Errol Flynn on a micro scooter...

It turns out that as a male, one is never too young to impress the ladies.

Recently, the spud has pretty much chucked his buggy in as a mode of transport unless he feels particularly needy or sulky and much prefers to zoom along on his micro-scooter; those urbiquitous purple things with two wheels in front and one in the back.


He's getting quite the little trickster; he squats down so the handle is over his head, pulls his bum back into a low sit and easy-rides his way down the road. Since spotting an older friend doing it he's been practicing beetling along on one leg while pulling shapes with his spare knee and foot. He's also cottoned on to how to use the little orange brake at the back by elegantly placing his spare foot on it, or doing a nifty little half-turn, jamming it onto the brake and one-handedly coasting to a stop.

The other day on the way home from nursery he insisted on cutting through the park and there, just inside the gates was a girl from nursery who he's quite keen on. I'm going to call her Lola, it's not her name but that's what Charlie calls her.

The moment he spotted her, they were off. The two of them scooted off up the hill, Lola steaming ahead while Charlie puffed behind her shouting 'Wait Lola, wait!' Her father was chuckling that she's recently been trying to copy someone at nursery who can scoot on one leg and just as he said that, the spud sailed past in full arabesque and glided smugly to a halt beside his besotted friend. Her father snorted.

As we walked up, the spud stood skate-board style on his scooter, held on with one hand and glided backwards down the hill, dismounting with a smooth two-footed jump, smiling at Lola all the way. She was visibly impressed. He re-mounted and kicked off for another arabesque past her and then scooted down the other side of the hill to the playground shouting 'come on Lola, come on Lola'.

She trailed obediently behind him as with both feet planted on the platform, he sped off down the hill, zig-zagging gently just to show that he can. They rounded a corner out of sight and we called to them to stop and began lumbering after them. They stopped and the moment we rounded the bend, again rolled off out of sight. The routine repeated a few times until we were finally nearing the playground gates. Lola was haltingly going down the hill with one foot dragging on the ground to slow herself down; the spud was nowhere in sight.

I shouted again and he appeared from behind a tree, drifting backwards down from the gate, smiling brightly.

I think she was impressed up until the very moment he glided into the bush.