"Don't you dare!"

Sitting in the bath last night Oliver was chatting away, when suddenly he said "Don't you dare!", pointing at the imagined target of his warning and with a serious expression on his face that was an absolute picture.

Hayley and I looked at each other in amused surprise before asking him where he'd heard that. He wasn't forthcoming but after a while Hayley realised we had heard our friend Jo saying it to her daughter earlier in the day when Oliver was in the room.

Like so many things, he had silently absorbed it and stored it away to produce at the most unexpected moment. And once he realised he was making us laugh he played on it for all it was worth.