Play for Today

I felt a bit like the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

I apologise, that should be Child Catcher as it was evidently a salaried position and therefore a legitimate profession for that fictional principality.

The twins were expected on a visit to play in our garden. I had not seen them for quite some time and now at 18 months old they were capable of self propulsion  and into everything.

I had a look in the dark recesses of the garage to see what could keep them engaged and happy for the duration of their stay.

I was, frankly, amazed at what we still had in storage from our own three children and especially so as they now range in age from 18 (in two weeks) to 23 years. This either indicates an atrocious management of garage based resources or that the Scottish gene in me for thrift and never throwing anything away, ever, is strong and as I get older becomes more dominant in my outlook and behaviour. I have my Father as my role model for the careful archiving of things for use at any time in the unspecified future. He was right all the time. You never know when a Jubilee Clip will be urgently required to marry a hosepipe to an outside tap so always keep one or more in an accessible place. This also applies to a random selection of nuts, bolts and washers, puncture repair kits, string and insulating tape.

First thing out of the garage was the seaside wind break. It's one of those in pseudo Spanish national colours, perhaps to give an instant feeling of being on vacation even if it is only erected in the back garden. Recent rainfall assisted in my hammering of the softwood supporting poles into the lawn whereas on other occasions of attempted insertion I had come across a hard baked surface which had no accommodation in it whatsoever to being penetrated by a long but still a pointed stick.

I arranged the wind break in a classic corrall or, in modern parlance, a kettling profile. This would serve multiple roles of keeping the twins from wandering up to the end of the garden which had all the hazards, actually providing some shelter from the wind and keeping the collection of toys and games roughly in the same postcode.

The 'U' shaped enclosure could now be populated with whatever else there was in the garage.

16 years ago almost to the day I fulfilled a longstanding ambition. I have not held a grudge or a longstanding bitterness, I assure you, but I never had a pedal powered tractor and trailer in my formative years. I did have shared use of a wonderful red painted metal pedal car but I had always hoped to have my own agricultural equipment.

Being one of five children and fairly close in age there were other and justified priorities for the hard earned money of my parents such as food and shelter rather than being squandered on a toy tractor and trailer.

On the flimsiest of pretences I swung the argument with my wife to buy the latest version of my dream toy for our son on his second birthday. It would be another year or more before he would be of the recommended size to actually enjoy playing with it but I went ahead and bought it anyway. It was possession by proxy and I was happy with that.

The same but now faded and battered two piece vehicle was extracted for the twins to enjoy.

The plastic was pale and almost transparent with age. The seat had long since become detached and was missing as was the exhaust flue which used to stick out of the long, narrow bonnet. I liberally sprayed the dusty and grubby thing with some Dettol all purpose cleaner and then gave it a good rinse with the hosepipe (Firmly secured to the tap with a Jubilee Clip). It looked marginally better although the dirt was very firmly engrained. I felt that it was at least authentic for a piece of farm machinery. The trailer, amazingly, still had the toggle to link it to the towing eye although it was perilously close to falling off.

I pushed the tractor into a parking bay in the wind break area and put out two miniature toy traffic cones for good measure.

I thought afterwards that this detail may not be appreciated by the toddlers.

A bright orange and blue slide had similar cleansing treatment. The bolts securing the orange slope to the blue steps were corroded. I felt ashamed that I had not strictly followed the example set by my Father in having a suitable supply of replacement fixings but after threading through some nylon twine and tying it off in a combined scout knot and lashing I was confident, fairly, that the slide would not separate and collapse when in use.

The slide had been bought at the same time in the early 1990's for our two daughters when they were about the same age as the twins. It came with a bright red single plastic moulded rocking contraption, a Tot Rocker. One infant could be restrained in the middle like someone on a Bedouin saddle on a camel and fidget about to get the rocking motion or two reasonably equally weight and height proportioned children could operate it like a traditional see-saw.

The main items were now in place and, standing back, and through the eyes of a nearly 50 year old it did look a bit like a Big Top Circus exhibition.

The smaller items just filling up the spaces in the enclosure included a tiny wooden four wheel scooter thing which I had some recollection of buying in the distant past, a water wheel for wet play and some Ikea storage boxes, the wooden stepped unit in which they had slotted having gone to landfill years ago.

The twins arrived borne along in their high tech double buggy. I half expected an extending set of steps to emerge from the undercarriage so they could dismount on their own without their Mum lifting them out.

They were dapper in dungarees and tied spotted cravats like Dexy's Midnight Runners, branded Caterpillar 'T' Shirts and stylish miniature pumps. They gave the play emporium a brief once over and, to their credit, did carry out some cursory investigations.

The rush to use all of the toys that I had expected did not happen. I put this down to a bit of shyness in front of someone they obviously thought as mad, no question about that.

Child's Play had obviously evolved since my three had been at that stage. I was however reminded that imagination and being left to find out things on you own were the important issues . They immediately set to the dismantling of the plum slate bed scattered around the patio or rather the relocation of the materials onto the lawn and into the folds of their clothes. Typically for twins they did not have to communicate verbally but set to the methodical task of sorting and stacking the collection of rocks, pebbles,cobbles and fossils from around the water feature and fountain. It kept them busy for hours and they were totally engrossed in some great geological pursuit in between my mischievous switching the cascade of water on and off without them seeing how.

Above all they were happy and I was too with the prospect of pushing, driving and steering the tractor back into the garage when the twins had left. I might even have been heard making some pretty authentic engine and mechanical noises whilst doing it.