End of the affair
A long time ago, when T started watching the popular children’s television programme In The Night Garden, we bought her toy versions of the two main characters, Igglepiggle and Upsy Daisy. She loved her new toys, and kept on loving them even when she (thankfully) stopped watching their dreary televised adventures. For the best part of three years they were her favourites. Every night, without fail, she clutched them as she went to bed, and they were the first items in the overnight bag if ever we were staying elsewhere. Sleep without them was frankly unthinkable. But a couple of months ago I noticed a certain cooling of relations. Without having any exciting new cuddly toys to replace them, somehow old familiar ones, mostly rabbit-shaped, managed to leap above them in her affections. Occasionally one or indeed both of the ITNG pair would be left outside the bed at night-time, albeit generally still within touching distance.
And then, as we packed to go to the Lake District for new year, we gave T a little bag to fill with whatever toys she wanted to bring. She returned it, duly filled to bulging with assorted cuddly chums. Neither Igglepiggle nor Upsy Daisy made it. Worse, Upsy Daisy was at the time stuffed uncomfortably in a random bag behind a random door. And that, nearly a month later, is where she remains. An unloved ex-favourite.
But all is not lost for Upsy Daisy. Because guess what programme J has just discovered…
