Family family family

While Daughter 2, Son-in-Law 2 and Littlest Granddaughter were here, life was fairly busy. Obviously I didn't want to waste any of the precious time with my girls, and Littlest was, in the nicest possible way, somewhat distracting.

So cute.

They were all here because actor SIL 2 was up in Edinburgh with his improv group for the month and Daughter 2 is still on maternity leave. Daughter 2 and Littlest were with us, in fact, since July 21, since she came to Crieff with us, and unless she has another maternity leave at the same time, this is never going to happen again, so we really enjoyed it. My nephew was also in Edinburgh for the month - he is now a freelance musician and was performing with various shows. He came down a couple of times, once with his visiting girlfriend, which was lovely. 

However, they all left on Monday or Tuesday, since when we've been rather glum, especially since Daughter 2 is going back to work next week and Littlest will be going to nursery. My friends and I were so lucky being able to stay at home with our children until they were at school, but this generation, in Britain, generally have to go back to work much sooner. Littlest has had some settling in days this week and seems to have been fine, but - big sigh. I wish I could be the one looking after her. Apart from anything else, nursery is SO expensive. 

It was Son's birthday yesterday and we spent the day with him and his daughter, the Unbloggable One, which was cheering. She's two now and chattering away. She insisted that Son jump with her on the trampoline in the park. 

Here are her feet as she takes a little rest. 

And here she is feeding the ducks.

All very lovely, but now we're back in a sadly quiet house. It's tidier than it was with Littlest wrecking it, certainly, so I suppose there are advantages in everything. I haven't touched my latest quilt for weeks and am looking forward to getting back to it. And today Mr L and I went to Register House with one of his cousins to look up our ancestors, which proved to be really quite interesting.

But that's for another day.

Rushing about

Thank you to those who answered the question about whether they'd like to be young again. I was surprised that only one person would. Interesting. I can quite see that no one would want to relive traumatic events, and I'm lucky not to have had any hugely bad experiences; but all the same, it seems quite sad. My life has been busy and exhausting, but I'd still be happy to relive it - though with some changes. For one thing, I'd be more confident. After seeing fairly ordinary - nay, in some cases, incompetent - people running various organisations, I'd be less inclined to think I wouldn't be capable. 

Anyway, I'm not going to get the chance, so forward we go. We have Daughter 2, actor Son-in-Law 2 and Littlest Granddaughter staying for all of August, which is wonderful - though I'm getting nothing useful done because the baby is intent on wrecking the house - remember that stage? She crawls fast and has absolutely no common sense. But she's lovely and I'm really enjoying this time with her. See above. 

Grandson wanted to go on an outing with all his grandparents - the other set were visiting from down south - so we went to Dalkeith Country Park - lots of wobbling and scrambling, which the other grandmother did more of than I did, being younger and more agile and braver. However, I did more than either grandfather, both of whom were there in the capacity of observer.

Here's the little home-wrecker doing her stuff. During the time she's been here she's got steadier on her feet and earlier today she stood up for several seconds without holding on to anything. Most of the time, however, she pulls herself up by holding on to items of furniture which weren't designed to be stable enough for this. She needs to be watched constantly.

Daughter 2 (and Littlest) and I had a flying visit down to London at the weekend for her to change over the beds between Airbnb visitors to her flat and also have a meet-up with friends.

We spent one afternoon at a soft play centre, which was SO relaxing because we didn't have to keep saving Littlest from self-destruction. We fantasised about adapting our houses along similar lines.

Then we came home again.

And so we get older - I in a bad way and the baby in a good one. It's so odd to realise that I shall never know what happens to her as an adult. I'm now 68 and she's ten months. I might possibly survive till she's 20, I suppose. Extinction is a curious thing to contemplate.

Biggest Granddaughter started school on Wednesday! She was a baby just a moment ago and now she's five!

Hypothetically...

We took the two older grandchildren to the Glasgow Science Centre the other day, where they did lots of stuff like this...

... and this. Daughters 1 and 2 and also Littlest Granddaughter came too, but the latter mainly just watched.

She is very delightful.

And then on Sunday we went to Perth, where we celebrated the Unbloggable Toddler's second birthday (somewhat early) by spending lots of time in a playpark. Look at her beautiful blonde hair. She now calls us Granny and Grandpa - hurray.

Here is the Forth Rail Bridge as we went home on the train after a lovely day.

I'm aware that droning on about the grandchildren isn't terribly exciting so how about this? The other day I asked Mr Life if, given the choice, he would like to be young again, and without a moment's hesitation he said, "Oh no, I couldn't go through that again" (or words to that effect). This was slightly insulting, since most of "that" has been marriage to me... however, setting that aside (he claimed he was talking about the pressures of work, so let's believe him) - would you, o bloggy friends, like to be young again? I certainly would. The only problem would be that I would miss the grandchildren horribly - and that would be a great problem (but I don't think this is what Mr L was thinking about).

And there are, of course, things that I would do differently - not refrain from marrying Mr L but, you know, look after myself better in various ways - and many things that I'd try to worry about less.

When my brother and I were children, we had adjacent bedrooms and used to talk after lights out, and every now and then I'd ask him something and he'd say, "Hmm, I don't answer hypothetical questions." And this is a very hypothetical one. But - would you like to live your life again?