Next with Grandma

 When I got up this morning I found the boys and girl downstairs making me breakfast.  They decided to go for the porridge option so it was just the saucepan bubbling away on the hob but the breakfast table had been laid and I was to sit and be served.  "You shouldn't eat on your lap Grandma, its slovenly", said the six year old.   "Yes dear, point taken".   The six year old was colouring and the boys were deciding on how they could run a restaurant from my house.  The mind boggles.  Menu planning was already underway.  This Gordon Ramsey documentary is certainly having an impact on them.  I hope they don't go back to school saying fuck to everything but then maybe they do anyway, I find it difficult to keep up with young people and what is acceptable and what isn't.  I did notice that River, he's 8, said fuck when he nearly chopped his finger in two when chopping kindling yesterday but I let it go as I was in a slight panic myself thinking the very same thing at the time. Fortunately it was only a graze of the skin and no blood to speak of. 

The restaurant, I was told,  is to be in my dining room and will only have three tables.  I told them that pop-up restaurants were all the go when I was an art student and they would literally pop-up everywhere.  While the menu planning went ahead, with squid ink pie obviously included after yesterday, I suggested that Inga, that's the 6 year old, (I don't know whether she was conceived in the Outer Hebrides or something, never been told) design some menu cards with her crayons.  I handed her some of the old Christmas cards that had not yet made the recycling bin.  I noticed she started colouring robins rather than writing Menu so I gave her some menu words to play with from the Guardian easy Saturday recipes where you might just have some capers and eels livers and hay in the cupboard.  Actually I saw that we eat very little offal in this country now unlike France and Italy where intestines from the cow and bollocks from the pigs are still popular and hay is gathered to stuff in the cooking then setting fire to the kitchen,well filling it with smoke.   It is little wonder that our health is so bad over here with our deficiencies.  I suggested to the boys that they put a liver and bacon option on the menu along with cabbage and swede for vegetables.  Both pulled faces at me.  Ugh granny!   River, he's 8 and conceived on a punt on the Cam I assume, said that they didn't eat cabbage or swede and had no idea what offal was and Inga piped up she knew because she had heard daddy say "fuck all".  I said that wasn't the same thing and to shoosh about that as it was not foody.   I suggested they Google offal quickly and then find something on You Tube.  In fact Mrs Beeton was going to be much better so thrust that at them.  Finn said he wanted to be like Gordon Ramsey, we don't seem to be able to get away from him, and I said you wouldn't want to be lumbered with a £20M loan on a restaurant that may run out of customers.  Finn said he would make his restaurant smaller and on the ground, not in the sky, 63 floors up.  I said, um, well that might work but really I would rather he became a pilot or a doctor or something.  Why don't we all draw aeroplanes and pretend we're flying in the garden?  Or play doctor and nurses.   These games no longer seem popular and I was ignored and everybody carried on with what they were doing. 

I left them to the menu planning and Finn was drawing the restaurant, Inga designing menus, River was busy with Mrs Beeton looking up offal and vegetables, and Blade (don't ask) was designing staircases.  I handed him my Piranesi book and told him he could keep it.  It is full of fantasy staircases going nowhere.   I used to love it when I first started drawing and I do still enjoy drawing ladders and stairs myself but I am downsizing so giving my art books away and I told them they could select any they wanted before they left.   They wanted to do it there and then so I let them go up the stairs to the book shelves.   "Can we take any of them?"    "Yes" I replied.  Take the bloody lot I thought, it will help everybody when I'm dead.   "Yes darlings!" "Love you!"

When Thelma came round yesterday and we had a morning sherry I didn't tell her why the children were still here, or rather I told her they were here because mum had decided to stay longer in London.  I know Thelma was only here to find a bit of gossip for the neighbours, I normally only see her once a year.  

I spoke to daughter yesterday and she said she would be back and it was all a bit silly really but she needed a break.  I left it at that and said "of course darling, nothing more will be said about it, just come back when you are ready", seething underneath and wondering where the hell I had gone wrong with her.  Words will be had. 

I told the children mum would be back for them and they wouldn't be skipping school and they said "we told you so" although Blade did ask if mummy and daddy were getting a divorce.  I said "no of course not".   Daddy had facetimed them before bed last night and mummy wasn't mentioned and I kept out of the conversations that were going on but I did notice in the background when I looked over Inga's head a blond, leather clad young lady flash by.  She could of course have been nothing to do with it and merely Daddy was facetiming from someone else's room.  Well, you have to give him the benefit of the doubt and these Russian girls do like to be helpful and Siberia can be cold and lonely. 

The day continued with me supervising nothing much at all as they four seemed to be able to look after themselves and Thomas and White Bib got on with sleeping and Inga and Blade remembered I said they had to pretend they were cats when they were tired and sleep like them.  In fact this seemed to go down a treat and I only had to call out "sleep time" and "cats" and they curled up next to Thomas.  As long as Thomas wasn't being made to be a pretend Mongoose he was happy.   Afternoon storytime consisted of tales from Siberia (no leather clad girls) and grandma's travels and then River and Finn going outside and pretending my garage was a den.  I couldn't believe my luck....

To be continued...