When we arrived, Ernie had been unwell with a stomach virus for a week and Helen had been unable to work. Our offer to help out was accepted and so we stayed until Ernie was well enough to go back to his child carer. While he wasn't 100%, he was well enough for us to do our usual trips to the parks, cafés and do the shopping.
One day, John took Ernie to a shopping centre where there was room to run around and another day, we took him to Hamely's on Regent street - his little eyes lit up as soon as we entered! He was given an enormous blue balloon/bubble which had just been blown and loved the yapping toy animals and bus layouts with moving buses. Most of all, he loved the space to run around and picked up a push along toy that he has at home and a bus that he knows from his child minder, then ran around the shop.
We left the shop with a London bus, a taxi and a friction drive bus which he adores.
He is fascinated by the drain in the summer pool in one of the nearby parks, and always has to investigate it.
In the park, Ernie is always on the look out for balls (usually belonging to other children)
and scooters, which he is obsessed with and just pushes around. It became very clear that his birthday is too far away, and so his Christmas voucher for the local toy shop was used to buy an orange scooter and we put him on it and headed straight for the park for him to try it out in the drained pool.
By now, Ernie was back to normal and eating!
We returned home on Tuesday and are leaving today (Saturday) for 3 days visiting friends of John in Krefeld in northern Germany.
- Pat and John on tour
