It's Squashy Time In Ironstone Close!

By Ronnie Bray

 

Like many good things, it came about by accident. Yet, when we say that most good inventions come about by accident, we are in danger of over-simplifying a process that lies at the end of a great deal of hard work. These happy accidents, as we may choose to call them, never happen to the dull or uninspired. They lie within the provenance of those who put in the long hard work that leads finally to discovery.

So it was with It's Squashy Time In Ironstone Close! The weekend had gone well although the weather was decidedly cool and not a little wet. Playing with the grandchildren, Jo's boys and the blossoming, ever-smiling Alice, who was just beginning to take a more formal part in proceedings, screaming off the sound meter if denied, led to the dazzling discovery.

I was tired. The trip down gets more tiring each time I drive the 120 miles from Huddersfield to Jo's new house in Ironstone Close, St Georges, Telford. I managed some rest by sitting on a chair in the kitchen and eating foil wrapped chocolate biscuits until I was convicted of my own gluttony and decided to leave some for the kids school lunches. But the kids wouldn't let me stay in there forever, even after I plied them with Cadbury's milk chocolate buttons, so I retired to the long couch in the lounge to see if there was anything on TV that would lull me to sleep.

Something lulled me to sleep, and deeply. I had almost reached the bottom level of satisfactory sleep when I was awoken by an atomic bomb exploding somewhere in the area of my midriff as a Luklear missile landed full weight amidships. I woke with a certain amount of pain. It was my pain threshold to the power of ten. OK! I exaggerate, but it hurt! The smile and the cheery call, "Wake up, Granddad!" invoked the forgiveness factor and I enfolded my little man in my arms and snuggled him.

"Carry me! Give me a piggy-back," came the imperious command.

"I am tired," I explained, in my best languid, trying for an Academy Award at the same time. Nice try, but no Oscar.

"Piggy back!" he insisted, and I thought, "Lets get this over with."

I shuffled into a sitting position and eased forward. He squeezed into the space between my back and the back of the settee and took the mandatory two-armed stranglehold around my neck, exerting life-threatening pressure on my Adam's Apple. Breathing was difficult, talking almost impossible.

Rising with difficulty, I lumbered through the lounge, into the dining room, through the kitchen, down the hallway and back into the lounge on a circular but evidently satisfactory lurch. My duty done, I fell backwards on to the settee to resume my rest.

"Again!" said a voice in my ear. "Again, Granddad! Again!"

Resistance was futile. How unfair that such a small bundle should exercise such power over me. I could deny him nothing. This time, getting off the settee was harder, but I somehow managed to become upright, my burden maintaining control of my oxygen supply. I had an evil thought. If I made him uncomfortable, he would want to dismount and I could get back to somnolence and snooze. Great plan and best laid, but, I was about to discover, the best-laid plans of mice and men - you know!

I stood with my back to the lounge wall and leaned backwards, exclaiming in an eccentric tone, "It's squashy time in Ironstone Close!" The effect was electrifying. Luke burst into an uncontrollable cascade of the giggles. My air-supply-alarm went into the red as he went wriggly worm on my back.

I was not, I have to say, disappointed by the unexpected reaction to a game intended to discourage him and get him off my back. I ambled into the next room and repeated the squash. This time declaiming, "It's squashy time in the dining room!" This discipline was repeated in each of the locations on the ground floor, and then, by Royal Command from His Majesty, on the walls and doors of the upper floor. I have to confess that although it tired me, I don't know which of us enjoyed it most. But, Luke is three, and would soon forget, I told myself.

Less than an hour later the chubby cherub smiled his way into my presence and from his mouth came words tumbling like tiny bells ringing sweet and clear, "Play Squashy Time again!" We played Squashy Time again. And, again and again ad exhilaratum!

We played it again, several times, before our visit was over. It is a simple game, but its benefits are immediate and obvious. However, it has a more durable characteristic. It has passed from simple pastime with an ulterior motive, into a family tradition that everyone enjoys.

While his older brothers, Joseph and Tom, also have to play Squashy Time, they play it with less zest than Luke does. But, they are older and fast superseding the magic of childhood with the cold logic of their brilliant minds.

The sudden invention of Squashy Time and its immediate adoption as a family classic teaches us that good and new things are possible, provided we retain the innocence of childhood and the capacity to welcome originality. Remaining open to simple joy, paves the way for us to receive great blessings from our Father-God, who opens the door of his Kingdom to those who play Squashy Time with him and become as little children. For some of us, this will require a major transformation, but the principle is clear: No Squashy Time ? No Kingdom. This is what Jesus meant when he said,