Building Roads and Driving Trains

Can life get more heavenly if you are male and under 5? All week the road outside our house has been being bulldozed, dug-up, squashed, stones added, flattened, tarmacked and smoothed. Gone are the disintegrating cobbles with their irritating potholes and dustpatches and in its place has appeared is a sleek, smooth road. Enormous machines have been working hard all week to complete their tasks.

We, on the other hand, have not been working hard at all. Instead we grabbed a sandwich and a couple of packs of Smokis and have spent large amounts of time in the afternoons camped out under a tree watching the action. Armed with a Richard Scary book that talks about making a road, we've watched the whole process from start to finish.

By the end of the week not only were we providing most of the workmen with coffees (I tried to give them a decent cup of tea but they were having none of it), but the boys had been invited up onto a few of the machines to have a go. They pressed buttons, they moved the steering wheel. They even got a decent go at the beeping the horn until I couldn't take it any longer. Needless to say, they were thrilled, absolutely eye poppingly, grin until your head might split in two thrilled. The chance to drive a real digger, help build a real road. What a treat.

Now they've finished I've had to come up with some new afternoon activities. So yesterday we shambled down to the train tracks to pick some blackberries and coincided with the arrival of the only train of the afternoon. Within minutes the engine driver had hopped down and the next thing I knew the boys were being shown how to drive the train. There are times that I love the less than strict enforcement of the health and safety laws here which gives little boys a chance to do stuff they could only dream of.

They've now decided that they would like to try being astronauts next so if I could just find where the local space programme is then we could go and have a go next week.

Thomas is still working!

A favourite activity of mine in the UK for those long afternoons with toddlers was going to look at trains. We were lucky enough to live near to a train track and could quite easily while away the hours waving at trains, hoping they would toot back at us and speculating where the trains were going to.

Tragically for me, Tuzla isn't blessed with an extensive train network. It does have a train station, but there are, on a good day, 3 trains that run and even these are mainly freight. Less tragically for me I have been able to convince the boys that looking at train tracks is almost as exciting, but I'm not sure how long I have until they work out that Mummy is bluffing somewhat.

However, today, we went to see a friend and took a walk down to their stretch of the train line. The boys were pretty excited to see a new bit of track, and as we approached I could see that there was a train on the line. Freight train, carrying large amounts of coal, but that works for them. The excitement of the little party was palpable. But as we got to the track a smartly dressed man in a blue uniform and a red hat informed us that the trains were about to move. Can life get any more exciting. Oh yes. It can. As the train shunted the wagons past us I suddenly realised that the engine was a proper, fully working, steam engine. Not looking quite as glossy as the engines that you see in the museums and railway centre, but it was doing a job and doing it well.

There were 4 men in the cab who were as bemused to see us as we were excited to see them. They did pause for a chat but sadly wouldn't let us on for a quick ride. Apparently train spotters come from all over Europe to see them, sometimes they get sent postcards from enthusiasts. I'm not sure we are quite in that league but the boys haven't stopped playing with their Thomas train set since.