Basically babies

It's quite an emotional time at the moment, what with one thing and another. We went to visit Son, Daughter-in-Law and Middle Granddaughter yesterday. Here we are playing with her on the floor. She's beginning to accept us as members of her servant tribe, which is lovely but also sad, since we won't see her again for another few weeks.

Once more she fed the ducks.

We went to the soft play centre. Here she is, seeing her Grandpa one floor below and waving to him. We were amazed and delighted - he was some distance away.

And now Littlest Granddaughter and her mum have come for a few days. She's keen to stand up (at not quite five months) - so advanced...

We've been comparing her with photos of her mum.

I think they're quite similar. I wish I were more similar than I now am to that young woman holding Daughter 2. Where did she go?

Littlest Granddaughter is very interested in her hands.

This is Daughter 2 again.

And we've been sorting photos out for a slide show after my aunt's funeral. Here she is, on the left, with my late dad and my other aunt, who alone of the three suffered from dementia for several years before she died. Such a random and awful disease and one which I do hope I haven't inherited.

And tomorrow we go to the funeral of one of my parents' best friends. Life is short.

But, on the other hand, it's frequently sweet.

Flowers and things

This is a completely irrelevant picture of flowers that my colleagues gave me as part of my retirement present. I found it while looking at pictures of what was happening just before Grandson was born, a year and a half ago and I thought it deserved looking at again since the flowers were so lovely. Delphiniums remind me of my childhood garden and of the A A Milne poem about the "dormouse who lived in a bed / Of delphiniums (blue) and geraniums (red)". It was rather a sad poem and used to worry me when I was little. In fact it still does, slightly. They dug up his flowers and planted crysanthemums (yellow and white) instead and he had to lie with his eyes shut, imagining his delphiniums and geraniums.

If you feel that I'm burbling somewhat it's because I. cannot. settle. to. anything. because. Granddaughter. aka. Volume. 2. has. not. yet. put. in. an. appearance. She was due on Monday past and so far nothing has happened so I suppose she's not scandalously late yet but I'm SO STRESSED. It's much easier (well, of course it's not but it seems so just at the moment) to have a baby oneself than to wait around for something to happen to one's beloved child.

I've just been watching the Eddie Izzard programme in which he supposedly traces his ancestry via his DNA. It's all a bit contrived but did remind me of how adventurous all our ancestors must have been. Somehow mine* got themselves gradually from Africa to Scotland, which is quite a distance with (presumably, even then) water in the way. I myself am feeble in the extreme and would probably still be sitting under a tree thinking it was a bit hot.

As I've said before, in addition to being a wimp, I don't understand wanderlust. I'd say it wasn't in my DNA except obviously that can't be true. Maybe if I lived somewhere unpleasant, I'd be different. But Scotland is so beautiful, the climate is so easy to live in and almost all my friends are here - why would I want to go anywhere else? And yet people do move countries from perfectly nice ones to other perfectly nice ones. I know there are often practical reasons but... . I suppose, though, if all my children were elsewhere, I might consider it. Unfortunately though, the two who have gone away have moved in different directions.

I ramble, though. Sorry. Can't concentrate. Need to see that baby and know that everything is all right. Not made of stern stuff. (Bites nails, chews lips, shifts nervously in chair. This may go on for days and days yet. Gah.)

* - to clarify - my own known ancestors are Scottish through and through (except one Irishman) as far back as the 1700s, which is where the trail stops. I'm talking about the improbable woman in Africa from whom we're all said to be descended. I don't understand this. What were all the other women doing while she was procreating on our behalf? A particularly intricate piece of patchwork?

Babies and what's in their heads

I've featured these photos before, but this is me. Or, it was. Though I don't remember the photo being taken so it hardly feels like me.

This does feel like me because I remember the occasion.

What do babies think about? Grandson looks here as if something very startling has suddenly occurred to him.

And now he's just a-setting a-contemplating it. With his ankles crossed - his habitual attitude.

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I remember climbing on the chair in the second photo (it was covered in fawn patterned material - very 50s - and was slightly shiny and slippery) and I remember the excitement of a real photographer coming to the house. And I remember the dress, which was white with tiny tufts of red, white and blue on it. My mother called it my Coronation dress because the Queen had just been crowned, or perhaps was about to be crowned.

.

But it'll be a long time till Grandson retains a memory of anything about his life so far.
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Come on, you 100+ people who click on this blog every day - how about telling me your earliest memory?

A guest post from Cassie

Today has NOT been a good one. In the morning, our servants wouldn't let us out into the garden after they came to release us from our nightly imprisonment in the kitchen. We ALWAYS go out into the garden first thing. We were Suspicious.

After a while, they came with cages. Padded cages, certainly - but cages. The smalller servant picked me up. I squirmed and squeaked and waved my arms and legs, making myself as spread-out as possible. The larger servant came and - well, the word might be crammed - crammed me into the cage. Cheek! By this time, Sirius - who isn't the sharpest cat in the world but isn't a complete fool - was under the table. The larger servant went and rudely grabbed him. Sirius doesn't have my spirit. He submitted to being shoved - cramming was not necessary - into his cage.

Off we all went in the car. I squeaked most of the way, making myself sound as pathetic as I could. I know how to administer the emotional blackmail. Sirius yowled all the way. He's a wimp.

At the Nasty Man's place, we got examined by the Man. Sirius got praised - "perfect" was the word used of him. He hadn't put on any weight (which is entirely unfair because he stuffs his face at every opportunity) and is in excellent health. Then he got stuck with a needle and seemed relieved to get back into his cage. The Man then turned his attention to me and said that I had put on weight! Huh. He did admit that I wasn't fat, though. As if! I'm simply very fluffy. Then I got stuck with a needle.

At last we got home again and we both bolted out into the garden and stayed there. We might have considered coming back to enjoy a well-deserved rest on the sofa but the larger servant started noisily sawing up bits of wood in the kitchen (covering it with sawdust - the smaller servant wasn't totally thrilled either but the large one said it might rain so he didn't want to do it outside).

Eventually he finished making the big noise but by then we were totally offended and had decided to teach them a lesson and hide outside. It was quite nice and sunny outside so it suited us quite well anyway.

But then: all that horrible bangy flashy stuff started up in the sky and it began to rain VERY HARD. Again! The smaller servant has put these photos up on my blog - they may look like yesterday's but in fact the flowerbeds were even fuller of water this time.

We do not approve.

Sirius, who doesn't have my moral fibre, caved in and went back inside when the servants called but I stayed out for a long time. I became very wet. But I think I made my point.

Look, there's the smaller servant waving to you in the puddle after the sun came out again. That really is a very short haircut she got last time. Her hairdresser has a mind of her own - just like me.

By the way, there's another thing: every time the phone rings, she leaps towards it as if she was expecting some news. But so far, there doesn't seem to be anything special happening. We don't like new things. I'm not sure that this bodes well...