Granddaughter Number Two is home from university for a couple of weeks. This is partly because it’s Easter but also because it’s her birthday this week. We find it hard to believe she’s about to be 21! We haven’t arranged a big party but yesterday we had a big family dinner at my house. I baked a cake, as I do for most of the birthdays. Indeed the last unbirthday cake I made was received with complaints from the smallest member of the family because it wasn’t iced and decorated!
Now, my daughter has a huge car because she often carries large numbers of family members around. As a rule, when they all come to dinner, she collects Granddaughter Number One from the house where she lives with best friend/housemate and her assorted menagerie of pets. Granddaughter Number One’s chronic anxiety makes her reluctant to use public transport on her own - reluctant? No, a public transport refuser! But the huge car has developed a fault and is being investigated at the garage. Consequently she has been driving her partner’s rather smaller car, which only carries five people, including the driver. At least there is a second option for transport but not really big enoughk.
Yesterday there was an added complication; Granddaughter Number One’s best friend/housemate was away for the weekend. Granddaughter Number One didn’t want to leave her dog alone at home for hours while she came to dinner. The dog also suffers from anxiety! Could she bring the dog? Was the dog allowed in her mother’s partner’s car? Yes, to both of those. However, there still remained the problem of fitting everyone (and the dog) into the car.
Granddaughter Number Two, birthday girl, volunteered to come on the bus. Hurrah! Grandson Number One (almost 19) could have come on the bus but, for reasons unknown, opted to walk the 6 or 7 miles to our house. Well, it was a beautiful day for a walk, but it meant he arrived late for dinner. We started without him! What I didn’t realise was that he was bringing the family dog. So we ended up with two moderately large dogs for dinner!
In the end all went well. Everyone enjoyed the food, even though Grandson number Two had mostly lukewarm food. We sang happy birthday - a few days early but never mind - most people are working or otherwise busy on the actual birthday - and ate cake. Then a further bit of chaos ensued. How was everyone getting home?
Granddaughter Number Two and Grandson Number One and dog set off to catch one of the rare Sunday evening buses … only to discover that the village centre was closed to traffic and that buses were omitting that section of their normal route. They returned to my house to consult about the best pet-friendly taxi service. My daughter set off with her other offspring - Granddaughter Number on and dog, Granddaughter Number Four and Grandson Number Two (who delayed departure in that way four year olds have of messing around putting his shoes deliberately in the wrong feet.
I watched Granddaughter Number Two grow quietly more and more angry and frustrated with taxi companies, some of which didn’t operate on Sunday evening, some of which didn’t accept dogs in their cabs (fair enough - if I were a taxi driver I would probably refuse digs too), some of which didn’t have pet-friendly cab available! There was a lot of swearing between polite phone enquiries, Eventually she managed to book one. When it arrived, the driver harrumphed at the presence of the dog! Nobody had told him a dog was involved; that was an extra £2 on the fare!
But off they went. We finished off the last of the washing up, most of which had been done by my daughter - credit where it’s due - and vacuumed up all traces of dog from the living room rug.
Order was reestablished. We watched the last episode of the Mexican political thriller we have been following -Ingobernable - and of course it ended with more shooting and a huge cliffhanger. Will they manage to make a third series and will it tie up loose ends.
Avoiding depressing news reports, and in the absence of Match of the Day for Phil, we found ourselves finishing off the evening with the film “When Harry met Sally” - always worth rewatching, even if it meant I went to bed later than usual.
I set my alarm for later than usual in compensation. It rang. I snoozed it … twice. I listened to the rain on the skylight windows and suddenly it was 9.30. Oops! But so it goes,
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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