Princess Sodor Island and the royal family

Dolly casting a spell

On Fridays, Tom looks after Dolly and I get to work uninterrupted.  At lunchtime we always go to the 'slidey bench cafe' which is a cafe at a renovated mill (which has slidey benches).

Yesterday we were all on our way to the cafe and Dolly had decided that we were all members of a royal family. I was 'Queen', Tom was 'Prince' and Dolly was 'Princess Sodor Island'.

We walked along the pavement to the cafe with Princess Sodor Island sporting her pink fairy princess dress, her woolly tights, her clip-cloppy sparkly shoes, and her battery powered talking wand.  But despite icy winds, she refused to put her coat on, informing me: "Princesses definitely don't ever wear coats, Queen."  I charged on ahead while Prince and Princess clopped along slowly in the cold drizzle.

At the cafe, it turned out that Dolly's mission was to turn everyone into frogs.  She started with a lady sitting alone and quietly reading her book.  She waved the electronic wand in the lady's face and shouted "Ha ha, I have turned you into a frog, Mrs Frog!"  Mrs Frog studiously ignored Princess Sodor Island.  She then turned her attention, and her wand, to the mill's tour guide, who offered an embarrassed 'ribbit' while Dolly stared at him.

I tried to get Dolly to sit next to us and behave herself while Tom and I had a conversation about our weekend plans. After about three seconds of this, Princess Sodor Island butted in angrily: "Queens do not talk. They are just supposed to sit there and eat chocolate," before zapping me with her wand.

This kind of thing continued throughout lunch, with the princess haranguing the waitresses and customers as well as me and Tom, but looking far too cute for anyone to muster any cross words (although I suspect Mrs Frog was close to storming out).

At home she casually changed back to her usual clothes and told me off for calling her Princess Sodor Island - the game was evidently over.   I left Tom attempting to follow Dolly's incredibly complicated-sounding instructions to a game of shopkeepers and returned to the office, where I saw the pink fairy princess dress and clip-cloppy shoes in a little heap on the floor next to my chair.