Bup my buppoo

Grandson and I went to Saughton Park today. It was damp but not raining. He dressed for the weather. "Boots," he said appreciatively.

We admired the crocuses. Well, I did.

He admired this lawnmower. "Wheels," he said. Then it began to rain very slightly so we put up our hoods.

After a while, we went into the greenhouse and walked round admiring the plants. "Flowers," he said.

Then we went home and he played with his toys. This is his Thomas. It speaks when you press its funnel. It says, "My name's Thomas. I'm a really useful engine. Bust my buffers."

Grandson has lots of words and joins them together to some extent - for example, "Hello Gaga", "Go lights". But his only actual sentence, it occurs to me, is "Bust my buffers", or as he puts it "Bup my buppoo" (giggle giggle). I've no idea what he thinks it means; in fact I don't really know what I think it means.

There's an educational lesson there for teachers if I could only think what it is: concentrate on your pupils' interests? Or possibly: rote learning is useful but only if the pupil has the remotest idea what they're learning.

(PS I think some modern architecture is lovely. As Daughter 2 points out, architects often can't design what they want to because of various constraints: the site, regulations, money - it's often money (old buildings were built by exploited and underpaid labourers with materials from countries we had conquered), the client's wishes. I don't myself think that this excuses the orange panels but hey, some people like orange.)