Yesterday the Princess and I went to mass on our own. We got the tram in and a nice old lady chatted to her until she (the Princess) managed to get her foot under the lady’s skirt and kick it up in the air. Got off the tram in some relief. Went into the church. Princess immediately began scurrying round. Dragged her back to our pew where she grabbed the Sunday paper I had purchased and began to demolish it. Rescued the paper and stuck it up under an angel’s wing. Princess pointed imperiously at string bag on the back of the buggy. “Bockle, bockle”. Gave her the bottle which she proceeded to turn upside down and drip on the floor. Removed bottle. Gave some brief thought to the Gospel on Lazarus and Dives. Princess went back to the string bag and said “Waisin, waisin”. “What?” “Waisin, waisin!!” Removed box of raisins and gave them to her, she chucked them in the air in delight and the next five minutes saw me on my hands and knees trying to beat her to the raisins on the church floor. Middling success. She didn’t eat quite all of them. She then squatted down, went purple in the face and made a groaning noise. I departed and took her to a nearby cafe to change her. To be honest, I would have abandoned mass at that point except that I realised that the paper was still back there stuck under the angel’s wing. So back we went. When we emerged there was a tram outside so we lept on joyfully only to discover that the lady whose skirt the Princess had kicked in the air was there too. A little frostiness. Arrived home in a state of advanced collapse.