Now regular readers will know we’re a close family. I have 3 beautiful grown up daughters, 2 fine sons-in-law, 4 wonderful grandsons and, of course, my wife Caz who I love more than anything. I’m biased and this must sound cheesily gushing I know, but they really are decent and fun people and I like to be near them as much as possible. So this lockdown has been tough on us, emotionally.
Poignant day yesterday. First up we went up to Akeley Wood to collect my super grandson Sam from his school. He’d just finished his 21st and final GCSE exam (physics urgh) which had been spread over 5 long weeks. 5 weeks!! I know we’ve all been through it but that’s too long in my opionion. The lad is shattered but happy and relieved at getting over the finishing line. And there he was in his shirt all signed by his school mates – when did that become a thing? Anyway the point is that yesterday was effectively his last day at school. That’s it no more school uniforms, lazy long holidays etc. It’s all behind him as in August he’ll start his 2 year contract with Borehamwood Academy studying BTEC level 3 Sports Sciences while doing all his football stuff of course. Then yesterday afternoon it was fab grandson Georgie’s last sports day at junior school. It was a fun afternoon. But you know you’re getting old not just when you’re kids leave school but when your grandchildren do! Thank christ they didn’t invite the grandads up for a race at the end. Couple of pics from the day…
pp
It’s been an interesting last few days for my family. My lovely daughter E started her new course at Oxford University as a mature student which made us all very proud. On Thursday my super grandson G had to have some important tests on a little condition he’s developed. Whilst concerning, the outcome was reassuringly very manageable, which was a huge relief. Then I had my 6 month review with my lovely oncologist which despite some recent niggles (see later posting!) went very well and, thankfully, I got another 6 month pass.
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.
Well today I went to watch my eldest grandson S play for his academy team against Barnet FC. It was a lovely morning if a bit cool and it was a proper lads get together with his other Grandad BB there and his young brother G and my son-in-law St there too of course. I haven’t been for a while to watch him and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Look at this….a lovely bottle of Vimto, a cordial made from a secret blend of blackberries, grapes and raspberries and some special herbs and brewed oop north for t’last 100 years and more. It’s like the northern equivalent of Coca Cola and, yes, there is a carbonated version now and a shiny new logo style too (which I don’t really like if truth be told). It’s what we grew up drinking as kids and just recently we’ve introduced it to our two grandsons. A bit of Lancs DNA in a bottle. And they love it, naturally. They aren’t exactly talking with flat vowels just yet but it was amusing to hear our eldest grandson asking for another glass of that really tasty stuff ‘Vomit’. Ah spoken like one or two Blackpool lads I used to know. Makes you raht proud. And as Paul Daniels might have said if he’d spent less time in hospital and more time studying, ‘Now that’s Metathesis’ …….
Metathesis (English pronunciation: /məˈtæθəsɪs/; from Greek μετά-θε-σις, from μετα-τί-θη-μι “I put in a different order”: Latin trānspositiō) is the re-arranging of sounds or syllables in a word, or of words in a sentence. Most commonly it refers to the switching of two or more adjacent sounds.
Magic!
pp
I took my grandson S to watch Ice Age 3 at the local multi-screen Vue cinema in Staines this week. He’s great fun to take to watch a film and as it was an afternoon screening I promised him we’d have lunch at the cinema. He’s a big fan of hot dogs and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and all the other crap they sell in their foyers. But I’d forgotten just how crap the food choice is for more grown-up tastes. From a very very short list of hot foods (two items) I ended up choosing natchos with extra mushy jalapenos and this container of bright orange gloop which they assured me was the melted cheese dip. No it wasn’t. It was re-processed lipstick. Urgghh. Why is there nothing decent to eat at all in a cinema? Is it inconceivable that they could have a decent fast food place and maybe even a bar located within one of these multi-screen complexes? I reckon they’d do OK from those of us older than 17. Anyway the film was great. For all of 20 minutes we were the only ones in screen room 1 and we were so looking forward to whooping and hollering all alone to the antics of Manny, Diego and Sid – my personal favourite. We booed quietly when the other 15 joined us during the Pearl and Dean bit until a very old white-haired guy came in all alone. I whispered to S that he probably remembered the last Ice Age – and I didn’t mean The Meltdown. We giggled like only granddads and grandsons can. Such fun. Sorry old guy, hope you enjoyed the movie:
Pasta Paulie 