Row row row your boat...

Playing grandfather (being grandfather, only active) is my great delight now. There are so many ways to be happy when young grandsons and daughters are in the house and garden. This morning, I was fortunate in being able to immerse my grandchildren in a song and a story, by towing them around and around the lounge in a tin tub, painted to look like a steamship, while my grandson rowed, with two "oars" he'd selected from the stack of firewood on the veranda, and my granddaughter, the ever-patient Juniper, sat as passenger in the prow, looking regal. We circled the lounge a dozen or so times, as the music played Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream... beaming at each other, enjoying the bliss of a shared experience outside of the ordinary. We took onboard, at one stage, two soft-toy hedgehogs and a bear, all of whom enjoyed the swishing of the tin boat on carpet, and stopped eventually, for honey on toast and an impromptu dance to Here we go Looby-Loo, before re-embarking and setting out upon another round of rowing. Pretty good fun.