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)

Max: highs and lows and a big step forward

Max in our woods

The 21st of June 2004. The day of the year when we got most light. But a day of highs and lows, for us, but above all for Max. 

The low for him is that he spent most of it under the care of a vet, who anaesthetised him and cut out a growth from his lip. That was one of the two events of the day that Max certainly knew about, at least until the anaesthetic knocked him out. What he didn’t know about, but might have given him a compensating high, was that a representative of the dog shelter where we met him was at the vet’s too. She had the papers we needed to sign to move Max from his existing status, in foster care with us, to full adoption. 

We signed. The deed was done. Max had adopted us.

As it happens, if he’d been aware of it, I’m not sure whether he would have regarded it as anything like as momentous as we did.

‘So what’s changed exactly?’ he might have asked.

After all, he knew, and had known for a while, that he lived with us. That we and the house we amusingly persist in regarding as ours, now formed his household. He didn’t need anyone’s signature on a dotted line to confirm what to him must have seemed obvious.

Humans, though, are more complicated. We need bits of paper. We need other people to confirm things that anybody sensible, like a previously abandoned dog only too relieved to have a house to live in at last, views as a done deal.

To be fair, there had been a few issues that we at least, if not Max, needed to clear up during the fostering period.

He had been known to growl at our grandkids. Now, I’m not beyond growling at them myself, especially at 3:00 in the morning, but it’s unlikely that I would ever bite them. Was the same true of Max? We couldn’t really share a house with a dog that might harm the children.

Well, I’m glad to say that during their most recent visits, relations between the grandkids and Max have improved immeasurably. In fact, while our grandson Elliott was with us the week before last, he became quite a fan of feeding Max treats. Max returned the favour, naturally becoming rather a fan of Elliott in his role as treat purveyor. As I recorded previously, Max had probably had little or no contact with kids earlier and that made him wary of them. He seemed to have overcome such fears now, and to have adapted, at least to those two.

In one area there’d been a slightly worrying development, but one we think we can deal with. As he has become increasingly integrated into the household, he has learned from the girls – Luci and Toffee, the two toy poodles – that it’s the dogs’ duty to guard the house. There are people who have the gall to go walking casually past the end of our back or front garden, sometimes even taking their impudence to the point of having dogs – other dogs, not properly cleared or authorised to approach the premises – with them. The answer is naturally to run down to one or other gate and bark at them and, as I mentioned last time, Max has become good at that.

Unfortunately, he’s gone still further. He tends to be less well-disposed towards men than women, possibly because the person who abandoned him was likely to be a hunter (the podenco breed is the classic Spanish hunting dog) and probably a man. When a workman visited us some time ago, and Max couldn’t stop him coming in by barking at him, he bit him instead. Nothing too damaging, and the victim took it in good part, though he admitted it had hurt. We’re taking more care now to keep Max away from anyone he might not take to well, since it’s not something we want to see happen again.

Overall, though, we felt there was no insuperable obstacle to the adoption and so Danielle signed.

The worst moment for Max at the vet’s must have been when Danielle left him there. The poor chap knows what abandonment feels like. Why, the shelter had picked him up from a roadside, where he’d maintained his existence for an uncertain time by foraging for whatever food he could find. He’d learned the difference between surviving and living. Danielle stayed with him until the anaesthetic knocked him out, but waking up, surrounded by strangers in a strange place, must have been a dismal experience that woke some less than pleasant memories. 

I’m not sure he altogether forgave us at first. It may have been just the after-effects of the anaesthetic, but it seemed to me that when we got him home, there was something of an unspoken reproach about him. Something which, had he expressed it in words, might have taken the form, ‘you left me behind. Don’t you know how painful that is for someone who’s already known abandonment? Besides, I woke up with this bloody pain in my lip. What on earth did you have those guys do to me while I was out and unable to defend myself?’

Yep. Couches are a good thing. And this one’s mine

Still, it didn’t last. Quite quickly he settled back into his life. Another change during the fostering period was that, where before he seemed reluctant to clamber onto a couch, perhaps because he’d never lived indoors and didn’t know what they were for, these days he’s fine with them. Indeed, he’s taken over one of our couches, to the point where for a while he insisted on its exclusive use and simply wouldn’t get up on it if anyone else was there. These days, he might even consent to letting one of the family, or one of Luci and Toffee, up onto it with him, but still won’t share it with other visitors.

OK, OK, Luci can come too. So long as she behaves

Anyway, it was good to see him on his couch and relaxing once more, the mood of hurt and disappointment apparently dissipating.

And then, of course, there was the evening walk. Max is a dog who springs to his feet and rushes over if he hears us so much as approaching the door. Getting out into the woods was a return to delight for him. I should say, in passing, that he’s great on walks and our fears that he might suddenly reveal the common podenco custom of disappearing and failing to return for hours, haven’t been realised. 

The walk went well. Max enjoyed himself. He even revealed his imperturbability by simply ignoring a magpie that attacked him.

Max ignoring an aerial attack

Why did the bird attack? Well, the magpies have their fledgelings at the moment and, like their close cousins the crows, the magpies have young that leave (or possibly fall from) the nest before they can fly. For two or three days they need to be protected from potential predators, a category to which they have clearly decided that Max belongs.

So it was fun to see him being not just admonished – with loud cawing – but actually buzzed by a flying magpie while we were out. And equally fun to see how he completely ignored it. He had things to smell, bushes to explore, and he wasn’t going to be disturbed by a tiresome bird.

Back to normal, then. And now as a full member of the household. Something for him to take for granted and for us to celebrate.

Which we did with a glass or two that evening.

Now I’ve adopted you,
the least you can do is stroke me when I ask

Easter grandparenting

With the grandkids due to visit us again at the weekend, my mind naturally wanders back to Easter, when they were with us last.

Easter! School was out, giving the grandkids a perfect opportunity to visit us in Valencia where, as they run no risk of forgetting, ice cream gets served daily. And to have all the fun that Easter itself provides.

Part of the fun of an Easter visit...
Escher painted hands. So why shouldn’t Elliott paint his?

Easter, as we all know, is the feast of chocolate, with some egginess, bunniness and lambiness thrown in. Just like Halloween has nothing to do with the eve of All Saints Day, but everything to do with pumpkins along with whimsical and only slightly sinister costumes. Or Christmas has nothing to do with the arrival on earth of the prince of peace and redeemer of mankind and everything to do with a large jovial fellow in a big white beard and a red suit, travelling by flying sleigh drawn by reindeers and bringing – the best bit! – gifts, gifts, gifts.

There are those, the more purist among us, who haven’t quite got the Easter message. They think it’s to do with the death and resurrection of the son of God, gaining the redemption of mankind by his own sacrifice. Well, this is a slightly odd view, as the French philosopher Diderot pointed out, since God ordained the suffering of mankind (you know, after that nasty business with the apple in the Garden of Eden) and Christ is himself God, so what we’re being asked to believe is that God sent himself to earth to suffer and die to save mankind from the punishment he had himself decreed for it.

Anyway, to settle all doubts in the matter, I’m glad to say that I have here the very passage from scripture that justifies the much more widespread interpretation of Easter. I confess that it doesn’t figure in any of the four gospels and, indeed, it’s a little obscure where exactly in holy writing it appears, but please read it and I’m sure you’ll agree with me in attributing the appropriate authority to it:

And thus spake he, ‘go forth and discover one of the bunny kind, and let him travel wide and far among the woods, and there find secret places where chocolate may be left so that only they who are diligent will find it, and that chocolate shall have forms various and diverse, as of eggs, but also of creatures of the woodland or the farm, as perhaps other bunnies or hens or lambs, and with them shall be concealed also forms of creatures long gone that are of the kind known as dinosaurs, but these shall be made of plastic’. 

Well, we took the grandkids into the woods and, lo and behold, hidden in the trees, they found various chocolate items, in the form mostly of eggs but also of bunnies or hens and, wonder of wonders, in an eery coincidence given the scripture I’ve just quoted, dinosaur toys made of plastic. I will admit that they had a little guidance in their quest. When my son, their father Nicky, and I showed up with them, Sheena their mother and Danielle their grandmother were already there and they provided helpful hints to direct the kids’ attention to the places most likely to contain anything worth finding.

Look what we’ve found...

The kids had a great time and, thanks to some strict rationing applied by Danielle and Sheena, sickness was avoided.

I’m glad to say that dinosaurs were not the only members of the animal kingdom that Matilda and Elliott met while they were with us. Nor were all those creatures made of plastic. They had a fine session with living animals of the equine kind (sitting on them) and one of the canine persuasion (to be handled with care).

The horses (well, ponies) provided them with what was in fact their second outing as riders. We’re now looking at where to sign them up for something a little more sustained in the way of training when they’re with us for a slightly longer time and can take advantage of it. But in the meantime, even if all they were doing was having a bit of a wander around on ponies being led by a kind and pleasant pair of instructors, they enjoyed themselves enormously.

Even better than plastic dinosaurs

As for the dog, this was the occasion they first met Max, our latest addition to the household, as I’ve described before. That was just a tad more fraught. Max, a recent recruit from a shelter for rescued dogs is a podenco, the classic Spanish breed, much prized by hunters, but only for a season or so, until they decide they’re no use, or no use any more, and abandon them somewhere by a roadside far from home. 

During such an existence, the dogs don’t get much exposure to kids. So when poor old Max met these two little bundles of speed and – how shall I put this? – un-quietness is perhaps the most tactful term, he had no idea what to make of them. He decided, as most animals do faced with something unfamiliar, that they might well be a threat. So he growled and even made a less than friendly move towards them. That’s not to say that he did anything that caused any harm, just that he suggested he might.

So there’s some training to be done. Though I don’t want to leave you the impression that the first encounter was all bad. There was joy too, especially over walking him, which Matilda and Elliott did together. 

Walking the new dog

Much to his pleasure and theirs.

Mostly Mild Max

People talk about a ‘one-month anniversary’, don’t they? Unfortunately, my ingrained pedantry rebels at that expression, since the whole point about the prefix ‘anni’ is that it relates to a year. We need a different word.

My humble proposal (and I pride myself on my humility) is ‘mensiversary’.

Max moving in
‘Hey, who’s this other dog?’

The second of April was the first mensiversary of the latest addition to our household. That’s the arrival of Max. He’s a Podenco, a classic Spanish dog, which makes our taking one a symbol of our assimilation to our adopted nation. 

Not that the symbolism was the reason we took him. We need exercise and our Toy Poodles, Luci and Toffee, for all the joy they bring us, have had pretty much as much walking as they can stand when we get to half an hour. Max feels he’s barely got going when he’s done 5 km (3 miles if you insist on sticking with the measures of the empire) and he likes that twice a day, so he keeps us very much on our feet before leaving us on our backs. 

Like many nations the world over, Spain is a highly divided society. People of opposing views glare at each across a chasm of incomprehension on many issues – the rights of immigrants, the status of Catalonia, the appropriateness of kissing a football player on the lips without her consent and, in particular, on animal welfare. As well as the fans, there are those who regard bullfighting as a barbaric form of entertainment obtained by torturing an animal before putting him to death. Hunting, too, is divisive, between those who see it as a sport and those who regard it as a way to take pleasure from the killing of living things. And there are hunters who like to use Podencos for a year or two and then abandon them by a roadside somewhere, while in the opposite camp are those who try to take them to shelters that give them all the care charitable donations allow them to provide. 

Max was one of the rescued. Not that he was Max when we met him. Someone had given him the name ‘Hannover’ which, as well as being a bit of a mouthful for a dog’s name, made no sense given he had absolutely no connection with Germany. ‘Max’ is short, easy to say and easy to recognise, which is what a dog’s name needs to be.

So Max he became. Not in any way in tribute to the ‘Mad Max’ of Hollywood fame. He’s about as sane as they come. I’ve never known a dog with a temperament as quiet and gentle as his. It was a week before we heard him so much as bark.

That isn’t the reputation of the Podenco breed.

‘Oh, you want to be careful with them,’ people would tell us, ‘they’re hunters, you know. And once they’re off the lead, they go hunting. Good luck to you on getting them back before they’re exhausted or hungry or both.’

They follow that kind of warning up with some blood-chilling tale.

‘My Podenco still runs away all the time. I’ve got a GPS device on her collar and I can tell where she is, but when I move towards her, she just moves somewhere else. Once, I spent three hours tracking her and then had time to go home, get some food, and return to tempt her back to me with something to eat.’

Well, we got to know Max before we took him. We visited the shelter several times, taking various dogs out for walks to see if we could work out how they’d behave. Of them all, Max was the one who showed no inclination to clear off, never barked, never growled at other dogs, and showed both affection and a good temper. 

So we took him, even though he was nothing like the dog we’d had in mind. Danielle goes for male cats but female dogs (she also goes for male children, which she’s done three times over, but that’s not something that depends on her choice). We also wanted a small Podenco, of the kind that comes around knee-high to us. Max is male. And he comes pretty much to waist height, which means he can stand up to a table or kitchen surface to grab any delicacy we may have carelessly left out.

His size was another reason to call him Max. Not that we’ve adopted the suggestion of renaming Luci ‘Mini’ and Toffee ‘Micro’. That seemed unfair.

The pack greeting a passer-by
That’s Max, Toffee and Luci, not Max, Micro and Mini

Well, Max has continued for the most part mild as ever. He’s enthusiastically joined the pack Luci and Toffee had already formed. So when they go chasing down the garden barking at anyone with the temerity to go walking past the gate, he likes to go with them. And he demonstrates that he too can bark (deep and loud, now that he’s decided to let us hear him, as opposed to the girls’ yaps).

Max in our woods, off the lead

And, most wonderful of all, he’s never run away from us in the woods. We’d planned not to take him off the lead for the first two or three months. But within ten days we felt confident enough to let him loose and, while he certainly likes to go running into the undergrowth, he seems if anything anxious not to get separated from us and reappears quickly each time. Even more quickly if we call him.

Of course, he may shock us yet and disappear for some hours on some future walk. But, so far at least, so good.

Sunbathing with the pack
That’s Luci to the left, Toffee to the right, not Micro and Mini

His rapid assimilation into the household also demonstrates a political principle for me. Many years ago, I was told that ‘if you want to make a man a conservative, give him something to conserve’. It seems to be true of dogs too. Now that Max has regular meals, a pack, and plenty of affection, he’s become possessive and taken to being a little aggressive towards other dogs, growling at them if they get too close to the main source of his contentment, Danielle. ‘She’s mine,’ he’s clearly saying, ‘try to divert any of her affection towards you and you’ll have me to answer to.’ Very menacing, very worrying. Very conservative.

Even so, he remains mostly mild. His biggest failing sadly concerns children. A friend of ours is a professional dog trainer and I think he got Max right: ‘he’s probably never lived with small children before and he sees them as little noisy creatures that run around everywhere. Unfamiliar with all of that, he perceives them as a threat. So he growls.’

Well, that’s all very fine, but we can’t have our dog growling at our grandchildren. By the end of their last visit, he was getting a lot better, accepting treats from their hands. But there’s more training to be done. And we’re going to do it.

Overall, however, we’ve been more than happy during our first month together. I’m looking forward to the future with him. So it’s with pleasure that I say:

‘Happy mensiversary, mostly mild Max!’

What’s a flowerbed for if it’s not for sunbathing?