Kids!

Deep in the back of the supermarket is the section that sells loo roll and similar paper-based products, cleaning stuff, polish, detergents and the paraphernalia for keeping people clean and beautiful as well. Looking for Fairy liquid, the famously gentle washing-up liquid disturbingly pronounce 'fiery' by the locals, I followed a mother with a small child in the seat of her trolley. Suddenly the child said, in tones of amazement and almost fear, "Mamá, estamos perdidos". He was convinced that they were lost because they had strayed away from the parts of the supermarket where you could see the tills and the exit. His mother and I restrained ourselves and did not burst into fits of laughter as she reassured him that all was well. 

Having completed my purchases, I stood in the queue to pay and watched another small boy "helping" slam stuff down onto the conveyor belt. As he did so he explained to the cashier that all this stuff was because they were going on an 'excursión' and went into detail of the kind of sandwiches they planned to make and what else they were taking with them. Where were they going, the cashier wanted to know. To the beach and, he told her, they had their beach rucksacks ready. She, he went on after a little thought and indicating his mother, would carry the beach rucksacks. The cashier asked how old he was. Five years and two months, he announced. Those two months are extremely at that age. Oh, the importance of being seven and THREE QUARTERS or nine and a HALF!  

It must have been a day for overhearing conversations between parents and children. Earlier I had walked into town, an excursion that involved haggling over the price of an umbrella with one those chaps who appear like mushrooms when it starts to rain unexpectedly. Who would have thought that the day would have ended up nice enough for a mother and small son to plan a trip to the beach! Anyway, at one point I stopped off at the Marco museum and art gallery to make use of their loo. In the cubicle next to mine a French woman was remonstrating with her rather noisy and uncooperative children. In exasperation she said to them that if they continued in that way she would leave them there! What? In the loo for someone to find? 

Clearly she had not heard the story of the small Japanese boy whose parents did just that when he would not stop throwing stones at cars and, indeed, people in a park in the middle of a forest. So they got in their car and drove off, leaving him at the roadside. By all accounts they only went about 500 yards and then the father went back to collect him, expecting the seven-year-old to be tearful and repentant. Instead, this tough little fellow had walked off into the forest, a forest full of bears, tramped about three miles to a place where he found an army hut and took shelter there. 

A week-long search ensued. Eventually he was discovered by some soldiers who went into the hut to get away from the rain. A bit hungry and dehydrated, although fortunately there was a water supply to the hut, but definitely not eaten by bears, the small boy was taken off to hospital in a helicopter, which must have been rather exciting for him. 

Eventually reunited with his parents, Yamato Tanooka has forgiven them. Not so social media. People have tweeted and tittered that he should not be given back to them. They are being accused of neglect and abuse. If they get through this they will probably never let him out of their sight again! 

Parenting is a difficult business.