23-03-17 Dusit Thani Playground

Thursday 23rd March 2017

JiaJia Dora is in the house so we get a lie-in. She, unfortunately, does not. I can overhear their conversation early in the morning and I am grateful that she is here, teaching him the Greek that I cannot. The other day at Um Al Sheif park Kingsley surprised me when he announced that he’d found an ‘ελατήριο’ then presented me with a metal spring, the sort one finds in a mattress. I had to ask him again and again what the word was, because I really couldn’t recall ever using it let alone drilling it into Kingsley’s vernacular through endless repetition (yes, I am that type of mum). And I myself found it difficult to twist my mouth around the word and get my brain to remember it. So I was incredibly surprised then proud of what Kingsley was achieving just by being around family.

And it was with family that we spent today: just Kingsley, Erroll myself and JiaJia Dora all indoors mooching about, eating delicious boiled chicken and rice – a Dora Special and Erroll/Kingsley favourite meal . By the time we’d all woken from our long naps due to overeating (7:45 PM wake up!) it was clear that family is definitely not enough to sustain a toddler; they need to be run outdoor like colts. So out we went, for a walk through our neighbourhood then ended up at the Dusit Thani Hotel.

We like coming here in the evenings when its too late or dark to visit a park because this hotel has a hidden playground that only the locals know about: an outdoor space under the trees and decorated in fairy lights dedicated to the city toddlers. Swings, a merry-go-round, horsies, see-saws, slides, tunnels and a castle. And most importantly, park benches for the adults and astroturf for little feet. So its here at the Dusit Thani Playground that we spend Erroll’s last evening with us before flying on a week layover. His knee is playing up which gives him a pass to playing…and means it is me hauling my torso through the tunnel and down the slippery slide. All the while Kingsley claps and Erroll cheers.