Ramblings of ‘a human’ – I think!
At the beginning of December a lovely friend of mine, ‘H’, gave me an advent-calendar card and a bag full of gifts; announcing ‘Happy Advent’ and explaining she was doing Advent Gifts instead of the usual Christmas Gifts. What a super idea?

Opening the Calendar has been lovely and took me back to my childhood, especially when one of my grand-children opened a window and turned it around, asking, ‘What’s in it?’
I explained that I don’t favour chocolates or gifts in my advent calendar. I prefer the surprise of opening a door to find a lovely picture. ‘K’ looked surprised but accepted my explanation; I have made a mental note to buy her (and the other younger g.children) a picture advent-calendar next year.
My advent gifts caused a conundrum…which gift was my favourite? The Cucumber gin will (I am sure) be refreshing, the protein bars were tasty (they’ve been consumed already), the Christmas Jazz CD is super and has been played a few times already, yet the little book about running proves how well ‘H’ knows me, and the Brussels’s sprout tree-decoration makes me smile every time I look at it: nothing depicts a Christmas lunch or Boxing Day ‘bubble and squeak’ like a sprout, after all!

Every year I accompany my Mum to a Christingle Service with various g.children. This year we took ‘M’ and ‘I’. ‘I’ is only 3 years old but told her mum, ‘It was amazing’; she loved holding her Christingle and her brother, ‘M’, enjoyed telling me what the orange, the red ribbon, the candle and the fruited cocktail sticks represented.

Eldest g.daughter, ‘M’, is 18 now and I can clearly remember her first Christingle – she was too shy to walk around the Church with the other children so I had to walk with her, to the amusement of my Mum.
Last night I took g.daughter ‘K’ horse-riding as usual. Her little sister (the afore-mentioned and comical ‘I’) came along to watch. During the lesson ‘I’ told me she would like a red pony one day and also, ‘Would love to have red teeth’. I told her I wasn’t sure about the teeth but I had always admired red hair and wondered if her mummy (a hairdresser) could dye my hair red.
Whilst contemplating this ‘I’ proceeded to push my fringe away from my forehead (maybe checking out my roots). She suddenly said, ‘You look like a ooman with your hair up’. Of course, she meant ‘human’. I howled with laughter and wondered what on earth she thinks I look like normally? No comments required, dear reader!!!
One of my lovely g.daughters lives a good 4 hour drive from me so I don’t see her often. She sent me a little video last week, explaining the Christmas card she had made for ‘Nonna and Grandad’ and signing off with ‘Happy Christmas, Nonna, Love you’. It was very sweet and touched me. Showing this to her sister, ‘K’, said, ‘Oh, Nonna, she’s adorable’. This melted my heart. Although they are far apart there is definitely a bond – which re-inforces the point that there is something special about family, no matter how far apart we are.
I have many cousins and no matter how infrequently we see each other we just know we are there for each other when the need arises.

For those of you that don’t know me, and may wonder why I pen this blog, it is for my grandchildren in the main. I hope one day they will read it and get an insight into my life. I have no idea of what went on in my grandparents minds, but wish I had asked them lots of questions about their lives. If you have children, grand-children or nieces and nephews think about blogging…even just now and then, as it’s a great way to pass on information about ‘everyday life’.
That’s my personal opinion on opinion anyway!
Hugs
Leigh