Thursday morning at 8.20am, I am still lying in bed when I hear little Phoebe arriving downstairs. She spends the day with us on a Thursday and if her mummy has gone down to London for the day, she will have a sleepover with us too.
I stumble into the bathroom to sit on the big white telephone. Grandma follows Phoebe upstairs to find something. What could it be? Moments later they are looking for me in the bedroom but I am not there. Phoebe pushes open the unlocked bathroom door to find me sitting there as naked as the day I was born.
Bizarrely, Phoebe is wearing some sparkly Christmas glasses and a green hairband with little Christmas trees on springs. She proceeds to have a conversation with me about what she has already had for her breakfast, what she has been doing at nursery school and what she wants to do today.
I cough and she says, "Are you alright Grandpa? Are you going to be sick?"
"No, I am not going to be sick Phoebe!"
Friday morning at 5,45am. I hear something on the landing by our bedroom door, guessing correctly that Phoebe (aged three years and seven months) has got up. I can largely forgive her for this early start as she fell asleep before eight o'clock on Thursday night.
She's standing there in her "Encanto" pyjamas, her hair all tousled and her cuddly sloth Monty dangling from her hand. I kiss her head and invite her to join me and Grandma in our bed but she refuses the invitation saying she wants breakfast instead.
Grandma hears her and says she'll get up while I clamber back into our warm pit ready for another three hours sleep.
Later, at two thirty in the afternoon, I take Phoebe to the playground at Lodge Moor. It's always chillier up there but as per usual Phoebe doesn't want a jacket on. She doesn't seem to feel the cold like some children.
I cough and she says, "Are you alright Grandpa? Are you going to be sick?"
"No, I am not going to be sick Phoebe!"
At the wooden climbing frame with its slides, ropes and rigging, I ask Phoebe to take care.
"I am alright Grandpa! I can do this!" she promises and she demonstrates her self-confidence four or five more times while I wait nervously below.
And when we are done at the children's playground, we wander across the grass to inspect some fresh molehills. Phoebe knocks on the top, asking the moles to come up to the surface but of course, they stay down below doing what ever moles do in their downtime.
We jump back into Clint and drive round to "The Three Merry Lads" for drinks but Silly Old Grandpa has left his wallet at home so the drinks order is immediately cancelled. Phoebe goes down the tall slide four times and has to persuaded to get back in the car and head home.
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/GY3vaqK