Things I learned from watching Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was very tall.

He was also a Republican. I realised I don’t know what party most of America’s presidents were from (apart from the most recent ones). I know names and policies, eg Roosevelt and The New Deal. But I don’t really know whether they were Democrat or Republican.

It was really hard to get the 13th Amendment through. I didn’t realise how many educated men had opposed it.

The 13th Amendment was such a massive thing. I think we don’t realise it because we live in an age where slavery seems so incomprehensible.

Abraham Lincoln and his wife didn’t really get on a lot of the time.

All but one of his sons died before adulthood.

Everything was so dark at night time, pre-electricity.

Sometimes, as humans, we do the wrong thing. And sometimes we do the right thing. There is hope for us yet.

Abraham Lincoln was a self-taught lawyer. He read some Blackstone’s guides then passed the Bar and started practising. I reckon I could probably skip bar school and do the same. What do you think? (I didn’t actually learn from the film, I Googled it afterward.)

Lincoln was assassinated right in the thick of the war ending and the Amendment being passed. I hadn’t realised it was so soon.

Orange Wednesday is mental time to go to the cinema. I’ve never seen so many people waiting in a line to buy popcorn. (I learned that from the cinema experience itself, not the film.)

A bottle of water in the shop is £1. A bottle of water in the cinema is £2.75.

Three-word days

Good morning everyone. Today my guest blogger has an interesting new spin on diary-keeping. Enjoy!

I wonder if you’ve ever tried to keep a diary. Perhaps you have or maybe you still do. If you can make it a habit it’s a great source of reflections on your life and what happened in it at a particular time. Many years ago I did keep a diary for a couple of years and then more recently did it for just one year. It’s hard to keep it going though. Perhaps you’ve done a holiday diary for say a week or 2 weeks. Again I’ve done that where you not only write but stick in the pages all sorts of bits like tickets or leaflets about the things you did or visited. However I wonder if you’ve ever thought of maybe recording just one event for the day, one thing which stood out. There is a radio prog here in the UK on national radio in which people are invited to write/text/email in with their day summaries but it can only be 3 words. Yes that’s right only 3 words. Now of course it’s well nigh impossible to write a summary of your day in three words so people pick one thing which for them made the day special or different or just one thing they want to remember for that particular day. It might even be an opinion on something in the news.

Here are just 3 examples of the many which are read out. You can see the kinds of things people send in, for each day. These were sent in to the programmes from last week. Each one is from a different person and they read them out at various times during the 2 hour prog:

——————————————————————————————————————

Mon – 1. No snow here 2. Single yet again 3. Panic bought chocolate

Tue – 1. Freezing fingers off 2. Ready for bed 3. Scandinavia is laughing

Wed – 1. Four large cookies 2. Still in pyjamas 3. Cruciate ligament snapped

Thu – 1. Hernia op success 2. Good riddance snow 3. Regretting yesterday’s curry

——————————————————————————————————————

I think you get the idea.

Here are my recent 3-word days:

Mon 21.1.13 – Off work today

Tue 22.1.13 – Thirteen hour shift

Wed 23.1.13 – Slept in late

Thu 24.1.13 – Saw Les Miserables

Fri 25.1.13 – Changed bed linen

Sat 26.1.13 – Helen Shapiro concert

Sun 27.1.13 – Snow almost gone

Mon 28.1.13 – Projector fault investigated

Also I have some from a couple of years ago:

Wed 10.11.10 Contact Buchter News

Thu 11.11.10 Windy night Blackpool

Thu 18.11.10 Hospital, needle, arm

Mon 22.11.10 Donation, anonymity, accepted

Tue 23.11.10 Happy faces Luderitz

Wed 24.11.10    Cheques in post

 

Why don’t you give it a try? You might be surprised as you look back on those brief words for each day. It’s much easier & quicker than the full diary thing and keeps just a thought for the day for you to remember. It can be a challenge but I think you might enjoy doing it so have a go and see how you get on. Then why don’t you do a reply sending your 3-word summary for the day you are reading this or maybe do it for a week and send the whole seven days in a reply next week – (that would still only be 21 words).

A few reviews

Ok, so my very favourite thing to do lately is to plug in my earphones, set an audio book going and walk up to the park. I’ve been tearing through them at a surprising rate recently so I thought I’d let you know what’s worked for me and what hasn’t.

I had a lucky first experience of Audible.com when I downloaded my first book, The Snow Child. It was read well, the story was brilliant and I was totally hooked.

The next book I listened to was called The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery. It was a lot longer than The Snow Child so took me a while to listen to. You basically follow the protagonist’s entire life story, from New York to Japan and back. Without realising that you’re wrapped up in the story, you hold your breath when it seems she will be discovered and you recoil, waiting to hear what will happen when she makes a cultural faux pas. At the time, it feels quite slow moving and I’m still not definitely sure why it is called The Teahouse Fire as plenty of other, more significant things happen to her. But upon finishing it, I suddenly thought that I would like to listen to it again as I think it would gain a lot on a second listening.

Then I listened to A Wild Sheep Chase, by Haruki Murakami, which was obviously a bit mental. I’ll always have a soft spot for Murakami’s writing as it makes me think of long days spent in a little guest house on Bohol island in the Philippines, reading Kafka on the Shore. He deals in the type of surrealist writing that is kind of like the literary version of a Picasso painting. A bit out there, you’re not sure what direction it will take next, nothing seems to make sense. It takes on an odd fixation, this book, a particular sheep with a star on it’s back. The story is creative and engaging. I didn’t love the way it was read, to be honest. But overall, it was a typical Murakami and I enjoyed it.

Next I listened to Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley. I don’t need to tell you all the story of this as anyone who is anyone knows about it or has read it. I’ve carried a copy round with me for years and never read it so Audible.com seemed like the best way to finally read it. It offers an eerily possible world-scenario that I don’t feel it either advocated nor denigrated. Initially I rebelled from the idea of not having familial links, of being free and forward with sexual attitudes, of growing babies and engineering them through phrases repeated to them in their sleep. But them we had a glimpse of how someone from this futuristic world might view us as we are now. And it was equally repulsive. I came away feeling neither neither relieved nor horrified that our world is the one looked upon unfavourably by the beings of the future. It simply made me think about how we are and how we operate as a society. For that, I recommend it to everyone. It’s brilliance lies in its springboard effect, it is there to promote further thought.

Miranda Hart’s Is It Just Me is a work of comical genius. Now I’m not a big Miranda follower (being only 5″4) and haven’t caught that many of the programmes. I’ve seen her present a few quiz shows and thought she was quite funny. But I wasn’t necessarily on the Miranda band wagon (the Miranda-wagon, as she might call it). I downloaded this book just because it was on the best sellers list. And boy, am I glad I did! This is not a book to be listened to outside whilst walking down a busy high street, as I quickly learned after laughing out loud when she used the word ‘flabiola’ to describe herself. She also often needs you to say ‘yes!’ loudly at certain points so, to save drawing attention to yourself, make sure you are at home or in an empty park. I honestly couldn’t get enough of Miranda. After turning her off to make dinner or go to work, I kept thinking about how I wanted to turn her on again. She became like a life guru to me for a week. I have no doubt I’ll listen to her again when I’ve finished any other books waiting to be listened to. Give it the first chapter to get into the swing of things, to get onto the same page. And then, you’re away. This is a must-listen.

Danda and the croissant

On a recent train journey, Danda and I were up early so neither of us had eaten before leaving the house. We got one train, then a tube then another train, which had all taken about an hour and a half. By the time we sat down, we were feeling light-headed from tea-deprivation and hunger.

Danda, in a fit of generosity and helpfulness, offered to go and get some victuals from the cafe cart, further down the train.

“What would you like?” he asked.

“Oo, just something small,” said I, not wanting to sound like a fat pie by asking for two muffins and a chocolate bar.

“A croissant, perhaps?” he suggested.

“Yes please. A little croissant would be nice.”

“And a drink? Some tea?”

“Yes, I think so. And a bottle of water.”

“Ok,” Danda said and started to leave.

“Actually, no. Not a tea, thanks. Just a water.”

“Just a water?”

“Yeh, thanks.”

And off he went, to the cafe cart. He was gone quite a while. I was getting hungry and couldn’t stop thinking about the croissant Danda was bringing back to me. My throat hurt and I was looking forward to having a nice cool drink of water.

I waited and waited and wondered what had happened.

After about fifteen minutes Danda arrived back at the table and gave me a bottle of water. I looked in his hands and couldn’t see anything else. Not a coffee for himself or a croissant for me or anything. Hmm.

He sat down, super casual, and started making idle chatter about the recent snow.

“Danda,” I said, timidly. Clearly something had happened here and I did not know what it was. “Danda, where are all the other things? I thought you would have got a cup of coffee?”

“O yes, I had one. There are little tables there where you can have your coffee so I had it there.”

“And the croissant?”

“Yes, I had one with my coffee. It was quite nice. They give you two little ones with your coffee.”

“And the other one? Where is that one?”

“I started it but got quite full. I threw most of the second one in the bin.”

“Um, in the bin? Why did you put it in the bin? Didn’t you bring one for me?”

“O. I thought you just wanted the water. I threw the other croissant away.”

Yes that’s right. Not only had he thought I only wanted water but he had eaten a croissant whilst there, then had a bite of a second and thrown it in the bin. The bin, readers. The bin in carriage number 13. While I starved in carriage number 18.

Any advice on what I should do about this situation?

Things it’s ok to do as a child

Stop a party of six whilst out walking so that you can wish on a star.

Fart and blame it on the TV.

Have long conversations with your reflection in the mirror.

Have plain spaghetti and green ‘olibs’ (olives) for dinner.

Say things like, “I’m going to marry Adam. When I’m 13.”

Have people accompany you to the toilet, just to chat to them about Barbie.

Declare loudly, “I don’t like hippos!” at the dinner table with absolutely no prerequisite.

Reply to the sentence, “I’m scared of monsters,” with the advice, “You should eat your carrots then.”

Jump in all puddles, even ones which are tiny, five hundred times before moving on, even when everyone’s in a rush.

Dig around in your nostril for a massive snot then wipe it on the nearest person forehead (Danda’s).

Tell everyone in the room whether it is a wee or a poo that you are going to the bathroom for.

Drink your entire body weight in apple juice.

Laugh hysterically for ten whole minutes at someone pulling tongues at you.

Rub novelty Gruffalo shampoo all over everyone’s faces and necks and tell them it is make up.

Paint a grown man’s fingernails (Danda’s) with silver glittery nail varnish then insist he go out to McDonald’s with it still on.

Talk for twenty minutes about the best way to defeat dragons.

Eat a whole apple before holding up the core and saying, “I don’t like apples.”

Put animal stickers all over your face in public and sit on a windowsill looking around and waving at strangers.

Pathways

I’m on the move this morning, off to visit my favourite 5-year-old and her little sister so I don’t have time to write anything properly. Instead I’m going to do something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I really love taking photographs of paths leading off into the distance. I’m not sure why. I think it’s because of the potential for adventure, the invitation to explore an unknown world. I’ve taken tons of them so I thought I’d share a few.

At the start of a hiking trail in St Leonard du Bois in France.

At a lake in Northern France.

At Boxhill, Surrey.

On the Thames Path, near Ham

Next to the river, Ham.

On a little path I found when exploring the riverside around Richmond.

The path down to the river, from near Richmond Park.

Walking to Twickenham.

In a friend’s back garden in Norfolk.

Finding more hidden pathways next to the river, Teddington.

A path cut into the edge of a rock in Portugal.

On a walk near Gomshall, Surrey.

Amongst the ferns in Richmond Park.

In Highgate Woods, north London.

Corridors under the floor of the Colluseum, Rome.

On Tooting Common, south London.

In between houses in Kew, West London.

The time we found the toastie machine

While at uni, I lived in a rubbishy little flat with some friends. We had a ‘guest of honour’ friend who basically lived on the sofa. It was great fun. We spent our days lazing around, pretending to study, blabbing and ordering takeaway food from the Vietnamese restaurant down the road.

One day, the sofa-dwelling friend and I were in the front room and we happened to remember that there was a toastie machine somewhere in the kitchen. We weren’t even particularly hungry but the toastie machine promised to be a fun way to spend an hour or two.

We located the toastie machine and plugged it in. Now we just needed some bread. We raided all the cupboards and found an entire loaf in someone’s cupboard. We’ll just have two slices each, we thought, innocently, getting the loaf out. She’ll never notice.

We then raided the fridge for cheese, ham, peanut butter, bacon, bananas, anything that might respond well to being heated and squished between two pieces of bread. We made the sandwiches up, put them in the toastie machine and waited. While we waited, we came up with brilliant new concoctions that we could try in the toastie machine next. When our first lot of sandwiches were ready, we put more in and ate while we waited.

Each time one lot was ready, we thought of a great sandwich we should try next. We just went on and on. Soon, there was no bread left and we started to panic. There was a little newsagents a minute away so we went and got ourselves a new loaf. We just had a few pieces out of before putting it in the cupboard that we had earlier stolen the bread from.

Shortly after replacing the loaf, the friend who’s bread we had stolen came home and fancied a bit of toast. She went to her cupboard and was puzzled when her lovely Warburton’s thick-cut softest-ever bread had turned into a no-frills not-very-tasty bread that looked like it had been bought at the cornershop.

She turned to ask what had happened and saw….

Two girls, old enough to know better, in a mess of melted cheese and bread crusts and crumbs and banana skins and open jars of jam and peanut butter. The two girls looked guilty but unable to move due the bread-induced semi-coma they were in.

We were never allowed to play with the toastie machine again….

What’s the difference?

A little change to the usual routine this week, we’re having the guest blogger on Thursday. So here it is, an interesting lesson in language….

 

What’s The Difference? – 1

English is a language with many foibles and quirky bits of spelling and grammar. It is though like any sport or game – you need to know the rules if you’re going to play properly. I’m sure there will have been instances where you were writing something and wondered what the correct word or phrase to use was. There may be other times when you look back and realise you’ve used the wrong one. This post is about just a few of those often confused words or phrases that maybe sound or look the same or have a different shade of meaning. At this point I must make it clear that the differences I’m looking at are those defined by English grammar and may differ from those in the US. This is not to say that the UK has it right and the US has it wrong; they’re simply different and should be accepted as so. When in the UK spell and use as we do, when in America spell and use as they do, when in Rome etc. Anyway that’s just a roundabout way of saying that what follows may be specific to Britain and may not be the case in the US. I’m sure budding writers out there will know these but many ordinary folks don’t or they get mixed up.

Ok, so here we go.

What’s the difference between:

1. Continual/Continuous and Continually/Continuously

See if you know the right words to use in these sentences:

a. The clock needs to be wound continually/continuously to make sure it tells the right time.

b. The annoying alarm on the house sounded continually/continuously through the night.

c. There is a continual/continuous danger to pedestrians crossing this road because some motorists break the speed limit.

If you know the difference these are easy. If not then here are the answers:

1a Continually 1b Continuously 1c either is possible depending on your interpretation of the meaning.

Why?

The word “Continual” refers to a repeated action over a period of time where there are breaks in between occurrences. “Continuous” means repeated action but with no breaks.

That means in 1a the clock had to be wound otherwise it would run down and not tell the right time. It needs re-winding many times. However if you wound it continuously you would keep turning the winding knob and of course eventually the spring would break because you kept turning without stopping.

1b Continuous because the alarm sounds a constant tone without stopping (well the ones in my area do)

1c This is more difficult because you could say the danger exists only when the car is a speeding one and not when it isn’t (so continual) or you could say the danger is always there because you don’t know which car will be speeding so you have to be on your guard all the time (so continuous). In cases like this where there is a clear ambiguity you should re-write the sentence. For example Pedestrians, in this area, should always take care crossing this road because some motorists break the speed limit. This is quite clear.

2. Hung and Hanged

I’m assuming most of you will know this one but check on these examples:

a. The authorities hung/hanged the prisoner last Thursday.

b. The museum hung/hanged the picture in their newest gallery.

c. The man hung/hanged his head in shame.

Answers: 2a hanged, 2b hung, 2c hung

Why?

Hung is used when it is inanimate objects being referred to; hanged is used when human beings are referred to. Prisoners are hanged not hung; pictures/objects are hung not hanged and so on.

3. Compared to and Compared with

Again you probably know these but check on the sentences below:

a. The height of the zebra when compared with/compared to the height of an ordinary horse is not markedly different.

b. The weight of the winning jockey was compared with/compared to his weight before the start of the race

c. There is a vast difference when the speed of an elephant is compared with/compared to that of a cheetah.

Here are the answers:

3a. Compared to 3b. Compared with 3c Compared to

Why?

Because when using the word compare you can be comparing two objects which may be of the same kind or different. We can compare horse with horses, dogs with dogs; or we can compare horses to dogs. In other words when the objects (or people) are alike we use compare with but when they are different we use compare to. If you find it difficult to remember try this Rambler memory aid: think of the letter “i” in the word “with” and remember there’s an “i” in “alike” so things which are alike are compared with each other. For the comparisons between things which are not alike think of the word “to” and that the last two letters of the word “not” when reversed make “to”. So compared “to” means comparing things not alike. Just be careful if the compare and the “with” or “to” are separated in the sentence as it’s easy to forget so in this example: The safari park wardens compared the eating habits of the elephants with/to those of the rhinos. Which do you think is right?

4. Stationary and Stationery

I won’t bother with sentences here as it’s easy to remember using the Rambler memory aid: Stationary ends in “ary” so just think of “a railway” (a-ry) and the station which doesn’t move (it’s the train that does!). For stationery just think of the “er” bit also being part of the word “printer” and therefore it refers to paper and other office stuff. If you have your own ways of remembering why not let us know and reply to this post. It would be interesting to see how different people have mastered remembering the two words.

5. Due to and Owing to

This can be a difficult one and even the grammar books vary in explaining the best way to tell the difference although not about the actual instances where each should be used. Check the sentences below:

a. The truck driver was late for his delivery at the factory due to/owing to the snow on the roads leading to it.

b. Due to/owing to the recent heavy rain the river had overflowed its banks flooding the streets in the village.

c. The difficulty the students had in finding out information for their exams was due to/owing to the library being closed and the campus computer being down.

d. Flooding in the village streets was due to/owing to the recent heavy rain.

a. Owing to b. Owing to c. Due to d. Due to

Hosie & Mayhew (Choose the right word) give the easiest way to remember how to use the two expressions. First remember not to begin a sentence with “Due to”. Then thanks to them for this rule of thumb: choose “owing to” when the words can be replaced by the phrase “because of”, and choose “due to” when the words can be replaced by “caused by” without the sentence sounding odd.

For example in the above in a. if you chose “due to” it would read, with the substitution, “The truck driver was late for his delivery at the factory caused by the snow on the roads leading to it.” The sentence really needs a bit extra to make the meaning clear so “The truck driver was late for his delivery at the factory and this had been caused by (due to) the snow on the roads leading to it. This doesn’t read as smoothly as “The truck driver was late for his delivery at the factory owing to (or because of) the snow on the roads leading to it” which needs nothing extra. If you are in doubt go for “owing to” or try re-phrasing the sentence.

In sentence d. you could easily put in the words “caused by” (due to) and it makes perfect sense and needs no alteration.

6. Reason and Reason why

a. The reason why/reason I’m writing this letter is because….

b. The reason why/reason the flood happened was because of recent heavy rain

c. An empty petrol tank was the reason why/reason the car came to a stop.

In each of these cases the correct form is to use the word “reason” on its own because it is being used as a noun as in each of the sentences a,b,c. Reason contains the element of why something happened so it’s duplication to say “the reason why”. Similarly with “the reason is because” and “the reason is due to”. A reason cannot be “because of” or “due to” as this is already in the meaning of the word itself. However, when reason is used as a verb then it may be followed by why. For example: The scientists were keen to reason why this particular result had happened. In other words “reason why” can be used in the context of an investigation into finding out how something has happened.

There are of course many more of these types of usage differences and maybe I’ll do a part 2 on them in the future.

The igloo

One snowy day in Liverpool, my brother and I decided we were going to make an igloo. No snowman-based nonsense for us! We were going to build a full-on snow house. I’m not sure how old we were. I was probably about nine or ten and my brother is three years older.

In our back garden, there was a gate in the fence, which led out onto a massive field where football and cricket competitions were played. At the far side is the athletics track where my brother took me with a bike and taught me to ride without stabilisers.

So when it snowed, all the kids with gardens which backed onto this field would be there, rolling massive snow balls and building snowmen and having snowball fights. It was loads of fun.

It was on one of these days that we decided to build the igloo. We used our fence as one wall and got to work on three more walls. It took a looooong time. We brought snow, packed it onto our little walls, getting ever so slightly higher each time.

After a while, we came up with an energy saving scheme where I would be Wall Builder and my brother would be Snow Bringer. We did this for a good while longer, making slow progress. Snow doesn’t actually go that far when squashed down onto a wall. This is what I learned that day.

To become even more efficient, we brought a long board type thing from the garden and put it on the ground, pointing in to the igloo. The plan was that my brother would put his snow on the other end of the board and slide it along to me at the igloo door, thereby saving him the vital energy that he otherwise would have expended in those two steps to the door. We are geniuses.

The funniest moment of the igloo building session came when my brother emerged through the gate from our back garden onto the field. He had scooped the hugest pile of snow from our lawn and was carrying it toward the igloo. It was so big that he couldn’t even see over it. He approached the board, which by this point, was wet and slidy and, you guessed it, couldn’t see where it started.

He stepped on it and a loud squeak announced his error. In a second, he had fallen flat on his back. His pile of snow, however, moved a little slower. He had thrown it in the air so it took another second to come back down to earth… and landed all over him lying on the floor!

It’s probably the funniest thing that I had ever seen up until that point in my life!

After ten minutes of breathless shivery laughter, we got back to work but we had been out for ages by now. After the wall was a little bigger, we balanced our slidy energy-saving board on the top of the walls, to make a roof. We went inside and boiled a kettle of water to melt the snow on the igloo floor.

Once it was habitable, we got inside and lay down, for it was far too small to do anything else.

We had a little chat about what fun it had been, maybe we read books, I’m not sure. What I do know is that it took us about five minutes to get bored of it, get out and go back inside the house to watch television.

Danda and me and Hide And Seek

So, to understand the fabulousness of this story, I need to tell you about the history of Hide And Seek in our house. For some absurd reason, whenever I hear Danda’s key jangling as he approaches the door to come home, I have to hide. I have to. It’s like a compulsion. I can’t help it. Sometimes if there’s not time for me to find a real hiding place I’ll just throw a coat over my head and crouch down in the middle of the floor. On times like these, Danda play-acts not knowing where I am, then I leap out and yell ‘Boo!’ and he asks if the joke is over now and can we please be grown ups.

But so overwhelming is this compulsion to hide, like a small child, that I have hid when I thought I heard his car arriving back. I was so sure it was him that I quickly nipped out of the back door, holding it gently closed. And I waited. I listened. I waited. And I shivered a little, for it is cold in that little section of the house, which is basically like being outside.

Inevitably, he did not come in because it was not his car I had heard.

Sometimes I am upstairs when I hear him come in so I dive under the bed. Danda often forgets about me hiding and when he sees I am not downstairs, he simply puts the kettle on and sits down to watch the news. At times like these, I have to call him to remind him. The phone call usually goes something like this:

Danda: “Hello?”
Me: “Come and find me!”
Danda: “O! I thought you’d gone down to the shop.”
Me: “….noooo. Come and find me.”

He will then come upstairs and find me and we turn back into adults and continue our evening.

Well tonight, ladies and gentlemen, tonight I excelled myself. When I heard Danda approaching the front door, I ran into the front room and looked around. I’ve done every hiding place at least twice but this evening I hid somewhere new. I squeezed a little space inbetween the computer desk and the big comfy chair and I crouched in there silently.

Danda came in, looked in the kitchen and front room and didn’t see me and, remembering my recent phone call, checked upstairs, under the beds and in the bathroom. Upon not finding me, he thought I must have popped to the shop and re-entered the front room to turn the fire on.

It was at this point, with his guard lowered and not expecting me to be home, that I chose my moment and emerged from between the furniture shouting “BOOOO!” like a madwoman. I must confess, the longer he went on without finding me, the more my excitement built. I couldn’t wait to jump out and surprise him! Hence my almost-scream of “Boo!” when I saw my moment arrive.

Danda gave a startled “Aah!” then clutched at his heart and sat down heavily on the sofa laughing and just about staving off the heart attack from shock that threatened to take hold.

It took about twenty minutes of breathlessness and sitting quietly to recover from this one.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what keeps me happy day to day. Little pockets of fun such as this. I derive immense joy from a successful hide and seek escapade and am thinking about putting it on my CV as a ‘life skill.’

Try it one day. I dare you. When you hear your nearest and dearest fumbling about at the lock with their keys, just run and hide somewhere. Anywhere will do. It doesn’t have to be especially inventive. I go through long periods of hiding in the same place every day. It doesn’t matter. It’s the potential for fun which counts.