I was walking round the farm with my six year old grandson, Angus, the other day. He loves to learn about the farm but we also have erudite conversations about space, rockets, planets, meteorites and the like, about all of which he knows more than me. Another of his preoccupations is volcano's and we often speak of a visit I made a few years ago to Vesuvius near Naples in Italy and about the destruction it wrought on Pompei two thousand years ago. At times his questions are quite intimidating and I often find myself looking up details so as not to be left behind.
On the day in question we were just getting close to the limits of my knowledge about earthquakes and how they are caused when we came upon a couple of the girls who work in our livery. I used the encounter to change the subject and give myself a bit more time to dredge into my memory as much as to be polite the the girls and we had a brief chat about horses.
Angus declined to join in and after they had moved on to continue their work he said "You know, Grandpa, I'm allergic to girls". I managed to keep a straight face and said "What, all of them?"
"Well, not Mummy, of course, but pretty well all of the others." I suggested he would probably get over his allergy when he grew up. But he disagreed because "they were, well, different to boys."
I didn't dig any deeper although doubtless his misogyny will come up again in our conversations one day. But at least it got me off the hook re tectonic plates.