THERE is a bit of an age gap between my children so it has been a while since I have watched programmes for really small children.

In recent years I have been mainly enduring Tracy Beaker or the irritating squawking of Disney delights such as Jessie or Sam and Cat.

So it is a bit of a novelty, with a toddler now regularly standing directly in front of the screen staring intently at it from just a centimetre away, to be able to tune back into Channel 5’s Milkshake and the BBC CBeebies channel.

In fact, there are a whole host of channels for tinies, playing endless episodes of Peppa Pig and Fireman Sam.

These are familiar friends to me and it is comforting to know our hero firefighter is still protecting the residents of Pontypandy and Peppa is still donning her wellies and getting tuck into those muddy puddles five years after we abandoned them in favour of rubbish US tweenie sit-coms where adults either don’t exist or are bumbling fools the kids run rings around.

I am also delighted to see the Zingzilla monkeys still making happy music on their lovely island and the Octonauts learning about marine life while they save the day.

But I am also being introduced to a whole host of new squashy, brightly coloured characters I am sure will grace the top of a birthday cake in our house in future years.

And they all have odd monosyllabic names like Bing, Tug and Boj.

The boy doesn’t care what they are called though – he jumps and down and squeaks at their antics whilst trying to push the TV off the back of unit.

Equally he hasn’t noticed that Peppa is actually pretty rude to her mum and dad a lot of the time and if anyone lived in a place as accident prone as Pontypandy they would leave straight away fearing for their lives.

It’s the children’s version of Midsomer.