Shoes. And noses.

I've just come back from a few days visiting Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter in London. 

On the train down, a mother, father and daughter were near me, dressed to the nines. The parents were sitting together but the daughter was slightly further away, across the corridor.

The daughter's phone rang.

Daughter [To caller]:Oh, really? [To parents, a few seats away]: Keira's not got shoes with her. 

Mother: She can have my boots.

Daughter: Mum says you can have her boots.

Mother: Well, as long as I can walk in my shoes.

Daughter [to caller, presumably her sister]: She says you can have them as long as she can walk in her shoes.

Daughter [to sister]: You must have shoes. [Pause.] Oh, the pink ones. [Pause.] I wouldn't say they were bright pink. What dress are you wearing? Oh, the jumpsuit. [To Mum]: Mum, she's wearing the jumpsuit. [To sister]: No, you can't wear the pink shoes with that. 

Mum: Well, she can have my boots. I'll be able to walk in my shoes. 

Daughter [to sister]: It's all right, Mum says you can definitely have her boots. 

[Pause.]

Father [to mother]: Who's she talking to? 

And they say men don't listen. 

Littlest Granddaughter seems to be concentrating on getting all the illnesses. Shortly after recovering from her chest infection she got, simultaneously: a streaming cold; hand-foot-and-mouth disease (which didn't seem to exist here till a few years ago); and impetigo. Impetigo? I'd heard of it but never knew anyone who got it. The impetigo gave her a very nasty rash round her mouth and chin - her beautiful, soft, squashy little chin - the hand-foot-and-mouth attacked her hands-feet-and-mouth only slightly but gave her a horrible rash at the other end, and the cold did what colds do to her tiny nose. 

All of this meant that she couldn't go to nursery and Daughter 2 had to stay off work at the end of last week to look after her. Thus Daughter 2 went in on Saturday and also yesterday, her normal day off - but by then I was there to babysit. 

Littlest was fairly stoical about all this but is on antibiotics again, extremely nasty-tasting ones which she doesn't like at all. 

We went for a walk and met a nice cat. Though they're both looking at the camera here, they spent several minutes looking at each other, and Littlest burst into wails (luckily fairly short-lived ones) when we at last moved on.

Meanwhile, in the evenings, Daughter 2 made props for the Showstoppers' Kids' show - this is her husband's company. (Good outing for your children, should you be in London.)  The Showstoppers' adult show (not adult in that sense; it's not rude) is starting another run in the West End after Christmas, which is good for them, but which means that Son-in-Law won't be around much at all in the evenings for ten weeks. (Good outing for you, should you be in London.) Time for another trip down to help with the bathing and so on, I feel. (Any excuse... .)

Littlest unpacked my handbag, taking the tissues from their packet. "Are you going to blow Granny's nose?" I enquired, and she held a tissue up and scrubbed my nose vigorously. So clever! So used to having her nose wiped!

And now I'm home. Missing them... .

Transport

Daughter 2 came home for a meeting, and thus a long weekend with us. She set out from London on the 7.30 pm train on Wednesday and was due in Edinburgh at 11.30 pm. However, England has been suffering from severe weather and because of gales which brought down the power lines for the trains near York, she didn't get home till 5 am on Thursday - on a train that had to scoop up the passengers on the 6.30 pm from the previous evening as well as the 7 and 7.30 pm trains. Not fun. Not fun for the poor railway employees who had to deal with this either.

However, after some sleep, she recovered enough to be sociable later in the day with her sister and niece (and the rest of us).

A smiley baby is a very jolly person indeed.

How nice to attract such universal approval as a baby does. If only all life could be like this.


Grandson's recent experiences of feeling that he's surrounded by idiots: Episode 1 

While Daughter 2 was catching up on her sleep, Grandson and I were on a bus, sitting beside an elderly lady. "Look," said the lady to Grandson, pointing to traffic lights. "Those lights stop the traffic. When the light's red, we have to stop and then when it turns green, we can go."

Grandson gazed at her. You could see him thinking: I've known that for - ooh - months and months. Traffic lights are more or less my favourite things. Well, and tractors. And trains. And little cheesy biscuits.

"So," said the lady, "there's a red light. What does red mean?"

"Stop," said Grandson, speaking slowly and clearly as if to someone slightly deficient in the grey matter.

"That's right!" said the lady, clearly pleased by her efforts to educate the young.

Ah, teaching. It's always hard to get the level right.

The trials of life

Overheard in corridor:

Student: That form says you need to write 4000 words for your personal statement to apply for university. I'll never think of that much to say.

Her friend: It's not 4000 words, it's 4000 characters.

Student: Oh, right. But I've got an itchy tooth as well.

Thank you, bloggy friends

Thank you so much for your kind responses to my pathetic demand for sympathy. They did make me feel better, though if you could please round up our offspring, tie them hand and foot and deliver them home, this would be very nice too. Actually, Daughter 2’s flatmate is away so she’s back with us for a week and we’ve been having lots of her company. Which is wonderful but – how perverse am I? – the trouble with seeing them a lot is that it reminds me of how lovely they are and how much I’ll miss them once I’m not seeing them so much again.

In the case of Daughter 2, London looms because that's where her actor chap is based.

As for those of the kind commenters whose children are in a completely different country or hundreds of miles away in another state – I just don’t know how you do it. Or, I do. You get up every morning and put one foot in front of the other. What choice is there? In fact we see Daughter 1 for a large chunk of most Sundays, Daughter 2 for a larger chunk – she usually stays Sunday night and often comes down during the week too – and Son every few weeks. So I shouldn’t grumble. But I do, as you may have spotted.

Anyway, let’s look on the bright side, like a lady at the bus stop the other day. “I’m glad,” she said pensively to her friend, “that we cremated her before burying her. It means that when it rains I don’t worry about her getting wet.”

I do actually know what she meant.

Whew

I do hope none of my bloggy friends have been doing anything particularly fascinating recently because I'm so behind in my blog visiting and, especially, commenting. I will be back eventually.

When we got back from holiday, my poor confused aunt had deteriorated further and, in brief, we moved her into a care home today. What with that and the church magazine, which I edit and which is growing huger with every edition, there hasn't been a moment. Writing posts takes a matter of minutes. Reading and commenting takes a long time and it's a pleasure I'm looking forward to.

The relief of finding my aunt a home is enormous. I just hope she's happy there. At the moment, she's pretty confused, though endlessly polite and obliging.

I heard two girl students discussing a friend in the corridor the other day, Maybe he has the practical attitude that the rest of us might adopt, faced with life's little difficulties:

"The trouble with him," said one student to another, "is that he thinks the solution to every problem is to take his shirt off."

I'm not sure that would work so well for me.

Radio nonsense

On the way home from driving my confused aunt to look round various retirement homes this week, I’ve been listening to the radio.

One programme was about marketing. Various marketing gurus were pondering the power of slogans. “And yet,” said one chap, “do you remember that cat food that had a great slogan? But it didn’t become a market leader.”

“What was that?” enquired another chap.

“It was called ‘Miaou’,” said the first man, “and its slogan was: The food that 99% of cats ask for by name.”

Later on, I was listening to a recording of two oldish sports presenters who were watching the tennis at Wimbledon and chatting in an old-chappish way about how they’re no longer very good at tennis but just stand there, hoping that the ball will come their way. (There were sounds of balls being biffed vigorously.) “Look at these guys,” said one. “They tear about the court and yet they still have time to prepare their shots, unlike me.”

(BIFF!)

“They don’t do anything else, though,” said the other.

(BIFF!!)

“What, you mean they’re not brain surgeons in their spare time?”

(BIFF!!!!)

Pause.

“I’d be surprised if there was one brain surgeon among them,” mused the first chap.

Being not fat

I was listening, while working around the house, to a radio programme discussing what one should put on one’s internet dating profile. (Not that I'm planning to have one.)

“Well,” said one girl, “I start with the positive: I’m not fat.”

(Now, if she’s not fat, then that’s not really positive, is it? Nice, yes. Satisfactory, yes. But ... . Ok, I'm a pedant. )

Life is hard

Overheard in college library:



Student: Can I renew this book?

Librarian: Has your course finished?

Student: Yes.

Librarian: Well, I’m afraid not, then. Not unless your course continues into the next college year.

Student: Oh.

Librarian: Sorry.

Student: But it’s a beautiful book.

Librarian: That’s nice. But I’m afraid we want it back.

Student: [Martyred sigh].

On the train

On the train from Glasgow to Edinburgh - cities which are traditional rivals:

Man with Glasgow accent to train attendant wheeling coffee and biscuits trolley: Have you got any cereal bars?
Attendant with Edinburgh accent: Yes - they're expensive, mind.
Man: Will it break the bank?
Attendant: 'Fraid so. £1.50.
Man: It better be good.
Attendant: It will be. It's from Edinburgh. That speaks volumes.

No, no, I'm just about to do my marking. Yes, I may have paused to make a banana cake but I had three over-ripe bananas. What could I do? And yes, I've just spent some time footering about with minor adjustments to the church magazine, of which I'm editor but you know - I have my standards. But marking's next. See me go!

Courtesy of Daughter 2

“If I had a blog,” said Daughter 2 today, “I’d blog about a conversation I heard in the supermarket the other day.”

(Who could ignore this temptation?)

“There was a small girl of about two chatting away and she said to her mum, Does everyone have arms?

The mum said, Well no, some people don’t.

Why don’t they?

Well, soldiers - or civilians - in Afghanistan. Their arms might have got blown off.

This really wasn’t the answer I would have given so I looked at the little girl to see her reaction. She just considered for a while and then said, But do we know anyone without arms?

To which the mother replied, Well no, but we don’t know any soldiers."

Hmm.

They were, Daughter 2 said, quite posh people.


Also strange, also from Daughter 2 but on a more cheerful note: have you seen this Youtube video of the remarkable standing-up cat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVV_HXtEbLo