GUILT TRIP

Wilson has just phoned the zoo to ask his Mum, Mrs Vermilingua, whether Byron can come to visit for Hallowe'en.

This took a lot longer than W expected, and involved quite a lot of eye-rolling on his part, because Mrs V launched into a guilt trip along the lines of:

'Are you alright? Really? I was afraid you'd at least broken your claw so you couldn't dial the phone to call your poor mother... Once or twice I thought I'd gone deaf, sitting here constantly listening to the phone not ringing...'

Anyway, eventually W steered the conversation back to its original purpose, and Byron will be arriving tomorrow.

Now feeling pretty grown-up, Byron told W that rather than having us collect him, he'll make his own way here on the bus – if we could just be at the bus station in the village to meet him.