it was just a left over toy of a London red bus that a tourist would buy...it would fit in your fist. It was just around and when she was teething she would gnaw at it...it became a security toy! She thought, I guess, that this was the normal size of a London bus so you can imagine her amazement when the real thing blossomed into being for the first time....the tiny toy had become a monster. She would gasp in wonder that things could be so. So just when she had got used to this then she saw a green bus for the first time and she equally couldn't believe that they could be any other colour than red! Then there was the time when the world went crazy and they're were double decker buses. She just kept coming out with the remarks and then the white bus threw everything she knew outta the window! Over 30 years later a white bus crossed my path and indeed it did look naked as a jaybird or as Tilly then put it- skinless!

I never thought of it again until now....there is no memory store I can go to in order to write a poem...it has to organically grow back into place and just the happenstance of a bus being driven to put on its paint clothes or to get dressed with logos kickstarted it all over again.

It the kind of thing a poet/father will take out of his wallet and show you an emotional picture of his daughter.