I was looking after my niece Bean and nephew Sausage earlier today. While Sausage had a nap, Bean focused on making a Bee-bulance – an ambulance for bees. They’d arrived late at the castle for a play date in part because Bean had stopped twice to administer first aid to bees.

She came in buzzing with her idea for a Bee-bulance and immediately started sketching it out on my fridge wipe board. Once she’d got a rough plan she started making it in Lego – super-excited to be realising her idea so quickly.

She worked with focus, resolving problems as she encountered them, and adding to her design as she went. A couple of times, in moments of frustration, I noticed that she said, “Oh biscuits” and it made me laugh to hear her exclaim using a word I’m so familiar with.

Sometimes people mistakenly think I’ve trained myself to say biscuits instead of rude tics. It doesn’t work like that though – anything can become a tic, and for me ‘biscuit’ has been my signature for over a decade. It’s a word I can no longer separate from myself, but I really enjoyed hearing how Bean was incorporating it into her world.

The resulting Bee-bulance is great, with space for a spoon of sugar water, two bays for tired bees and hand-picked leaves to make sure they feel at home.