The off switch

A ten-minute car journey has now become an opportunity for little man to make all manner of preposterous requests and to question the very fabric of reality until my brain goes 'pop'.

On the way to and back from Speke Hall near Liverpool it was 'Where are we going mum?', 'It's on that bridge?', 'What are those cones doing?', 'Where have the cones gone?', 'Why?'. And 'You sing, mummy,' when I put the radio on. I don't know the words. 'You sing mummy.' I'm just a teenage dirtbag baby. That's the only bit I know. 'Why?' And 'A toadstool, mum, you eat the toadstool,' proffering an imaginary toadstool.

Then his plastic box, now emptied of strawberries but speckled with strawberry juice, became his little friend, who had to be hugged because he was covered in spots and obviously wasn't well. 'Mummy, you hug him.' I can't while I'm driving, little man.

Both journeys ended with his neurons overheating and initiating emergency shutdown. In other words, asleep.

Incidentally, the gardens at Speke Hall were pleasant enough, he actually admired the house (from the outside, I didn't fancy chasing him around the antique-furnished interior), the odd stone or hedge archway was fun, but the playground was by far the biggest hit.