Keeping the grandkids well entertained

The grandkids came to see us soon after Christmas. They brought their parents along too, so that they wouldn’t get all lonely at home.

Poor old Elliott wasn’t too well, and nor was Nicky, his father. Still, being a little sick has never stopped Elliott hungering for entertainment and new experiences. Fortunately, we were well placed to offer him plenty of both.

One of the first was the playhouse we’d set up in the garden. We bought it in the supermarket I always like to think of as ‘a Lidl bit better than you imagine’. German commitment to quality shone through (Lidl is German) since, despite being affordably priced, the house was made of wood.

Matilda in her house

Both kids liked it, although Matilda made more use of it than Elliott did. Well, she’s a big girl now, being three and a half, while he’s still a bit of a toddler (not, repeat not, a baby even if he does like the occasional – well, frequent – portion of breastmilk, whenever he can get it), at 20 months.

In my naivety, I thought Matilda would view the house as a house. My capacity for fantasy is far too limited. In fact, it was occasionally home, sometimes school, at other times a shop. 

When it was school, we had to take Matilda there and then pick her up again, apparently hours later (at the end of the school day) though in my limited, realistic judgement only minutes had passed. To make things more interesting still, sometimes we were the kids going to school, and Matilda accompanied us there and picked us up again later. This was slightly more awkward, as sitting at the supposed school desk was a little harder given our size, and getting out of the house harder still, given our age.

Matilda serving a customer in the shop

When the house became a shop, Matilda would serve us through the side window, a transaction to be taken, I discovered, extremely seriously. It’s true that the products we bought were all non-existent – my apologies, imaginary (which isn’t at all the same thing) – but then the money with which we paid for them was equally imaginary, so the exchange remained fair.

Matilda watering the flowers outside the house

There was fun to be had with the house even in its capacity as a house. Danielle had put plants in the flower boxes that hang on either side of the door. Matilda appreciated the flowers and took great pleasure in watering them.

What the discerning grandchild chooses as
his means of transport in the woods

But back to Elliott. Despite being under the weather, he enjoyed trips to the woods, as he always has. But not being well (just look at his eyes in the photo), he found it a little hard to make his own way around the place. Fortunately, his granddad – your blogger – was available as an alternative form of transport, and a good time was had by both of us, even though the price paid by my shoulders was by no means trivial.

Woodland metro at sunset

The point where he did want to get off my shoulders and move a little closer to see the sights was near our metro station. I never get bored with our station deep in the woods, and apparently nor does Elliott. We were privileged as, without having planned it that way, we arrived just in time to see two trains, one going each way. 

This was an awe-inspiring sight. Apparently. Judging by the look in Elliott’s eyes.

So awe-inspiring was it, that Danielle and I decided to take the two of them on a metro trip the next day. Boy, did that go well. I’m full of admiration for the fellow travellers who made space for us, so that the kids could sit on the bench or, even better, stand up on it to look out of the window.

Inside a train! Wow! Amazing!

And, hey, you can even look out of the window

We didn’t choose to go anywhere in particular. In fact, we just went to the end of the line, but that was pretty irrelevant. The irrelevance, I felt, made the trip a wonderful metaphor for life: the destination doesn’t matter, it’s the journey’s that’s there for the enjoying.

I’m not sure the kids saw it that way.

Then there was the trip into town, to a permanent funfair outside a major shopping centre. That went well too. There was a bouncy castle, on which Danielle joined the kids, much to their joy, to say nothing of mine, as an entertained spectator. 

Danielle with Elliott and Matilda on the bouncy castle

Elliott and Danielle discovering a bouncy castle’s
only fun if it’s a struggle to stay upright in it

Matilda wanted a second go, so Elliott and I wandered off on our own. He has a strong will of his own, and I more or less had to force him down the way I wanted us to go. He resented that until he realised that I was taking him to a place with merry-go-rounds. It suddenly dawned on him that, though this be granddad’s madness, yet there is method in’t.

Matilda and Elliott on the merry-go-round

Meanwhile, Matilda had kindly wished the bouncy castle man goodbye as she left and he was so touched by her good manners – I blame the parents – that he gave her a free ride token. So, of course, Elliott got a second ride with, this time, his sister travelling with him, enjoying her free turn.

Getting the harvest in

And then there was a the trip to Danielle’s allotment. We cycled there, which was fun in itself, each kid perched on the back on a grandparent’s bike. And then they helped their grandmother do some harvesting - they got two strawberries each (well, it’s January), which they enjoyed, and then lots of radishes, which they liked picking and washing (flowing water! wow! what fun!) but weren’t so keen on eating. “¡Qué asco!” said Matilda, “How disgusting!”.

Queen Matilda

They left on 6 January, the feast of the Three Kings, a big day here in Spain. That meant most people were with families, some of them perhaps in church, and the roads were fairly clear, making it a good day to travel. It also meant that we had to make a bit of a moment of the night before, Twelfth Night. Our local bakery had this year decided to produce the kind of cakes the French eat on this feast day. The one we bought contained a bean and a ceramic figure. By sheer coincidence, Matilda got them both, with only minimal cheating by her grandmother.

The bean means you pay for the cake, but we already had, so we didn’t demand that Matilda cough up.

The figurine means you get to be the King for the day. Or the Queen. Or, as our good gender-neutral stance has it, the Monarch.

I thought Matilda looked great in her crown.

As I thought Elliott had looked great, earlier in the day, perched in an almond tree. Clearly much recovered from his illness. Living proof that a short break away from home can do wonders for your health.

Elliott surveying the park from an almond tree

His Dad too was better. Though, sadly, if his cough and cold had more or less cleared up, in the meantime his back had gone on him, so he was in pain again. Unfortunately, recovery’s never quite the same as you near the end of your fourth decade as at the beginning of your first…

Postscript: we like to leave our shoes in plastic boxes we keep outside the front door. To fit the shoes in easily, I tend to put one flat, the other on its side. Matilda saw me do that once and immediately intervened, without saying a word, although her air of serious resolve was quite rebuke enough. Carefully, she turned the shoe I’d left on its side, so that like the other one it was sole down. Then, with a look of satisfaction, she closed the box. Things were as they should be. My chaotic behaviour had been corrected.

Shoe storage
In far too chaotic a state for Matilda’s taste

“She’s very meticulous,” Danielle explained to me. And she’s right.