A Visit to Elder Son and Family

I mentioned in my last post that I was off to visit elder son , his wife, granddaughter and grandson for a few days.

It is difficult for all of us to get together too often as all four of them live such busy lives, but I always try to go at the time when there are three birthdays: first granddaughter (10 yesterday), then elder son, (46 on the 31st) and finally grandson (14 on 13th November). There had been a lot going on in their lives, but the Sunday included the four of them, daughter in law’s sister, husband, 3 year old daughter (+ bump) as well as the grandparents.

I so much enjoy seeing them all again. Time passes all too quickly during the childhood years, then again at the other end of the scale.

So, we sat down, 10 of us for a slap up dinner on Sunday. The 3 year old was enchanting, turning somersaults and with a large vocabulary.

After dinner, the birthday presents were distributed, a day early. Granddaughter is getting to be a bit like the Queen, with official birthdays as well as the real one.

On Monday I took son to lunch at a near by café. This is a shop which specialises in interesting cheeses. Last time I ended up not knowing which cheese was which, but this time I had them labelled. The proprietor is such a nice guy and very interesting to talk to.

Son had lent me Romanitas (This is the Roman Empire Now), which was based on the assumption that the Roman empire had continued to the present day and I had bought the second of the trilogy. I had expected to have finished it while up there, but had not taken my reading glasses.

I had trouble reading the hymn numbers in Church with my last pair of varifocals, and this time the varifocals had a larger distance area and a smaller reading area. In general this is excellent because, if you are out for a meal or shopping, you can read with the varifocals, but now I need my reading glasses to read books comfortably.

I really enjoyed seeing the photographs of the four of them on holiday in Turkey, with son sailing with a spinnaker hoisted and the others getting tuition at different levels. These photographs were partly on son’s pc but also on grandson’s blog. (This is an invitation only blog)

With all sorts of bad weather forecast at different times I have been very lucky with the driving both ways. Yesterday I went to Sainsbury’s and bought one or two things including a new bath mat for the shower room.

I came home via Dobbies and picked up a loaf of bread. I had hoped to find biscuits for cheese but made do at lunch time by slicing up a smashing newly baked roll as though it were a loaf of bread.