Sadly, Ian and his girlfriend Sarah broke up just before Christmas. She is the mother of our precious grandson - Zachary. They have sold the £1.2 million house they bought together and now Ian lives in a rental flat in the Fulham area with Sarah occupying a nearby house that belongs to one of her brothers. He has been posted abroad on military service.
I have not asked many questions about why the split occurred. Maybe they do not really know themselves. Sometimes these things are about feelings and instincts - things you cannot entirely pin down. Both of them want to do their best for Zach and it seems that the parting has been pretty amicable. I have my ideas about what gradually happened to bring about the separation but no other people were involved.
As Zach was staying with Ian for the weekend we booked a hotel room at The Premier Inn near Putney Bridge. It was just a twenty minute walk from Ian's new place.
"Premier Inns" are a well-known hotel chain in Great Britain. They all boast that they are non-smoking establishments. I don't know about you but I detest any odour of stale cigarette smoke in a hotel room. As soon as I walked in Room 405, I could smell the fug - not gross but enough for me to notice.
On the way out, I stopped at reception to let them know. I said we didn't want to swap rooms but I would appreciate a canister of air freshener I could spray to suppress the foul aroma. The woman on reception ignored my specific request and instead said she would send somebody up to the room.
When we returned to the room at 11pm on Friday night, the smoky smell was still there and the only difference was that a member of housekeeping had cracked open a window. This now ensures that The Great Yorkshire Pudding Hotel Inspector will be composing a scathing written review.
It was nice to see both Zach and Ian. When the little man was in bed on Friday night, we ordered in a nice Vietnamese meal and this morning we met the two of them in Bishops Park where Zach fed the ducks and then we had a pleasant breakfast together in the park cafe.
Zach is really into his little toy cars and even takes them to bed with him. He loves to zoom them around Ian's wooden floors. On contrast, Margot likes to comfort her dollies, changing their nappies and patting their backs. None of the parents consciously encouraged this gender-typical behaviour. Somehow, it just grew.
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Our hotel was near this amazing bookshop in Fulham. I have never been in a bookshop like it. If you love books, this was a veritable Aladdin's cave. Inside, the secondhand books were stacked from floor to ceiling. I might be wrong but there seemed to be no method or reasoning to the disorganisation, no categories, no alphabetical order just thousands of books piled up on each other. Most of them had their prices written in pencil inside the front cover but many didn't. The little corridor that had formed between the stacks of books was so narrow that two people could not physically pass each other. For entirely successful book perusal I would have required stilts and a torch (American: flashlight).
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/3EO6ANH
