Author Archives: HHaricot

she is 87 now, and i guess that visits can be bittersweet. i remember the vibrant active nanny of my youth, and see the proud and determined to be self sufficient nan of the present, who TBH, i just want to kidnap and bring home to live. she can manage, that is for sure, but she is lonely, her friends have died, and she lives in a house of the past. even i half expect to hear my grandad whistle as he goes down the passageway. she has lived there ever since homes for heroes after ww2. they were the first tenants into that new council development, and she will be the last of that group to leave. but i am sure she would actually enjoy what time we have left alltogether more if she actually lived close to me, my mum or aunt. please, when i get to ‘that age’ if my children or grandchildren suggest i move closer, i should pack up my memories and go for it. every time i see her, she seems to be preparing more to leave. she is gradually getting rid of lots of her ‘unneccesary belongings’ to ‘save us the trouble’.

and i feel guilty [something i am v good at!] for not going more often, and not prioritising her. because when i am there, i can see how much good it does her, how she loves to see the children. it is knackering for me, because i drive, prepare lunch, make teas, wash up, cook, do odd jobs, listen and talk with her as she is desperate for all that conversation and interaction, but also chivvy children, get them to be on best, and also interact, and not point out she repeats, forgets, and always calls SB by my name and often BB by niece and my nephew by my cousins name. and all this solitariness isn’t activating brain, so games [and she was a real sharp games player] take a bit of starting if they are new [so we took hisss rather than castle keep].

but i love her desperately, and always hate to leave. and the girls were good, loving and adorable. can you kidnap grandparents?

i think the girls spent the WHOLE day doing a card or note each for chloe!! l actually wonder what the post office will make of the lovingly decorated envelope…

i got home to some ebay parcels – well, SB said science was the way to go, so i have been bidding on the cheapy ones – as an aside i rofl when things are priced with the plus postage making them more than rrp? do you really think i’ll bid? [this is private sellers]. anyway, so bargains about. they were both excited by the cosmic rocket. yet another way to play with bicarb and vinegar! we had fun and were a tad inept at the mixing – used nearly a whole bottle of vinegar where can we buy catering quantities of vinegar and bicarb??

we had a lovely walk today with the manor born as our monthly nature walk. SB had been strongly encouraged to try walking with some weightbearing yesterday, and on seeing chloe really got stuck into it! arriving after a small rainshower meant that the birds were plentiful – we even saw 3 woodpeckers this time. we did a far more ambling walk than normal to accommodate SB and so went into the formal gardens.

both girls fell asleep on the way home – unsurprising as bb tried to get us all up at 4.30. we had a realxed evening with house on the prairie and dinotopia. sb did some katanimo . earlier in the day bb surprised me by counting the sheep in french [7] so although a bit poxy i imagine by most peoples standards, our regular reading of v easy french books may at least be planting a seed [that can grow into a tall tree in due course!]

we got a science kit from ebay – totally ancient electronic one, that has one but missing [bound to find it is the key thing!] but we may have a good look at it tomorrow, or do some of the horrible science explosive experiments, you never know!

i am going to give it a smith to see if it is good to eat. m-n probs and f/th’s!

i have had a storming headache, but trying to ignore! i did get up a bit later though in the hopes that it would have gone – unfortunately not! BB had already done some craft – painting and joining together a wooden train – and SB a maths experiment – how to walk through paper [i cut the piece so it folds out into a v large rectangle you can walk through [i'll pop a piccie on flickr!]

When I got downstairs, BB was happily poisson rouging and starfalling and SB did some ds-ing – 7 wonders of the world. We then did some french together before she did some education city. SB also read a bit about christopher columbus. BB and i read a library book together.

lunch and then we did some baking – cupcakes – sb ds-ed some more and I flickred. Whilst SB was at rainbows BB and i played some games and then watched magic school bus. SB returned and we played a flower fairies game together. she has some paper cut outs, and i found my summer flower fairies book from childhood, which she was really happy to receive.

out in the garden to pick strawberries and generally mess about before dinner. at which point i was grumpy with headache, and retired a bit! SB and i have nearly finished reading theatre shoes, which i have thoroughly enjoyed.

SB had dressings clinic, and now just heel to heal, as it were [sigh!] the foot is starting to peel in a big way – i guess with all that sweating in a plaster cast. she is not impressed. SHe is supposed to start to walk on it, or at least stand, but isn’t. chris’s parents came round to look after BB whilst they chris and SB at hospital and shopping. led to BB having a cake for lunch mind you, apparently SB had cake for breakfast

from the hospital shop, chris picked up a fantastic book of DK maths experiments. we could almost be the portico!! i thought it looked fab, and they have bought some ‘ingredients’ for some of the experiments, so lets see what fun can be had! [SB and BB both particularly like anything labelled experiment at the mo]
when i got home apparently crafts were on the agenda, so after much wailing and gnashing of teeth by BB, who didn’t like any crafts on offer, we made dreamcatchers. she used hers as a frisbee, and was in the end v happy!! SB also did crafts, and then read some of the rainbow fairy book she bought today. i weeded the potato bed.

we had lots of hugs snuggles and general attack mummy exuberantly play – going for the tactile approach to happiness! then when BB off to bed, SB and I had an hour of games and then I did her bedtime. It all seemed v normal