Parents, can you think back to the time when you conceived your first child, and what was in your head when you did it? It's often quite a careless thing, perhaps done on a sudden whim, and I bet you didn't think about what that might lead to, 100, 200, maybe even 600 years into the future! Most of us don't, so don't worry!
There was this story in the press, wasn't there, about the guy who made barrels in the 1400s, which made a lot of people think about what their careless conception might lead to.
We've got our daughter Sarah and grandchildren staying with us for the long weekend, and it's hard not to think about that crazy thing "heredity", and all we didn't know about the future that crazy day back in the hot hot summer of 1976, when we must have conceived Sarah, if biologists have got the timing-mechanism right.
flashback to the long hot summer of 1976: Lois and me on holiday
in Somerset with our first child Alison, then about 1 year old
Little did Lois and I know that we would still be of use to that conceived, but as yet unborn, child Sarah, way into the future, in a year with a number not starting with 19.... .
I remember when all cheque-books - remember cheque books???? - had the figures "19" printed in the year box of the cheque date box, so you didn't have to spend a few micro-seconds filling them in. Not that we weren't grateful for that useful time-saver, may I (somewhat hastily) add!
And it still doesn't seem like a proper year-number to me if it doesn't start with the figures 1 and 9. Call me old-fashioned if you like haha!
[Get to the point! - Ed]
Well, old and decrepit as Lois and I are now, we can still help out the young'uns occasionally. And this weekend we can help Sarah out with more of her rental home woes, which is nice. She and husband Francis have been renting a house in Alcester since their return last year from 7 years in the wilds of Western Australia.
At the moment their washing-machine is broken, which is a bit of a disaster for a family of four, and Sarah spends this afternoon and evening putting successive loads, at least 7 or 8 loads in rotation, through mine and Lois's washing-machine and hanging them out on our handy back garden washing line.
flashback to March: Lois and I "christen"
our shiny-new washing line
Sarah and Francis have also, by coincidence, broken their water-bed - so Sarah and the couple's twin daughters will be sleeping here tonight and Sunday night, while Francis gets it fixed.
What is going on in their house haha!!!
On the plus side, however, Lois and I are very proud grandparents. [You don't say! - Ed]
And we don't like to brag, but.... [Yes, you do! - Ed]. I can't help it today, however, because Sarah and Francis' 10-year-old twins Lily and Jessica came top of their class in all of their end-of-half-term school subjects this week at their school in Alcester, despite their years of living in the wilds of Australia from 2016 to 2023.
Remember when the family was living right out in the "extreme" bush, the so-called "never never", at Chittering, north of Perth, an area often threatened by bushfires?
Chittering (top left) is about 30 miles from Wooroloo, where a
bushfire started in 2020, eventually threatening the family's home,
but blown off course at the last minute before it reached them
the kangaroo Francis "snapped" in their back garden
11:30 This morning Sarah takes her poor old decrepit parents out on a trip, which is nice.
Can you guess where we are from this unusual display on my phone, generated by my new indoor-outdoor temperature app, that tells you the temperature inside and outside [that's a surprise! - Ed] ?
Sarah "settles us down" in the café, while the two of us can watch all the splashing, and then we go nervously out "poolside", which is where we get that "humid" display on my phone.
Sarah and the twins (ringed) test the water at the local
"Malvern Splash" 'swimming-experience'...
... while Lois and I watch from the café with
a cup of Costa flat-white coffee
Awww!!! Look at our sweet little faces !!!!
eventually we venture out "poolside" with a couple
of chocolate bars - awwwww bless us haha !!!!!!
Later, back home, after their "swimming experience", we give the twins a "hot chocolate experience", and later we give both them and ourselves, a "big fat sausage experience" for tea, which is nice.
a "hot chocolate experience"...
...followed a few hours later by a "big fat sausage experience"
- yum yum!
19:00 Also this weekend, Lois and I speak on the phone to our other daughter Alison, who lives in Headley, Hampshire with Ed and their 3 teenage children Josie (17), Rosalind (15) and Isaac (13).
Little did Lois and I know, when Ali first introduced us to Ed, when she was at Cardiff University back in the late 1990's and Ed was "just" her latest "squeeze" as we thought - little did we know what it all would lead to.
1997: (left to right) Ed and Ali (22), Sarah (20) and Lois (51)
at the stepping stones over the River Ogmore, Glamorgan, the ones
my mother crossed every day on her way to school in the 1920's.
Lois and I were celebrating our Silver Wedding that week
flashback to January 2020 at the Reading Stadium, to watch
Chelsea Women play Reading Women: (left to right)
our son-in-law Ed, Josie, Isaac, our daughter Alison, and Rosalind
Ed could conceivably lose his job if Labour renationalises the rail network, but he isn't worried, we can tell. And you know when somebody has really made a success of their lives if losing the job is not a worry two them. Ed knows so many people at his level and he's such a good "networker" that he's sure to be able to just walk into some equally exalted, alternative job in the blink of an eye - that's the impression Lois and I have got - my goodness !!!
Ali has, just this weekend, become "a lady of leisure", giving up her part-time "teaching assistant" job at a local primary school. She hasn't got the time to work any more, and I guess they don't need the money. Ali has her time more than filled already by looking after the 6.5 acre grounds of their crumbling Victorian mansion, built in the late 1800's for one of Queen Victoria's Vice-Admirals. When she's not looking after their "land", she's ferrying one or other of her children around, whether it's to school or to out-of-school activities.
flashback to 2023: Lois in part of the 6.5 acre grounds of
Ali and Ed's crumbling Victorian mansion in Headley, Hampshire
Josie (17) has now passed her driving-test, but she's reportedly "gutted" that Rishi Sunak has called a general election just a couple of months before her 18th birthday, so too early for her to vote - poor Josie!!!
flashback to January: our eldest grandchild Josie (17)
about to take a practice drive to her school near Guildford, Surrey
with her dad, our son-in-law Ed, in the passenger seat [not shown]
Ali and Ed will be holidaying in Mauritius this summer, and Josie, who'll be on a project in Tanzania, will join them at some stage while they're out there, in their tropical Indian Ocean paradise - my goodness! Isaac (13) will be spending 10 days in China next month as part of his school's Mandarin Chinese course. And in August the whole family will be at the Taylor Swift concert at the O2 arena, London.
So it's all happening. For Lois and me, it all just takes our breath away.
It's no wonder we spend so much time in bed, is it - bed, yikes, where it all started, come to think of it. Oh dear!!!!
flashback to last Christmas, our bed,
festooned with our special Christmas bed-hats
22:00 Talking of which..... zzzzzzzzz!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment