All that comes with it

Andy and Lorna provide a number of nice touches when you rent their cottage. On arrival there is a food pack waiting for you containing a pint of milk, some regional cheeses, locally produced bacon and sausages, freshly laid eggs from their own chickens, and best of all a lovely bottle of Lindisfarne mead (an alcoholic drink made of fermented honey, yeast and water). Did you know that the word honeymoon is traceable to the practice of a bride’s father dowering her with enough mead for a month-long celebration in honour of the marriage? Well it is.

They are thoughtful in other ways too. There is a pretty good collection of books to borrow, and in one of the bedrooms there is a chest packed with toys for kids to play with. One of the toys in particular caught both my and Amy’s imagination. A Playmobil Blackbeard’s Pirate Ship. We spent many a morning playing with it while Kerry and Evan slept upstairs, recovering from a night of interrupted sleep.

The pirates, which Amy christened The Captain and Jolly Jumper, had many adventures. Granted, some of them were a little outside the normal swashbuckling genre – I can’t remember a going to the supermarket to buy some sweets scene in Pirates of the Caribbean; but I still made the effort to throw in a few “arrrr Jim lad that will be £1.50” and “shiver me timbers do you think we need any milk?” in order to maintain at least some continuity.

Amy enjoyed the toy so much that I decided to buy her one of her own. Originally I had planned to save it for her birthday, but I was so excited about putting the whole thing together that I gave it her pretty much immediately. While I was sticking all the stickers on and clipping all the masts into place Amy studiously examined the pictures on the box to make sure I was doing it right. Suddenly she looked up and pointed to the playmobil pirate logo on its side:

“Look Daddy!” she exclaimed triumphantly “It’s a picture of Grandma!”

I said nothing. Nothing at all.