ink marks on a blank page tues 15th Sept.

Is it that time/date I mumble? of course it is you numpty.For one thing I'm not Rip Van Winkle , yes I do love my bed . But of course the reference here is to the passage of time vis a vis how swiftly your (mine) children grow up and age before your very eyes, whilst of course you don't. This past weekend I have spent ferrying my daughter around to various venues as she flew home for a class re-union (20 year) from her school , daughter is 36, married and has 1 & 7/8ths children.
Saturday the 26th; Oh there I am, no I didn't sleep a whole week and a bit in. I got really really busy and just lost all enthusiasm for anything much other than trying to stay sane. We have had the grandaughters for two weeks and also the next two as well. as their mid term hols start monday.Their mother had to fill in for someone at her office so they got dropped off in the morning, I drove them to school then picked them up and brought them home here after school.These are two delightful little girls,mostly, not really much trouble, sometimes, but it is rather wearing . One is so conscious of the fact that YOU are responsible, heck I am never resposible, but looking after some one elses brood is daunting. which is why I haven't felt like attacking the keyboard for anything other than few mails.
Getting back to the opening bit about daughter flying in for her class re-union. Her friends had , as she has, physically changed.They are all about 36+ and have varying jobs from running a school in New York/Chartered Accountant/International Banker/Engineer/Senior Political Journalist/Prosecutor et al including motherhood, so they are a well rounded lot. As personalities and individuals they have not changed a jot.We lived on the farm in those days and her friends loved coming up to there on weekends and holidays, apart from lots of school trips and assorted functions I ferried them around the city for years and got to know who they were really well.For the latter few years of her school life I also had the luxury of being retired, I had decided at 42 that I had enough to live well and my g(o)od lady person was well ensconced at her country Hospital so I finished my daily toil and took on being daughters taxi. In reality it wasn't that simple, as I came home from work one evening my wife looked at me and said "you look 62 not coming up 42, this job is killing you, we have enough, finish up", so I did.
But seeing those super kids grown up,some with families, some starting family, then to know that they were the same people in their hearts and minds after 20yrs, was something wonderful.
We bless the day that the decision was made to send her to that partyicular school, it wasn't always a bed of roses ( for us) but the end result was well worth the effort. The physical effort just getting to school was bad enough as it meant for her three hours on a bus each day, the money was easy come stuff, but the logistics of transport and then when she eventually went into senior school with odd lesson times ,trips into art galleries etc, shock horror . When she eventually came of age to get her driving license I actually breathed a sigh of relief, tempered with a hefty dose of anxiety when she failed her first test. She passed the next test easily,just nerves the initial one, afterward we were both on life support whenever she took her car out.

Yes Horty I do know you do most of the looking after the grandkids, and yes I am an irascible old bugger at times and get short with the youngest one.But fings is fings old girl and if she wants me to teach her to play the piano then she has to be taught the right way, which is my way, not hers.They are little sweethearts and yes I will take them to Cocolat in the holidays. Yes Hortense you will get an invite too , can't have the chief cook missing out now can we.Pity that lovely little film we saw on the weekend was so far from Cocolat, I fancied a spot of gelato, you did too? well I never, you should have said, lets go Tuesday eh?