TWO big brown eyes beneath a mop of curly black hair urged me to speak. Their owner sat in his pushchair, which was being manoeuvred between the aisles of a large household goods store in Templars Square, by a smiling, fair-haired woman, probably in her late thirties.

His name was Dan. Not that he volunteered this information. He was only 10 months old.

Dan, a sturdy chap for his age, was smiling broadly and I find it difficult to resist exchanging chuckles with a cheerful child. I also congratulated the woman on producing such a fine boy.

"I'm not his mother," she corrected and confessed, "but I've looked after him since he was five days old. We foster him."

My praise changed course - to the wonderful job she was doing. Natural parent or not, she was his loving mum, the only one he had known. She could take pride in the priceless start she and her family were giving the little chap.

These well-meant words brought a cloud to her otherwise happy face. Dan would not be with her family for much longer. He was to be adopted and would be moving to the North West.

"It will be difficult. My own boys love him too, but he has wonderful new parents waiting," she said. "Not to be pleased for him would be selfish. But it's still heartbreaking each time we have to let a child go."

So the trauma of parting was nothing new? No, she had fostered almost 20 children and four had gone for adoption.

For once words failed me - somehow a lump in the throat blocked their progress. On the other hand, what else was there to say in the face of such love and self-sacrifice?

I WAS the guest of Marsh Gibbon Women's Institute and members thoughtfully dedicated their monthly competition to this column - cabbages dressed as kings.

Unfortunately I was expected to judge - something resisted for years after my selection fell short of universal approval in a baby show. (The grandmother of one also-crawled' was violently abusive.) The WI entries were imaginative. Never have I seen so many cabbages masquerading as royalty.

Seeking the vegetable least likely to offend, I selected the one wearing a crown through which poked wispy blond hair', filched from sweet corn. The rest were adjudged worthy of sharing second place, showing, I felt, a smart degree of diplomacy on my part.

"The winner reminds me of myself when I had a thatch of golden hair," I said jokingly.

No-one argued. I suppose I asked for it.

FOR some time, I had intended to see the John Betjeman and Oxford exhibition in the Bodleian Library, but other things got in the way.

This week I made it - with days to spare. It closes on October 28.

Not that I am one to make a habit of peering at old manuscripts and photographs of long-dead Oxford luminaries, even if they are CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and Maurice Bowra. But Betjeman I like. Any poet who can incorporate words such as Liberty lampshade' and Robertson's marmalade' into his verse gets my support every time.