2nd April 2012

I caught my eldest grand-daughter telling a little white lie this afternoon. Or did I? Yes it’s the Easter holidays and I have a few days child-minding my two older grandkids over the next week or so. Anyway my pic today is there to remind me of the high standards of childcare that Jane always worked to. It was just over two years ago, one day in early December, that we looked after all four of our grandchildren to enable both sets of parents to go Christmas shopping. The day was carefully programmed with art and craft, games and cooking activities and Jane was in her element. As always I was pretty clueless, and still am. I can just about make up a funny story and then it’s down to scraping Play-doh out of the carpet, or wobbling around on top of the kitchen stool trying to take a photo! Today though, I struck gold. Maybe…

So with an early start I was feeling particularly groggy when they arrived, and I’m still rather recovering from my long journey at the weekend. What to do with the day then? Well for starters the visit to my parents proved to be particularly inspired. Of course, unbeknown to me, my mum had slipped said great-grandchildren a fiver, ostensibly towards buying Easter eggs. The fact that I exited fully loaded with cakes and biscuits as well is by the by. So next, we went to the supermarket for my weekly shop and all of a sudden the five pound note appeared with, ‘can we spend it now please?’ I have a standard response for grandkids given such a request, I always say yes… I’m not their parent am I? Anyway I filled my trolley with fruit and veg, milk and yoghurts, together with the obligatory buy one get one free fabric conditioner and all the rest of it whilst they had great fun. I never realised £5 would go so far in buying chocolate bars, chocolate eggs, fizzy drinks and doughnuts that looked more like sausage rolls to me. Whilst they insisted I keep the 34p change I have a funny feeling their powers of persuasion meant they got rather more out of me as well. ‘Mummy never lets us choose anything!’ was the deciding factor. But I wonder who taught her to shop like that? I like being a grandad, but nana was much better at it than me.

So, back home, when my daughter and son-in-law eventually appeared the children were asked about their day. ‘We’ve had the best shopping trip ever’ was the immediate and somewhat unbelievable response! Wow… this child-minding thing is easy isn’t it? Now what on earth do I do with them tomorrow…

Proverbs 17:6 ^‘Grandchildren are the crowning glory of the aged’ (NLT)