Now just in case I get a barrowload of complaints and tuts from my legion of female readers following my last posting, I thought I’d show that I’m not 100% porcine and do have a caring sensitive side too. You see for the last 15 months we have been looking after the youngest of our 3 fab grandsons, much-loved E, rather than him go to nursery. He was just 7 months old when he started spending Mon-Fri with us. It has been great fun, tiring at times, but we’ve loved every minute. And now he’s a couple of weeks away from having a little brother as our lovely daughter S starts her maternity leave. So he’s back with mum now full-time (and dad of course post work) and they’re going to have a ball.
But we’ll miss having him around enormously – we had such a routine worked out every day. Many others will miss him too; the little old ladies who watched us playing footie on the Green every morning and came over to say how much enjoyment he gave them, the folks walking their dogs (many of which became close pals), the greenkeeper, the lady who let him sit on her mobility scooter and play with all the switches, the girls in the Sainsburys across the Green, all the kids in the playgroup on Mondays and Fridays but especially neighbour Lucy, quirky playgroup leader Charlotte, the UPS delivery guys, the ducks, swans and geese in Twickenham, Richmond and Teddington who’ll miss his bags of stale tossed bread, the deer in Bushy Park who he fed with leaves fearlessly, Roberto in La Bottega and the waitressing staff in The Fallow Deer, the Whole Food store, Pret and Charm Thai, and last but not least my i newspaper. Every morning I’d do my crossword and he’d come over with his crayons and ask me to draw him a delivery lorry or car on the same page so that he could colour in the wheels.
Ah I’m going to really miss the little fellah taking my slippers off when he’s ready to go out and bringing in my shoes to put on. I’ll miss the mid-morning drives – just him and me – to get him off to sleep We’re going to miss bathtimes, and the-getting-dressed routine and nappy-changing which Nana always made fun. And those quiet times on Nana’s lap playing with the iPad. But it’ll be strange not to have my crossword/sudoku page looking like this each day…
proud grandad paulie
Pasta Paulie 