Feeling the cold, I’d hoped to avoid actually spending time with the two grandsons in the heated pool at Rosebud, but no, I was part of the job. The older one bobbed and dipped, splashed me (of course), torpedoed; his new confidence inspired me. P took the younger one for his enthusiastic lesson. Then the older one had his lesson and it was marvelous to see how he embraced it, learning to…
Tomorrow it will be four-and-a-half weeks since we caught up with the two grandchildren we seem most often, only an hour’s away (compared to 900 kms from Sydney and 4,000 kms from Darwin). A Covid week, travel time, and then cold recuperation… I cannot wait.
Sydney Airport on the way to Darwin. Granddaughter! Long bus trip to Broome. Delirious to be out of Covid iso. Vestigial carbon guilt. A break.
A grandson drew this. Aged 4, he’s clumsy at handling the pen I pass to him. He concentrates and presses hard. “It’s spooky,” he says. I think of myself, clumsy at handling pens, terrible at Pictionary.
It’s no wonder I never dream of visiting the Met. Or even our own galleries here in Melbourne. I’d rather have this, thanks.
In Covid-free Cairns, a working holiday last September, we read to four grandchildren in two locked-down big cities. Cairns library books. Picture it: one holds the iPad to project the book’s pages, the other reads, then we swap. 45 minutes is draining but filled with love. Each grandchild differs. One, the oldest at four years, sets himself up and maintains attention, only sometimes losing focus…
At the start of May, P and I hosted our three children, their spouses, and five grandchildren aged 3, 2, 1, 1, and 1, in a house in Port Douglas. I’d been resigned to a mixture of wonderful times and some tedium, but the entire week was low-key bliss. Even now, I can’t isolate the most precious memories of the toddlers and their sunny temperaments. Port D is a tourist hellhole but we…