My daughter seems to have recently forged a kind of radar/ buffer/ flag-pole/ barometer/ warning salvo-maker role for herself.

A few days ago, as I dropped the kids to school (playschool in the boy’s case), she informed me “you might be bringing us to mommy’s workplace after school.”

“I might?” I enquired. “Nobody said anything to me about it.”

“Yes, mommy said so”.

Sure enough, some hours later, I get a phonecall. It’s Mrs. Rumm.
“I was thinking…” she began slowly and vaguely as if still in the midst of a cognitive eruption, “if you like you can drop the kids here to me after three.”

It’s not that it’s a big deal or anything, but I found it quite amusing.

This morning then, Lucy informed me I might be collecting granny and bringing her to our house later. Sure enough after I returned, settled in and brought a cup of tea to the patient with the bad back, it happened again.

“I was thinking…” she began, now fast becoming a signal to be reckoned-with.
At least Columbo used to wait until the end of a conversation before coming out with his “just one more thing…”
Mrs. Rumm has no such preambles apart from the preamble itself.

Of course there was no argument and none to be made. That’s not the point. But I’ll be keeping my eyes and ears a little more keenly focused on my precious daughter to see what other little kittens are to be crossing my path in the near future. She’s becoming quite the invaluable source of information -especially since Mrs. Rumm’s idea of giving directions, for instance, is more of the “you should have turned left back there” variety.

I think I’ll start calling her Satnav.