Expected visitors, an unexpected encounter, a new toy....and a real, live boy!

A little boy, though, of whom more momentarily.
My wife and daughter came up to Surrey for a visit yesterday, something we'd provisionally arranged last week, and confirmed over the weekend. I'm on nights this week, allowing me to take advantage of being free during the day (although sleep was a bit hit-and-miss - I only definitively went to bed after my family had headed back in late afternoon, and almost contrived to miss my train to work yesterday evening as a result), so we went out to lunch and I then gave the ladies the guided tour of my accommodation. It just about passed muster, I think, although my wife said how much it reminded her of her nursing home room when she was a student nurse many moons ago. It was nice to see them, and a refreshing change from my usual 'away from home' routine, which normally centres around the laptop when I'm not at work.
When I walked up to the station at midday to meet my family, I certainly wasn't expecting what happened next. I went to the cashpoint and withdrew some money to pay for lunch, then ambled across the road to the town centre exit of the station, where I'd arranged to meet up with the girls - and someone (male) called my name. Given that I know literally no-one in the town where I'm staying, this was, to say the least, a surprise. I turned to see my good friend, the one was best man at my wedding, with his wife....and their son. It transpired that they were meeting up with some other friends of theirs who do live in the area, before going up to London, my 'home away from home' station being en route from were they live in East Dorset. It's around three years since we last saw them, and it was a very nice surprise, made all the better by my having a chance to actually talk to a boy for the first time for pretty much the same length of time. Given their son's age, it absolutely wasn't with any nefarious intent on my part - he's 'six years and eleven months' old, as he proudly told us - but it did underline that I do actually have some genuine rapport with boys, when I put my mind to it, probably because, as I've said in the blog before, I'm still a boy myself, in my head, at least, even if the external realities are rather different. He was only three and a half the last time I saw him, so he obviously didn't remember me, but in the few minutes before we went our separate ways, he was already chatting away to me without much shyness. When his mum told him to be careful not to fall off of the low wall he was standing on, and I offered to catch him if he did fall, he grinned and jumped down, just to show me what a little daredevil he is! Just so cute, in a proper, 'little-boy cute' way. I simply loved it, and without the remotest thought on my part of anything salacious.
The new toy was my first new mobile phone for the best part of seven years - I've finally joined the smartphone revolution, so it must be time for the next new thing to take over(!), I've rarely been an 'early adopter' of new gadgets. I wanted to get onto a tariff with inclusive call time, given the amount of time I spend away from home, and my old phone has started to do some unnerving things, crashing and switching itself off for no obvious reason from time to time, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone. I ordered it while I was off at the beginning of last week, but it hadn't arrived before I had to travel back to Surrey, so my wife kindly brought it up with her yesterday. I spent a couple of hours playing with it during the relatively quiet early hours of this morning at work, and I'm starting to get to grips with its capabilities, albeit slowly, while I downloaded myself a couple of apps, too. My first venture into 'apps-world' - Backgammon and Tetris! Are there no limits to the ways I can find to waste my time? Apparently not!
Well, I reckon it's rather past my bedtime now - I'm off for (I hope) a good day's sleep.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B