I enjoy another pointless conversation with my children now that we have conversations, pointless and otherwise. “Come on you two, let’s play hide and seek with Fred.” My older son looks pleased at the prospect, his younger brother thinks I am a fool, “why we play hide and go seek wiv a tortoise? Are you nuts mom?”
“Not at all. Come on it’ll be fun.”
“Not fun.”
“Yes it is. Anyway it’s not fair as Fred’s already hidden himself and unless you go and find him he’ll be hiding for ever.”
“Dat’s not good…..if no-one comes lookin for ya.”
“Right! So come into the garden and see if you can find him.”
“He is losted?”
“No he’s hiding.”
“Oh…dats o.k. I already seened him when I came home from school.”
“Yes but now he’s in the pen outside but you won’t be able to find him as he’s hiding.” They’re less enthusiastic than I would wish but still compliant. I wax lyrical, “it’s quite amazing how he’s camouflaged himself, in the grass, he’s invisible. We peer into the pen to see four square feet of grass and no tortoise, or at least, I can’t see him. “May be he sneaked up the down pipe like the incy wincy spider?”

“He ain’t no spider mom. Anyways up down……he’s dere. We found him. Wot now?”
“You can see him, already? Point to him. Show me where?”
“Dere!”
“Can you see him too?” I check with his brother.
“Sure! He right dere.”
“Point to him dear.” He steps over the fence, reaches in and pulls out Fred, just like that! “Iz o.k. mom wiv your old and mold eyes.”
“!”

On another tack, there’s this little woman whom I have never met, called Vicki. She lives just a hop skip and a jump up the road from me and blogs at “Speak Softly.” She’s a busy little bug what with her “Literary Mama” column. I expect you know her too. What you may have missed, what with it being summer and all, is that her book “This Lovely Life” which is featured over here on this “Web page,” although my copy is winging it way from “Amazon,” probably via some unfortunate carrier pigeon knowing my luck. I’m pretty confident that it’ll prove a great read as she’s one of those eternal optimists but I’ll keep you posted.