh. You may be less familiar with Wibbly Pig's Big Aunt Larlie who features in the wonderful-in-every-way "Tickly Christmas Wibbly Pig" by Mick Inkpen. You can see a picture of her if you follow this link and use the 'Search Inside' feature:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tickly-Christmas-Wibbly-Pig/dp/0340893516
There's no kind way of putting it - Big Aunt Larlie is a fat pig but, boy, can she knit. Anyway, in N's mind, Big Aunt Larlie, in an act of series cross-fertilisation has escaped from Mick Inkpen's stable and invaded A A Milne's world. She hangs out with Winnie The Pooh every chance she gets and (I hope this won't put you off your dinner) they are definitely cohabiting.)
"That's great!" I said. "You can drive your pretend car again."
But she hadn't finished.
"Winnie The Pooh fixed it," she informed me. "Because he's a man and men know how to fix things."
Where did this come from? I promise it wasn't from me. Being a twenty-first century father, I immediately, and thoroughly, explained that many men couldn't fix a small tear in a paper bag, even if given the correct length of non-twist sellotape, and that many women could actually build all of the ludicrous contraptions that the A Team always managed to throw together out of whatever old scrap was lying around in whichever surprisingly well-equipped barn they'd been locked in.
It might have been more interesting, if rather less useful, if I'd actually phrased it like that.
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