The things they say(!)

As well as people in the old days poohing from their windows (see below) the weekend trip to Rochester also saw us having to explain to Millie why people from the old days (specifically, queens and princesses) aren’t still around today, i.e., because they’re dead.

The Lovely Melanie is a bit squeamish about this subject, wanting to preserve Millie’s innocence a little while longer and thinking it might upset her, but I’m a bit more direct and mostly prefer to tell it like it is – with unexpected, and paradoxically quite sweet, results!

So.  People die.  When they die it’s like going to sleep, but they go to sleep forever.  Which is quite sad.

Millie seemed to take that in her stride and straightaway started asking us about poohing from windows again.

But later in Rochester Cathedral we inevitably came across a few graves, some of which had statues on top (is it still called a statue if the person is laid down on top of a grave?  Effigy?  Monument?  I don’t know.  Anyway…).  The Lovely Melanie and I both explained to Millie that this was where people were buried who had died a long long time ago.

“What about if we give them a kiss?” she asked.

“Give them a kiss?” I asked in reply.

“Yes, will they wake up then?”

At which I gave her a cuddle and told her that, no, they wouldn’t – not even if Millie gave them a kiss like Sleeping Beauty.

That same evening Millie was dancing on our bed before bathtime when she matter-of-factly told me that her husband had died; however, it was all right because she had “got another one“.

I’m rather hoping she didn’t get that idea from the Lovely Melanie!