The thrills of Easter grandparenting

Ah, Easter, Easter. The great feast of the Christian year. When the followers of Christ eat chocolate to celebrate his sacrifice to redeem mankind from original sin.

As it happens, this year wasn’t just about chocolate. It seems that rocket ships are part of the Easter festivities too. As apparently are games played with Velcro rackets and Velcro balls that stick to them. At least, judging by what the grandkids found when they went looking in the woods for the gifts left for them there by the Easter Bunny (a curious figure for which, in my admittedly rather cursory reading of the New Testament, I’ve not found any scriptural basis).

Even the date on which said hunt in the woods took place was (how shall I put this?) a little unorthodox. I mean, there was a time when the dating of Easter was the kind of question over which accusations of heresy might fly, in circumstances when such accusations could prove seriously career limiting. Terminally career limiting. 

It seems this isn’t a problem in our times when entertaining grandkids of five (Matilda) and three (Elliott, though he was all but four). Church authorities all agree that, however controversial the actual date might be, Easter would always fall on a Sunday. In 2025, however, that was the day their parents would be taking Matilda and Elliott home. So instead we celebrated Easter Wednesday for which, to say the very least, there is no liturgical authority.

The kids had been with us for some days. We’d been to the woods several times, walking the dogs or just playing hide-and-seek. That’s a game they love, though I have to confess I’m still not convinced that Elliott has fully grasped the notion of ‘hiding’.

Matilda counting for hide-and-seek

Elliott still needs to do some work
on the notion of being ‘hidden’

While in the woods, whenever we reached the place where the Easter Bunny had done its work in previous years, Matilda would explain to me that ‘this is where we’ll be looking for the Easter Eggs’. Indeed, on the Tuesday she even explained to me that it was where we’d be looking for the eggs ‘tomorrow’.

Old traditionalist that I am, I patiently and, I hope, compassionately, explained, ‘no, it can’t be tomorrow. Don’t you mean Sunday?’

‘No, it’s tomorrow. Mummy and Mamama said so.’

Well, I wasn’t going to argue with a decision backed up with the authority of a mother and a Mamama (the usual name for grandmothers in Danielle’s native Alsace) and, indeed, it turned out that Matilda was right. The very next day, the annual mystery repeated itself. Mummy and Mamama disappeared into the woods and, coincidentally, it was during that brief disappearance that the Bunny did its work. They must have been keeping that busy rabbit under close observation because they phoned to tell me its work was done the very moment it was.

Out we went, the eager search party, ready to find treasure. And boy were expectations fulfilled. There was lots of chocolate, most of it apparently Swiss, another one of those curious coincidences because Danielle (Mamama) had been to Switzerland only the previous week. 

Matilda, Elliott and Mamama hunting for Easter eggs
Elliott’s holding the Easter rocket toy

It was there that we also found the rocket toy I mentioned before (in the photo, Elliott’s holding it upside down, a stance with which I imagine Elon Musk would seriously disagree). Not far away was the Velcro racket and ball set. 

The Hello Easter book

Also in the vicinity was an Easter book, with the proud title ‘Hello Easter’ in English, a thoughtful gesture by the Easter bunny, given that the hunt was taking place in Spain. As it happens, Elliott and Matilda are equally at home in Spanish, but we like to think of our family – their family – as being primarily English-speaking, so it was good of the bunny to provide the book in that language.

Max ‘helping’ with the Easter egg hunt

I was also pleased to see that Max, our Podenco dog, got into the mood of things, wandering around with the kids on their search. Although I can’t swear that this actually provided what you could strictly call help, at least in terms of finding eggs or toys, it was a great way of confirming the continued improvement of relations between him and the grandkids. You may remember that when he first joined us, his apparent disquiet with them, sometimes leading to rather sinister growling, had made us wonder whether we could keep him at all. It’s wonderful to see how well they’re all getting on now: Matilda and Elliott have taken to giving Max treats (just for the record, let me quickly add that they give them to Luci and Toffee, the toy poodles, too). They even like to keep Max supplied with food or water, a task they undertake with great dedication. That, you can imagine, is a sure way of winning a dog’s deep attachment.

Matilda providing Max with water

Elliott too has made a friend of Max

Just to wrap up their stay with us, we even took the kids to the beach the day before they left. It was April and a little cold for swimming. Elliott, however, was happy to wander into the water at least up to his knees, as long as he could keep a firm hold of Granddad’s hand. He also returned to his earlier pastime of trying to transfer sand from the beach to the sea as though, like Lewis Carroll’s Walrus and Carpenter, he was inclined to weep ‘to see such quantities of sand’, and felt like them that ‘if this were only swept away, it would be grand’. 

Elliott happy to take to the water
as long as he had hold of a hand

Elliott transferring the beach to the sea

Matilda transferring water to the beach

What’s more, there was a good stiff breeze, and that provided plenty of fun, since we’d brought kites for both grandkids.

Let's go fly a kite: Matilda leads the way

All in all, I’d say, the day went well and provided a fitting conclusion to a highly successful visit.

Sheena (‘Mummy’) has also been
adopted by the dogs (Luci here)

Travelling with a storyteller on a night train from revolution

If I remember, I had to run for the train. Miss it and I’d be travelling through the night, or waiting until the following day. This train would get me there after midnight, but at least well before breakfast time.

I was heading for Hull, in Yorkshire, from London. If I was late, it was probably because this was the time, forty years ago, when I was heavily involved in activism for the far left, and I’d been busy forwarding the revolution. A revolution which, in case you hadn’t noticed, didn’t happen despite my efforts. I was convinced it would, but in a top-down Cult, you can convince yourself of anything.

It was a time when I read quite a few books of Lenin’s. I remember almost nothing about them, just that they were stiflingly boring but had sonorous titles.

Far from difficult to put down
And eminently forgettable

One title I liked was The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky. Few people today have any idea who Mr Kautsky was, and fewer would feel it worth spending thirty seconds on Wikipedia to find out. But Lenin wrote ponderously against him, itself a characteristic of the hard Left: it spends far more time denouncing its ‘renegades’ and ‘traitors’ than its enemies.

When it comes to wiping those backsliders out, I reckon a cruel but effective method would have been to start reading them Lenin’s works. They’d be begging for the firing squad in no time at all. Or at least for a pen to sign any confession put in front of them.

Another title that sticks in my memory is Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder. I remember not a word of the contents, but the title remains relevant today: there is something infantile about the far Left, to which I then belonged. But, like St Paul, when I became a man, I put away childish things. Then, however, I saw things as through a mirror darkly, and felt sure, as do so many today who should know far better, that wishing for change yourself was enough to make it happen.

I was on my way to Hull to see a fellow wishful-thinker of the Left. However, since she was also my girlfriend at the time, I don’t think the activity for which we were getting together was exclusively the advancing of socialism. Which was another reason, I suspect, why I was anxious to get there before tonight had become irretrievably tomorrow morning.

In my hurry, I’d taken no reading material with me. Not even Materialism and Empiriocriticism, which wouldn’t have been the best way of passing the time on the journey (what on earth does the title mean, anyway?), but might have been better than just looking out of the window. Fortunately, a fellow passenger in my compartment took pity on me.

“I’ve just bought two books. You can read this one, if you like.”

Practically impossible to put down
and far more memorable than Lenin

It was Nevil Shute’s The Chequerboard. I’d never read any Shute before. I’d probably never even heard of him. But within minutes, I’d fallen for the story and simply couldn’t put it down. In fact, handing the book to the generous passenger when he left the train, was a painful experience. It took me a while – well, I had a revolution to organise and more Lenin to read – but within a few months I found the time to pop into a bookshop and buy a copy of the book, to finish it.

The thing about Shute is that whatever you think of his writing, he was an extraordinary storyteller. And in The Chequerboard he gives that skill plenty of scope: as well as the protagonist’s own story, the framework for the novel, we get the stories of the three men he sets out to track down. They’re finely constructed, compelling tales, a pleasure to read at any time, especially in a train running through the featureless landscape of night-time England.

The kindness of the stranger in my compartment is a memory I treasure. So is my pleasure in reading Shute. I’ve consumed a great many of his novels since then, and re-read several of them many times, though none so much as The Chequerboard.

My daughter-in-law Sheena, knows how much I like the book. She also knows that I’m working to improve my Spanish. So, when she saw a copy of Tablero de Damas, the 1951 Spanish translation, she snapped it up for me.

Found for me by Sheena in Madrid
where she lives with my son and new granddaughter

As she says, there’s something to be said for reading a book you already know, in a language you’re trying to learn: you don’t have to struggle to understand the story and can concentrate on the words. Since they’ve been written by a native Spanish speaker, I’m sure they’re good enough to help me with the language.

Although what gives reading the book additional spice is seeing how awful the translation is: librero (bookseller), for instance, for ‘bookmaker’ (someone who takes bets, for instance on horse races), of ‘cutting corns’ (removing calluses of dead skin) rendered as selling agricultural products.

But that just makes re-reading the book all the more fun. As does the memory of the strange times, and the kind circumstances, in which I read it for the first time. Especially as it was so much more entertaining than my usual reading.

Thank you, Sheena. Thank you, Spanish translator. Thank you, stranger on a train.

And thank you, of course, Nevil Shute.

Dates

By ‘dates’, I don’t mean the kind of meetings that people have which may lead to a romantic entanglement. Nor do I mean the fruit that grows on palm trees. No, I’m talking about a number of key moments in my life that have fundamentally moulded its shape and direction.

The first of these I can’t even specify exactly. It was some time in September 1981. Staying with friends in Eastern France, I met a nine-year old boy with whom I got chatting about the solar system. As one does. We even drew ourselves a diagram of the planets circling the sun, naming each of them.

One of the odder aspects of this meeting was that we shared a first name. That was unusual for France, where ‘David’ is mostly a name used by Jews though I, from England, where the name is far more common, was the Jew and he wasn’t.

They say that the quickest way to a woman’s heart is through her child, and it certainly worked in this case. David’s mother is Danielle and, 38 years on, our marriage has lasted since 11 January 1983.

The second date was 29 January 1983. That was the day David’s first half-brother, Michael, was born. If you’ve just compared those two dates, yes, there wasn’t much of a gap between Danielle and I getting arrived and Michael being born. 18 days, in fact. Danielle had to get divorced first. The judge who saw us commented, looking at her belly, that we would probably want him to reduce the time between decree nisi – the first stage of divorce – and decree absolute, the final stage after which one can marry – to the shortest possible time.

Michael deeply appreciative of my show of fatherly affection

He was right. At the time, there was no guarantee that the child (we didn’t know Michael’s sex before he was born) would inherit my British nationality if we weren’t already married. That was important if it was indeed a boy, since the French still had compulsory military service, a horrible waste of nearly a year, while the British didn’t. We did just manage to get married on time, sparing him that terrible fate. As it happened, however, the French had done away with military service by the time he reached eighteen.

Not that we regret having got married for all that.

The third date was 27 July 1984. That was when David’s and Michael’s brother Nicky was born. That completed that generation of our family.

Anyone who thinks that having a child doesn’t change your life clearly hasn’t had one. I always joke to new parents that they only have 25 years of anxiety ahead of them, but the real joke is that it isn’t a joke at all. There was a time when I was out every night at 2:00 in the morning walking around the estate where we lived, with Michael on my shoulders, while I pointed out various items of interest: the hedge, the lawn, the tree, the moon, all in the hope that he might eventually fall asleep.

Nicky was far less of a problem in the early years but developed a fairly rebellious character later. Somewhere, I still have the Post-It note from him, announcing that he was leaving us for ever, because he was sick of being treated unfairly, and he didn’t care how much we might be worried about his disappearance. And that was one of the lesser crises in our relationship.

One aspect of his rebellion that I particularly liked, however, was that he decided to grow his hair long. His brother followed suit. But when Michael changed his mind and had it cut short, Nicky stuck to his principles and kept it long. That meant that for years he’d be taken for a girl, right into adolescence when the loss of his childish looks left no one in any doubt that he was male, long hair or not.

What has never ceased to astonish me is that while most kids would resent having their gender mistaken, Nicky simply took it in his stride. When waiters in France asked “et pour Mademoiselle?” he would simply give his order, feeling it entirely unnecessary to correct their misapprehension.

And what of David in all this? Well, he’d grown from being “little David” until he stood significantly taller than me. Switching the names around seemed inappropriate, and “young David” as opposed to “old David” wasn’t an attractive option. As a result, he became Davide (pronounced like the French David, roughly Daveed in English), which he remains to this day.

He was an extraordinary asset, right up to the time he left for university. He was the best kind of big brother, so we could leave him in charge whenever we chose to go out, and it created a great relationship that has lasted to this day between the three brothers. On the other hand, in a moment of injustice towards him, we took a gift of our first ever dishwasher from my mother just three or for months before he moved out. So, for pretty much eight years, he had to do a colossal amount of washing up, and only got to enjoy a few months of a dishwasher before he left the household.

The next date of note was 11 January 2005. Now, if you remember the dates from the start of this piece, you’ll have recognised that date as Danielle’s 22nd wedding anniversary (by curious coincidence, mine too). Ironically, Danielle managed to forget that date every single year, rather refuting the common belief that it’s husbands who forget. A boss of mine once told me that the sure way not to forget your wedding anniversary was to forget it once. In my experience, I would turn up each year with a bunch of flowers and Danielle would say, “Oh, lovely! Is it our that time of year again, then?”

David(e) like to take a balanced approach towards parenting

Well, since 2005 she’s never forgotten. Why? Because our first grandchild was born on the day of our anniversary in that year. Thanks to Senada, his wife, and David, we’ve enjoyed the company of Aya for the last fourteen – now nearly fifteen – years. 

David(e), Senada and Aya
Enjoying the pleasures of Valencia, though not its best weather

She’s reached that painful stage where she has answers for all my wit (I think she regards most of it as little more than half-wit), and as often as not, she’s not just giving as good as she gets, but rather better (not an admission I find it easy to make…)

Nicky with Matilda

And the final date in this glorious list? Well, it’s Sunday, 18 August 2019. The previous evening, we had a text message, “Sheena’s waters have broken”. Twenty-four hours later, we’d dumped the dogs with our friend Begonia, who is always threatening to dogknap them anyway, and driven to the hospital in Madrid. It was great to see our second grandchild Matilda on the very day of her birth.

Sheena entertaining her new child's grandfather

David, Senada and Aya are travelling soon to see her. Michael, with our daughter-out-law Raquel, live in Madrid too so they’ve seen her many times already. And we, of course, have been up several times.

Danielle appreciating Raquel's display of daughter-out-law's affection

The next occasion will be the end of this month. I’ll be in Madrid to say goodbye to the company that has just decided to let me go (curious expression, that, “let me go”: I wasn’t trying to escape). I have to admit that seeing Matilda will go a long way towards making me feel less annoyed by the redundancy. Particularly as she’s learned to smile since last time I saw her.

Matilda's now smiling

And isn’t that what family’s for? Infuriating they sometimes may be, but overall family members are what make even annoying moments pleasurable.

Which is why those six dates matter so much to me…

Wedding in the hills

What a weekend! What a visit! And what a day!

Hatch, match and despatch. These are often said to be the only functions of an Anglican priest these days – performing christenings, weddings and funerals. I suspect there are clerics of other faiths of whom the same could be said.

I’m now of what we like to call a certain age.

Isn’t that an odd expression? I was pretty certain of my age when I was twenty-eight. Even more certain when I was eight and birthdays still came around far too slowly. In fact, if ever I’ve been uncertain of my age, it is now, when I frequently find myself having to subtract one date from another, a task made more awkward because I have nothing like enough fingers.

Still, a certain age, in the sense of an advanced age, is what I’ve now attained. An age where ‘despatch’ is more common than the other two. Most recently, it was my mother’s funeral. Marriages? Births? In the past for many of my contemporaries.

But then, suddenly, that changed. After all, there are our kids. And not before time, as it happens. My youngest son, Nicky, is 34. But he’s finally taken the plunge, and with a remarkably charming woman. Sheena and he are clearly made for each other, similar where they need to be, and where they’re not, wholly complementary.

So this weekend we were at their ‘matching’ ceremony.

And, boy, did they handle it well. They both live in Madrid (yes, there’s something special about an Irishwoman and an Englishman hooking up in the Spanish capital).

They arranged their wedding in the Sierra, the mountains, outside Madrid. The village was Santa Maria de la Alameda, at nearly 1500 metres, with a permanent population of 40, so the wedding guests tripled the number of inhabitants.

Last moments of bachelor life for Nicky and Sheena

The mayor conducted the service outside a house in which some of the more discerning guests stayed. By discerning I mean ‘of a certain age’. We were the ones who weren’t planning on dancing from the late – extremely late – dinner through to breakfast. It was good to have a place to retreat to well away from the sounds of revelry, where I use the word ‘sounds’ loosely – I suspect the neighbours might have chosen something a little more ferocious, such as ‘noise’ or ‘din’.

Happy couple in a glorious setting

The ceremony was touching. The bride was greeted by one of her favourite songs, played by a band of friends including the groom on guitar. The setting was stunning, flooded with sunlight and with a ring of hills in the background. And the mayor conducted the ceremony with charm and good humour. In particular, she made a point of welcoming the guests who came from France, the United Kingdom, Italy and other parts of Europe, and even from Australia and California (she did say California and not the United States, but I suspect that many of the inhabitants of that fine State would also prefer to make that distinction).

‘Nice of her to be so welcoming of foreigners,’ I told the old friend who was standing next to me.

Well, she’s a young friend, but she’s been a friend a long time. Nicky’s first girlfriend, making it all the more gratifying that she (and her boyfriend) danced at his wedding.

As it happens, she’s also pretty acute.

‘I’m not sure we’d be quite so welcome had we been from Tanzania,’ she whispered back to me.

I’m sure she was right, but as things were, the ceremony went smoothly and pleasantly and satisfied everyone.

That was the tone of the whole weekend. I know Sheena in particular, but Nicky too, invested great effort in organising the entire occasion. And not just them: it was impressive to see how many friends were helping with flowers and decorations, with organising events and helping guests to their bedrooms, with making sure the speeches were given in the right order by the designated speakers, with delivering the right people to the right place at the right time in the right clothes – even, I kid you not, with their hair in the right state (two friends helped get Nicky’s hair just right – and it was; I know Sheena could count on all the help she needed too).

The event proved how right they all were: as always happens when preparations are well directed, there was no sign of the effort, but simply a sense that everything worked precisely as it should, in apparent effortlessness.

Among other things, I was astonished by the meals. On the wedding day, there was a meal referred to as breakfast, but which went on until late morning. There were only crisps and drinks at the time I associate with the idea of lunch. But by 3:00 we were gathering for what was called ‘cocktails’ which seemed to be snacks without drinks though, confusingly, drinks were also available (but not cocktails).

That led without apparent break to what they called lunch, and we in England inexplicably call the wedding breakfast. It lasted into the evening, merging into what I like to think of as dinnertime though in Spain, that doesn’t start until 10:00. At which point they served us some other meal for which I can’t think of a name, but which turned out to be as enjoyable as all the others, so I didn’t complain.

My impression is that from about 3:00 onwards, barely a minute passed when food wasn’t being served. We certainly didn’t go hungry over the weekend.

Or, as it happens, thirsty either.

The entire wedding weekend left me with a feeling for which the word ‘blissful’ doesn’t seem too strong. That appeared to be a general sentiment amongst the guests. As you can imagine, this has left me with something of a taste for such ‘match’ ceremonies. 

You may have noticed that I mentioned this was my youngest son’s wedding. My eldest son has been married for some time. This rather leaves Michael, the middle son, to titillate expectations. And since he was accompanied by Raquel, a young woman as charming as Sheena and as well-suited to him as Sheena is to Nicky, those expectations have been well titillated.

Michael and Raquel at one of the meals.
No idea what to call it. It happened some time between 3:00 and midnight

Who knows? If he (and she) can provide us with another such occasion in the near future, they’ll receive no objection from me.

And, of course, I haven’t forgotten that ‘hatch’ sometimes follows ‘match’. After such a spectacular wedding weekend, who knows whether we might not be celebrating a new arrival some time soon.

Something else I’d certainly be entirely up for.

Abdicating decision-making can be such a good decision

I’ve long since given up – or at any rate delegated to a significantly more competent authority – power of decision over where I live. 

After 35 years of marriage, it’s become clear which matters are much better left to my wife, and choosing addresses is one where her superiority is manifest and entirely recognised by me.

Maybe, in the fullness of time, we'll identify some areas in which I excel in turn.

The latest address selected by Danielle is a small flat in Valencia, in southern Spain. It takes the place of the apartment in Kehl, in the far west of Germany, which we recently vacated. Kehl has many great virtues – the city of Strasbourg just beyond its doorstep, the Vosges mountains in France and the Black Forest in Germany, the river Rhine, the Swiss city of Basel an easy drive away – but Valencia, as well as its charm as a city, also has the sea and a quality particularly dear to me right now (after an apparently interminable winter), of a mild and pleasant climate.

I say particularly dear right now because, before leaving for Valencia, I spent two hours in a sleet storm stuck on the tarmac at Luton aiport waiting for de-icing. That’s in spite of our being just a week away from the reintroduction of summer time. Whatever the calendar may say, England continues grey, cold and wet. The idea of something that actually feels like spring was immensely attractive.

As a general rule, when we’re moving to a new home, we go through a little pantomime where I visit the place before the deal is finalised. I try to gauge Danielle’s feelings on the choice, so that I can prove my unerring judgement by shaking my head and suggesting “not sure whether this is right for us” about ones she doesn’t like, or expressing enthusiasm for the ones she does. This time we dispensed with this admittedly slightly vacuous ritual, and she just went ahead and took the flat before I’d even seen it.

That made the trip out doubly exciting: not just getting away from winter but getting to see the place of which I was now the proud joint-owner without having more than a vague idea of what it looked like.

The event entirely fulfilled my expectations. OK, the city wasn’t that hot – only 14C, which is just nudging the bottom end of what one might call spring-like but, hey, that was fourteen degrees more than in England when I left.

High celings in Valencia
Danielle in the foreground with Sheena
In the background: Ikea man assembling a bed

As for the new flat – well, it has ceilings that feel as high as a small church’s, mini-balconies at both ends, and amusingly tiled floors. What’s more, Danielle, my son Nicky and daughter-out-law (who I hope will soon become a daughter-in-law) Sheena, saw to it before I even got there, that those fine people at Ikea would equip us with beds in time for our first night in the place. That was vital, since some of the furniture we rescued from our old home in Kehl is due to arrive here, but not until May. Those tiled floors may be amusing, but I suspect they’d be no fun to sleep on.

Tiles on our bedroom floor
Fun to look at. Not to sleep on

A great city, a huge improvement in weather, and an attractive flat. Everything combined to confirm the quality of the decision I’d made.

That, of course, is the decision to leave all decisions about the places we live in to Danielle and only turn up once they’ve been made.

Nicky enjoying the mini-balcony at the back