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Tuesday, 30 July 2013

Tuesday 30th July

Yesterday was the last day of Emily's all too brief visit, and with Mandi at work it was just the two of us making the most of it. After breakfast we set out for town, and all the time laughed and joked with each other. I can honestly say that these last few days have been brilliant as far as our relationship is concerned. We have always been close, and to be able to have such a great time without any problems has been a wonderful gift. I'm proud of the fact that she is becoming a fantastic lady, but of course it is sad in a way that my baby is growing up. A lot of our conversation today involved my happy memories of her childhood, including referencing some things that she used to believe; I mentioned that her teddy, Teddy, came alive at night and took her cuddly dogs for a walk in the park, and every time I used a cash-point machine I spoke to the little man inside and thanked him for my money. The truth is, (ask any parent) that it is quite a sad part of the relationship between parent and child when they stop believing in such childish fantasy. It broke my heart when she told me in a matter of fact way that The Muppets were puppets, as I wasn't aware of that at all! (Haha, I am funny).

The toys coming alive thing was a result of Emily being spooked by an episode of Doctor Who, and as a result having trouble getting to sleep. I reassured her and gave her an idea about something to dream about. This became a bedtime ritual; "what can I dream about?", and I came up with several scenarios for her. Toys coming alive is a fairly basic one, as everyone knows that it really happens when you're asleep. If you don't believe it then the only way to prove me wrong would be to stay awake all night, which wouldn't work because they wait for you to sleep. They are also wise to CCTV and won't come alive if you set up a video camera in the bedroom, (something I used to swerve once when Emily asked if we could do it). The only way would be to use a series of trip-wires around the bedroom, but I am unsure if a cuddly toy is conscious when in still mode, and if it is then it will know what you did and just avoid them all. Some of the dream suggestions were written down so I didn't forget them, and I turned one of them into a short story that I would read to her at Christmas, (it was Christmas themed). It is in storage at the moment, and if I ever get time to bring the container home and go through all of my stuff, I might put it up on the Kindle. I have a piece of paper in my office with story titles based on dream suggestions, but can't for the life of me remember the rest of the story, it is a shame I didn't think to record myself saying them.

We met my dad in town for a cup of tea in a rather nice Italian run cafe where thankfully the service is better than the spelling.


I love spotting this sort of thing, but unfortunately I don't always think to photograph them. Maybe I should make a point of stopping and taking a picture whenever I see a badly written sign. Although what I'd do with it exactly is another matter. Maybe just a Flickr album or something.

On the way home we popped in on Nana for Emily to say goodbye. I'm sure she was thrilled to see her great-granddaughter after so long, and I was surprised to note that Emily is almost taller than her. She's nearly as tall as me, although to be fair I'm not very tall. We were cooking tonight, an activity that we always used to take immense delight in doing together, in fact there was a time when we'd spend the entire day in the kitchen baking or cooking. Tonight's dinner was our old favourite Coca-Cola chicken, which Emily pretty much did by herself. I know she likes it because she once made me Facebook message (remember Facebook? It's coming back) her the recipe so she could make it at her mum's.

The big film treat tonight was Tremors on ITV4, which we all watched before bed. If it hadn't been such a hit film, it would have probably made for a good edition of my old Charity Shop Film Guide series. It is one of those films that you remember every scene from, but you aren't sure if you have actually seen the film all the way through. After watching it, I'm still not totally sure.

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