Greaseproof Victory II

Yes! I remember now why the unfinished post was titled ‘Greaseproof Victory’.

We had a situation arise with a visiting child… my kids have a large TARDIS to play in, hand-built in cardboard craft by their uncle. It’s a truly fabulous thing, very well made, great attention to detail etc, etc. When one of their friends came to visit, they decided to build some kind of Dr Who scene in and around the TARDIS, spending about half an hour preparing and getting very excited… eventually they darkened the room and called the adults up to see.

We made suitably impressed oohs and aahs… until I noticed a hole in one of the TARDIS paper windows… then another… and another… and then I wasn’t benignly amused Dad any more. I was very, very not amused. Not nice when there’s a small child visiting and you get into the sort of mood I got in. Randomly sticking holes in a hand-made, one-off time machine is not something I would tolerate from my children, and I “just knew” it was the visiting child. You don’t want to get as angry towards a visiting child as I was feeling. I think I held it in pretty well, but the kids might think differently.

My son valiantly defended his mate, claiming it was accidental. I wasn’t buying it… I declared the top room out of bounds and somewhat ruined the mood of what should have been a nice, cheerful viewing.

So – after a few minutes fuming and snarling, I thought to check in the kitchen drawer for greaseproof paper. To my relief, there was a lovely new roll just sitting there. All of a sudden my mood lifted, here was a constructive way to undo the whole situation without having to worry about blaming anyone.

All the kids were roped into the job of fixing the TARDIS windows with greaseproof and PVA. It was all fun and happy, and when my son was struggling to get one of the damaged sheets off, and I suggested putting a hole in it, and after a few failed attempts his mate declared “no, you can do it if you push hard – like this!!” (cue one mighty and well practised poke), I wasn’t cross. I just chuckled, content in the warm glow of the Greaseproof Victory (II).