Town Mouse

A shortage of toy shops

HALF-TERM has brought the family to Liverpool and the city has responded gloriously with warmth and sunshine. I tried to pursue an established pattern of holiday sightseeing—the promise of treats on our itinerary and some pocket money at the end—but there was an early mutiny. I was compelled to improvise a bonus system: 10p for the correct identification of certain spontaneously highlighted objects. The children’s failure to name Britannia on the top of the town hall (they were sure she was Athena) made me over-confident and there followed the shock of four correctly identified scenes on the high altar in the Anglican cathedral. When they got Perseus and Andromeda at the Walker Art Gallery, I became suspicious that someone was reading labels.

Nevertheless, at the end of the day, they triumphantly demanded somewhere to spend their money. We looked in vain for any shops that were open and there were volcanic scenes after a disastrous visit to a second-hand bookshop. It required a hearty pizza to mend the disappointment and restore tempers. Walking back to our hotel afterwards, I asked nervously for an assessment of the day. ‘Liverpool is a very nice city, but it doesn’t have as many toy shops as I’d expected.’ JG