Poo!!

I was a stand-in manager for the day today. I got to play with some children – hurray!

It made a welcome change from some of the more bizarre moments of the “leadership and envisioning” events I attended earlier in the week – ‘describe the military leadership characteristics of the following chocolate bars!!’

Having helped settle the babies, built many brick towers, pressed out play-dough shapes and engaged in a long discussion with preschoolers on ages, birthdays and names – mine is apparently Mr Fish Finger (incredibly funny at the time), I set off for the office where I successfully set up a new laptop, enrolled a new family and answered some emails.

A. our ever reliable maintenance man had answered the cry for help to investigate the rather niffy smell coming from the manhole cover outside the Babies Unit. He had bravely prised open the lid to be confronted with- well, poo! Lots of it. He came in to report his findings before trotting off round the corner to collect his rods.

Why, I ask myself, did I feel it necessary, on his return, to go down and see what was happening? Why as the nursery owner employing someone to free up  the blockage in the drains, did I stand in the rain filling buckets of water and sluicing solid matter away?

Very unhappily, my shoes can testify to the need for me to improve my delegation skills.

I have already had stern words with Babies about items not to go down the loo, chief amongst these being paper towels, but how did a plastic ball make it all the way round the u-bend?

Surely this will remain one of life’s little mysteries!