Yikes! What's happened to Lois and me? Today we find ourselves almost having the sort of day we imagine all those "other people" have - you know, those so-called "normal people". Whatever next!
You know, it's not like what Lois and I normally do, which is doing our so-called "housework" and "bill-paying" etc in the mornings, and spending the afternoons in bed, before watching some stuck-up, hoity-toity so-called "intellectual" TV programmes in the evening and debating the so-called "issues" that they suggest to us when we get into bed again - there's none of that today. Oh, my goodness no!
You know why that is, don't you! Yes, we've got our weekend visitors, which makes a pleasant change to put it mildly.
Lois (left) greets our 3 weekend guests: our daughter Sarah with her
10-year-old twins Lily and Jessica (right) enjoying a late breakfast
Yes, if you know us, you may already have guessed that our daughter Sarah must have brought her 10-year-old twins Lily and Jessica over to see us for the weekend - it takes something like that to jerk Lois and me out of our "bed-housework-bed-TV-bed" "treadmill", and how nice that is, for once in a while.
They arrive a bit later than usual - about 11:30am, and, as always, Lois and I discover that they haven't had any breakfast yet. What's all that about it, eh? When Lois and I were growing up in the 1950's we were told... [Yes, yes, you were taught that you'd drop down dead or at least faint dead away if you went out of the house without having had breakfast, yes, yes, all that stuff! - Ed]
Lois and I aren't exactly sure what "normal people" do all day - the other day we googled it but we didn't feel any the wiser. Look at this chart containing a sample of countries, and you'll see what I mean:
Anyway, after Sarah and the twins arrive, Lois and I have a day like we imagine "normal people" probably have: Lois goes out with Sarah and the twins in the afternoon to see some cute animals at some zoo or animal park, and also have lunch there, while I, so-called "poor old Poppa", have a nap at home. And then in the evening we order a pizza delivery from Domino's and sit and watch the Eurovision Song Contest from Malmø, Sweden and then go to bed about 10:30 pm.
What's all that about too, eh? Up till ten-thirty at night? When Lois and I were 10 years old, we didn't stay up after 8:30 pm at the very latest, even if it wasn't a school night. [Yes, yes, I know all that! - Ed]
What a crazy world we live in !!!
our twin granddaughters Lily and Jessica, here showcasing
more of their effortless arts-and-crafts work, including an incredibly
lifelike "fox-head" with moving eyes, fashioned from an eggbox
pizza delivery from Domino's precedes an evening watching
the Eurovision Song Contest from Malmø, Sweden
- yikes, how "normal" can you get haha!
Those twins, eh! And it's not just because they're our grandchildren that Lois and I find them so amazing - honestly it's a totally objective opinion haha!!! Sarah and her little family moved back to the UK a year ago after 7 years in Australia, and those twins have adjusted incredibly well back into life here - you'd never know, now, that they'd ever been away, and their Aussie accent has totally disappeared.
Lily is the shy one, but sometimes when I'm talking to Jessica it's like talking to a grown-up. Today she was debating with me the so-called "BODMAS" method of mathematical calculations, which is a total new one on me. I know the principles in it (I've got an Open University maths degree I'll have you know), but I didn't know those principles when I was 10, that's for sure. My goodness - the modern world, eh!
Lois and I have 5 grandchildren in all, and they all seem so unbelievably talented to us, all in their different ways. Again, this is a totally objective conclusion, by the way, in case you're wondering.
We both turn 78 this year, but Lois and I often say how nice it would be if we could live to be 100 at least, so that we could see how our five, to-us-extraordinary, grandchildren turn out, and what their lives will be like. It's a real privilege if you're lucky enough to have grandchildren, because those little darlings do so much to enliven your declining years, as you watch them learn to talk and learn to walk, and then eventually, if you're fortunate, get to discuss the BODMAS method of arithmetic etc with them.
However, being realistic, it's rare for people to live long enough to see their grandchildren fully settle into their adult lives and, hopefully to realise their full potential. You just have to hope for the best for them, don't you. We'd give a lot for the chance to see what they'll all be doing in 20 or 30 years' time, that's for sure, but let's be realistic, shall we !!!
flashback to Christmas Day lunch 2023: our 5 grandchildren,
plus our 2 daughters and one of our 2 sons-in-law, (left to right)
our 3 "English" grandchildren Josie, Rosalind and Isaac, our daughter Alison,
Sarah's husband Francis, Lois, Sarah, and the then still very "Aussie" twins
Talent, intelligence, sensitivity, being-generous-sweet-and-wonderful etc, are sadly no guarantee that you'll get a good life - and sometimes they can even be a handicap, to put it mildly.
I think of that today especially, because it's the day my dear late brother Steve would have turned 72, had he lived. Very intelligent in a really sensitive way, but not in an academic exam-passing way, a gifted guitarist but shy, hesitant, introspective, and lacking in self-confidence, Steve had a childhood that was disrupted in a number of ways, and he always found life difficult thereafter.
flashback to 1968: my talented, but troubled, younger brother Steve,
in the garden of our grandfather's house near Newport,
Isle of Wight, just after our grandfather's death
Luckily Lois and I are encouraged today to concentrate on the good part of Steve's life. Before he died, in 2013, there was an extraordinary period of some years when Steve broke out of his quiet introspective life, did some adventurous things and took the kind of risks that Lois and I would never ever - in like a billion years - ever have believed he was capable of.
Attaboy Steve! Starting in the 1990's, after years of hiding like a total recluse in his flat except when he was venturing out to do his quiet library cataloguing day-job in Oxford, he suddenly seemed to want to "get a life", as people call it.
And for a few short years, he really had, literally, the time of his life - he stopped being a recluse and even looked like he was going to get a girlfriend, Anne-Marie. He even went to France with Anne-Marie and met her parents etc. He also flew to the States to spend time with our sister Kathy and her husband Steve just outside Philadelphia, even visiting zones of the city they'd warned him it was safer to avoid, as brother-in-law Steve reminds us in an email today.
Steve "trying out the sunshine" with potential girlfriend
Anne-Marie and her mother, at Amboise, France in 1994
Whenever I think of Steve in those years I always think of Biff Rose's old song,
"Take Care of My Brother", and Lois and I were hoping that Steve's lovely French co-worker Anne-Marie would do that very thing, i.e. take good care of him, and at last give him the good life he deserved.
That "sunshine" was, sadly, not to last, unfortunately, and Steve's relationship with Anne-Marie, whatever it consisted of - we were never quite sure - didn't come to anything long-term.
Never mind that. At least Steve was giving life his best shot in those late, glory years of his, and hopefully it gave him some happy memories to lighten up his final days.
A huge pity also that he never met our 2 adorable twin granddaughters - he was always so great with children, and he would really have loved them, every bit as much as we do. Sarah was carrying them when he died.
Rest in peace, Our Steve!
22:30 We go to bed - zzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
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