“Grandpa Can’t Get Off The Sofa”

This morning’s dull but dry day’s weather developed after lunch into steady rain and intermittent fierce gusts of wind.

The smack of one of the wooden patio chairs smashing onto the paving sent me out in order to lay down the others and two large pedestals formed of ecclesiastical candlesticks standing in the rose Garden.

Poor light on the sitting room floor did not prevent Ellie from demonstrating her alert vision and control of her neck as she followed Jackie’s twizzling ladybird stick backwards and forwards.

Her acute ears led her to turn towards the clicking camera.

While Jackie walked her around the room she remained focussed on the light source of wonder above her,

and battled to avoid sleep as her great-Grannie sat with her on the sofa,

until handing her to her mother to carry her upstairs. Here Flo demonstrates a foolproof holding technique that has been demonstrated to calm any crying baby – not that Ellie was crying.

I have not been able to turn my neck quite so much since a rugby injury 62 years ago – and now very little. Neither can I prise myself up from the sofa without the use of my hands which had been cradling my sleeping great-granddaughter for an hour yesterday evening.

When it was time for me to go to bed Jackie had to call upstairs to Flo, informing her that “Grandpa can’t get off the sofa”. My hands were soon freed.

This evening we dined on flavoursome pork and chives sausages; crisp Yorkshire pudding; creamy mashed potato; crunchy carrots; and tender cabbage and green beans, with tasty gravy. Jackie drank Hoegaarden, I drank Valle Central prima reserva 2019, and Flo and Dillon abstained.