doggerel, weak humour and a brainy tree

Dear readers, I have been letting you down, depriving you of your fix, withholding my wordy pearls of wisdom - it has been many days since my last confession. But I have been busy, I have not merely been relaxing and enjoying the closing hundred pages of Catch 22.

My main excuse has been that every waking writing moment has been taken up creating my first work for N: a rambling, sprawling, bedraggled piece of rhyming couplet doggerel in which the story and writing style are probably perfect for different age-groups - the unkindest mismatch of all since it renders the whole piece useless. I plough on regardless as it approaches four thousand words and no pictures. On the subject of pictures, the competition to illustrate this picture book is still open - I assume that you are all beavering away eagerly, conjuring up a bright, colourful, intricate yet child-like, doodle of a monkey swinging around a room. Hurry - the competition closes soon.

My secondary excuse has been that last week was half-term and so I was deprived of my three morning writing windows. In their place, I took N to the Natural History Museum where we, along with about a billion children, saw the dinosaur exhibit, the mammal hall, the birds and a surprising floor dealing with the power inside the earth, which included a simulation Japanese convenience store earthquake experience. It was mostly surprising as I didn't know that side of the museum even existed.

N enjoyed the little animatronic dinosaurs ("why have they got red around their mouths?" she asked - "maybe they've been eating strawberries," I replied - does a two, going on three, year old need to know a truer answer?) but found the roaring, staring, swivelling, snarling T Rex a bit much. "Maybe I'll like him when I'm bigger," she says, optimistically. "Maybe I'll like this place more when it's not full to bursting with ADHD children," I thought. To be fair, the museum is clearly doing its job very well by attracting such vast hordes and manages the crowds spectacularly - queues move quickly and staff are friendly. What more could one want if one is stupid/unlucky enough to (have to) go on during half term week?

The museum, though, was knocked into a cocked hat by what we did the next day. Mister Maker (see www.mistermaker.com) is currently in semi-hiatus and so we can no longer watch it every day. The episodes which are being broadcast are repeats. So N has taken to watching little clips on the website or on www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies. It is a wonderful, enthusiastic, inspiring, happy, bright programme - one of the best children's programmes I can remember - and all the more so for not featuring anyone wearing a cuddly/latex costume/mask. So, imagine my joy on discovering that Mister Maker himself, in person, was appearing at our local Asda (for those of you reading this in the USA, please go and vote NOW, and then read on to discover that Asda is owned by Walmart) and that we had about fifteen minutes to get there.

It was him - not just a lookalike in the same jacket and waistcoat. I shook his hand, he drew a picture for N of Sid The Spider (although N says, "He's called Sid but I changed his name to Sidney"), and I took a photo of him with N. The actor who plays the part (who I believe is called Phil Gallagher) comes across as a genuinely friendly, decent, person who actually enjoys working with children. I wish him every success and luck with his career although I don't think he'll be the next Doctor Who as he's probably too similar in age/appearance/hyperactive approach to David Tennant. A real red letter day, made even more exciting by the fact that I bought N's Halloween costume there for 80p.

I'll come back to Halloween next time I write (unless I forget) since I need to move on. In these troubled times for the BBC, we should spare a thought for whether their creative departments will feel sufficiently motivated to properly promote the next reality/entertainment/rubbish programme. To ease their burden, here is a photograph which I grant them free and perpetual licence to use as they see fit.

(For those who have no idea what I'm talking about due to intellectual limitations or living in a nation unencumbered with a television programme called 'Strictly Come Dancing', this is a joke. Email me if you need more explanation...)

And, on the subject of intellectual limitations, here is a photograph of a tree which looks a bit like a brain. I document it here as the council has been sending tree people around, reducing magnificent trees to paltry stumps with little or no warning. In case the brain-tree is about to suffer such a fate, I felt that its beauty should be recorded for future generations.