If You Could Hear Me Think

I call this photo 'even Yasser Arafat was cute as a kid'. I can't remember why she was wearing a tea towel on the beach, but I'm thinking of starting to accessorize with one in the future.

This weekend an old friend from high school came in for a flying visit. Our paths have diverged somewhat since the 5th form A stream, and now he is a partner of his law firm and I - well, anyway we went to the beach so I could show him all the sunny weather we have here.

Here he is doing a passable impression of the Rio de Janeiro Jesus, with a perfect California sunset as a backdrop. At least hipstamatic is making my life appear more interesting.

On the way back we indulged in a little car game called 'I'm thinking of an animal'. Pete doesn't have any kids, and I'm sure by the time we completed the 10 minute drive back to the house he was all the more thankful for it. Anna has devised this animal game, whereby she gives three clues and we have to guess the creature she is thinking of. This was slightly easier when she was 3. Now that she's a whopping 5 and a haf, and a devotee of the natural history museum things have got a little out of hand. Her animals were: a jesus lizard, an albino possum and a ring-tailed lemur. None of them easy to guess after only three clues. If you think that's bad you should be there when she has us guess that she's thinking of an Allosaurus.

There was a (very) brief pause in the animal guess game, and then we heard:

"I finkin animal"

The car went silent.

Lucy had just announced her presence. She coulda been a contender. Anna exhorted her for more...

"I finkin animal" continued Lucy, delighted to have everyone hanging on her every word.

"Give us a clue Luce!" squealed Anna.

"Iss hippo wiff stripes" said Lucy.

And you thought a jesus lizard was hard to guess.