There is a theme park close to our Buckinghamshire hideout. It's part of a chain that caters for young children before they are old enough for the likes of Thorpe Park or Alton Towers. Attached to this theme park is a dinosaur park and open farm. We took our two and a half year old grandson there last Saturday along with his dad. It was a gloriously sunny day and we had a really good time. Our grandson wasn't really interested in the animals, at that age they just like to run around in circles and test their parents resolve by being as wilful as possible but we all had fun.
I have to admit that I wasn't tickled pink with the idea of becoming a grandad. Whilst I was happy for the mother and father, I was disturbed by the landmark of becoming old and the negative connotations. I brooded on whether I should put away my guitars, get a pipe and some slippers and take up gardening while sucking on Werther's Originals. Once I realised this attitude was clearly tosh and gave myself a stiff talking-to, I got used to the idea.
The thing about being a grandparent is that you get all the fun without all the hard work. Anyone with children will tell you they need constant attention and every move has to be watched for fear of disaster or mishap. As a grandparent you get to do all the spoiling, go on rides and play with them and, as soon as things get sticky, you just hand them back. Grandparents don't have any responsibilities involving healthy diets, discipline or nappy changing. Some grandmothers can't help interfering and taking over the parenting role, which is a mistake in my opinion, you should let your kids get on with it and provide guidance when they ask. Then again there is the unspoken favourite granny competition which is rife in most families. Most sensible grandads stay out of this particular bloody and bitter battle.
All our parents were invaluable when we were bringing up our children but we had no idea of the depth of feeling involved and their motives for it. We thought they were just being helpful because that's what was expected of them. Had they tried to explain it I wouldn't have understood. It's like being a teenager when someone tells you that it's just a phase, you can't actually see the truth until you are in your twenties and watch someone else go through it. I thought I was done with phases. It makes me wonder how many more of life's great enlightenments are hidden round the corner.
It's possible to enjoy your grandchildren more than your own children because you don't have the worry, the unrelenting demands and you don't have to carry round enough kit for a small army. This weekend was particularly poignant because the little chap was in an hospital intensive care unit three weeks ago suffering from a mystery illness. We were expecting the worst or the possibility of serious long term damage but, by a miracle of modern medicine, he made it through unscathed. The doctors still haven't found the cause of his illness but he is a very lucky boy and we are a very lucky family.
I did some recording with one of my musical collaborators this week. He had managed to find a female singer who liked his music and was willing to add some backing vocals to our existing efforts. We turned up to the studio with our new find in tow and her backing vocals were added; she is very good. It transpires she is studying art and had recently had an open air installation on show in the local area which attracted a lot of attention. She showed us pictures of the installation and it was quite impressive. It would have been interesting to visit it and educate myself on a subject I know nothing about.
The thing about meeting new people is that they can open doors for you. Other people have hobbies, jobs and contacts that can lead you in completely new directions if you are curious enough. Take our new-found singer, we could develop a friendship which would involve supporting her in her artistic endeavours by visiting her exhibitions and meeting her arty friends. I could develop a lifelong interest and an insight into modern art which, at the moment, is a closed book to me. Alternatively my musical collaborator may give her a larger role in his music which would take it in a much more folky/country direction just by her being there.
When you are very young you believe that the way your parents do things is the only way and, as you grown up and mix socially, your friends open doors to alternative lifestyles and attitudes. I can still remember being fascinated by my friends' houses and the way they did things. My best friend at infants and juniors was a lad called David and his parents seemed to me to be so glamorous. His mum had long blonde hair and wore jeans. There was always food about and we could have whatever we wanted, she even kept glucose in a packet in the larder, imagine that, glucose. I didn't have a clue what it was but I knew we didn't have anything that exotic at home.
In my later years at secondary school there was another lad who took to knocking for me. He was well known for fighting and causing trouble. I remember how he once bragged that he managed to avoid the police by hiding in a coal bunker for several hours. I also remember being stop searched by the old bill just because I was walking down the road with him. I began to avoid him and that particular door stayed firmly closed.
As people get older and get settled with partners, life seems to become more insular. The opportunities for meeting new people with interesting doors to open diminishes. Eventually it ends up back where it started, slaves to habit and unwilling or unable to consider new things in case it rocks the boat. I suspect that keeping a curiosity about the world is what keeps people young at heart... or is it the alcohol.
My lovely wife has a phobia. It's not one of those that affect your quality of life, more of a minor inconvenience. She is claustrophobic and won't go in lifts or travel on the underground; she doesn't like caves or tight spaces which is a shame as I quite like caves. She is a game girl and will always make the effort when visiting tourist attractions but sometimes we have to beat a hasty retreat when it becomes too much for her. The main issue is that she won't go in lifts and, as a consequence, I have become an expert on stairs.
Humping our luggage up and down flights of stairs seems to be a feature of our holidays. It's not too bad if we are on a lower floor but when you have to climb to the fourth floor or above it can become a bit tiresome. I generally request a lower floor but it's not always provided. Just recently we stayed at a hotel and were faced with a choice of a second floor room kitted out for the disabled or a standard room on the seventh floor. We ended up in the room for the disabled as we couldn't face seven flights of stairs; mind you the shower room was big enough to get a football team in.
Alternatively, I could go up in the lift, put the bags in the room, get the lift back down and then walk up with her but that seems the long way round and I would have to carry her bags as well. I am too much of a gentleman to let her walk up on her own and I would worry that she would get lost. I can imagine us wandering the corridors like dispossessed ghosts looking for each other so it seems easier to just bite the bullet and stagger up the stairs with our bags. It's surprising how many times a day you go backwards and forwards to your room, with or without bags, and it's especially annoying when you have forgotten something and then have to go back up to get it.
Multi- storey car parks are to be avoided where possible. Nothing smells quite like the concrete staircase of a car park with its bouquet of urine, vomit and dankness, sometimes with the added hazards of dodgy lighting and winos to climb over. Hospital staircases, whilst smelling much nicer, have the inconvenience of long meandering corridors to negotiate. On one memorable occasion we visited a sick relative on the 11th floor of Hampstead Hospital; I thought were going to have to send out for additional oxygen.
You would think that with all those stairs we would both be thin as whippets but that's not the case unfortunately. I don't really mind not going in lifts, who wants to be crammed in a tin can with the great unwashed anyway.
We are getting new neighbours. A seriously large van appeared in our street last week; the family across the road filled it with their furniture and drove off behind it out of the road. Yesterday, a different and not so serious van appeared and unloaded furniture into the newly vacant house causing much speculation on our part. The previous neighbours were a quiet, unassuming family who caused no problems despite the fact that there did seem to be rather a lot of them. Rather than knocking the door with a freshly baked apple pie to welcome the new arrivals, my wife and I sat and brooded about what kind of inconveniences they would cause us.
The fact that people move because of neighbours is well documented.
I know of a case where a neighbour with a shared drive put his rubbish out and the gentleman who lived next door was so aggrieved because one of the black sacks was partially on his half of the drive that he called the police. I also know of a court case involving a rotten fence and a wind chime.
The worst case I ever came across involved a lovely, elderly couple who lived in a well-kept semi- detached. Many years ago they had bought a substantial part of the neighbour's garden in addition to their existing land. They were very proud of this garden and spent many hours working on it. The gentleman who sold them the garden died, his house was put on the market and sold to a young family. Within two days of moving in, the father had ripped down the fence and reinstated the original garden. When the elderly couple complained they were faced with a hail of abuse and threats of the direst consequences if they touched the fence. The police were not interested saying it was a civil matter. They took the matter to court, the father was given many opportunities to remove the fence by the judge but failed to comply and was eventually jailed for a month. The father stated he would rather go to prison than see his children deprived of their garden. The elderly couple who had been robbed of their pride and joy became too traumatised to go out into their own garden. I spoke to the offender, he was polite, well spoken and had a responsible job with one of the London councils. His argument, which he passionately believed, was 'why should an old couple have a large garden while his children could only have a small garden' he was completely oblivious to the legal argument or the fact that he should have bought a house with a bigger garden. Your just can't reason with some people. This went on for at least two years and I didn't find out the final outcome.
On the lighter side, there was an occasion when my elderly neighbour disappeared for about six months. My wife and I convinced ourselves he had died. Imagine her shock when she went to hang out the washing and there he was, hailing her from his garden as large a life. We are still laughing about it.
As for our new neighbours, they only seem to have one car which is a newish mini cooper so don't anticipate parking issues and they are not adjacent to our house so initial impressions are favourable.
