We're in Starbucks and E is ordering coffee and chatting to the guy behind the counter. I can hear that he's apparently identified her accent as being from Manchester and he's talking about what a big Morrissey fan he is. I hate Morrissey. I feed S a line to deliver to mummy as soon as she's back at our table. But S is two. So instead, she yells it across to her right there and then.
'Mummy! Stop flirting!'
It's a beautiful moment and one that embarrasses everyone except S. Later, as I'm talking to the same guy about other, more palatable Manchester musicians, S pipes up again.
'Daddy! Stop flirting!' she yells.
We had just spent the last four and a half hours in the Boston Children's museum. It's a huge building down on the waterfront, just opposite the Tea Party reenactment place where people in traditional costume fling boxes of tea into the harbour every hour or so and is three floors of stuff to build, investigate and play with. She flew a plane, drove a digger, appeared on TV, baked, worked as a carpenter, a plumber, a construction worker and a barber, weaved Native American baskets, spoke on the telephone for ages (even though there turned out to be nobody there), went shopping, played crazy games with golf balls and bubbles, scarves, all manner of things. Every thing you sit on seems to trigger some little machine and there are loads of buttons to push and things to turn; the kinds of things kids love. In short, it's amazing. The finest review I can give it is that even after four and a half hours and knowing that my daughter was exhausted, she was still running from exhibit to exhibit like the next thing she saw was going to be the greatest thing she'd ever seen.
We left Starbucks and headed down Congress Street to check out the stately side of Boston. It was cold and windy but S was out for the count in the new buggy from Target (which has turned out to be one of the finest purchases of all time) which was a relief. But then it started to rain. We spotted an interesting looking building and headed for it. It turned out to be Quincy Market which was one of the places E really wanted to visit. It's a bit like Covent Garden but more of a food hall with a few little shops here and there (like the Cheers souvenir shop where I could really spend some money), but the atmosphere is lively and bustling and just about all the foods of the world are represented there in real style. E eats Greek and healthy. S and I share a Philly cheese steak sandwich and fries. Make of that what you will.
I have become a weather apologist. While we were in Quincy Market, the heavens opened and pounded on the glass. We battled through it, visiting a few shops before making our way to the swish new Government Center station and catching the train home. I'm worried we might not see Boston in the sun, just as we didn't see Cape Cod in the sun. E keeps telling me that it's going to rain all day tomorrow too. Thanks to Jobs and Wozniak and co for putting a weather app on the iPhone and giving my wife something to obsess over. She's passed on her fears for everywhere we're going to visit. Ever. I know the weather is nothing to do with me and I'm just happy to be here, but I feel bad about it. I am genuinely sorry about the weather. It doesn't help that back home in Hebden Bridge - a place so wet that sometimes parts of it float away - the weather app shows a big yellow sun as far into the future as can be imagined.
Back at the hotel, S wants to watch TV. It's late, so we tell her it's broken. Spurred on by her education at the museum and the various fixing-type jobs she's occupied, she vows to us that she will fix the TV. She puts her headphones on, the wire dangling, and her face turns to her gritted teeth effort face as she starts poking around at the TV with the loose end of the wire. It's actually moving how hard she's trying. E picks up the remote and turns the TV on. 'I did it!' S cries and it's like she can barely believe it herself. I don't think I've ever seen her more proud of something she's done.
Boston Red Sox are on TV playing Chicago White Sox. Battle of the Soxes. That's a bad joke. I should take that out. But I haven't. Anyway, everything I know about baseball I owe to the Wii. It's not a great frame of reference but I think I understood it. It was tense for a while, but Boston won 5-2 and David Ortiz (Big Papi) hit a home run, something I always wanted to see given he's just about the only baseball player whose name I know. Go Sox. The red ones.
It was only while playing cards tonight that E recalled the Starbucks incident, referring to the guy as 'that sexy man' and admitting that she had indeed been flirting. Seriously, I give the girl a rainy holiday and treat her to games of cards in the evening and she still flirts with admittedly handsome Morrissey fans who compliment her accent. Unbelievable.
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