Welcome Wednesday

“You don’t choose your family.  They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.” Desmond Tutu

Do you have a favourite day of the week?  For many of course, it is one of the weekend days when one can relax with family and friends after a week of working.  But for me,  there are two favourites. Mondays afternoons are spent with grandsons Nos 3 and 4 whilst Wednesdays are spent with grandson No 1. Grandson No 2 is away at school.

James on his 16th birthday

I have written before about Wednesday.  How I spend time with my eldest grandson, have dinner with the family and then relax with them for a couple of hours usually watching their favourite programs on TV.

And Wednesday afternoon, before his mother and father return home, is the only time I have with a grandson alone.  Whenever I see any of my other grandsons their mother or father is with them.  So this is a special time.

Sometimes we have to go to the mall to pick up whatever ingredient I don’t have for dinner, or perhaps James has to have something for school or sometimes, we just go for ice cream.  Little things but important.  Last week when I was looking for carrots in the supermarket, James found them and told me that I couldn’t function without him.  Another comment to remember to bring up at his 21st?

The family lives in an old farmhouse about 45 km from me.  It is a rambling house with large rooms and open fireplaces.  It sits on 6 acres with pine forest meandering up the hill.  So plenty of wood for the fireplaces, and wonderful places for the two boys to play when they were little.   The property was purchased by my son and his wife to be closer to us when my husband was still alive – only about 10kms away – so that we would see more of our first two grandchildren.  Unfortunately, just three months after they moved in, Granpa died and shortly thereafter, Granma moved into town.  So the best-laid plans….

Back to Wednesdays.  Recently this 16-year-old has become quite talkative.  Does that mean he has passed through the monosyllabic teenage time?  And last Saturday was the school ball.  No doubt he will have lots to tell me today about that, or possibly not.

There has been a tragedy in Auckland. A schoolboy died after attending the school ball.  So there were quite stringent rules in place for James’ school ball.  All pupils were going to be breathalysed before entering the hall.  One wonders why they didn’t do this at the Auckland school as only last year there had been a case of another boy who died after drinking a bottle of vodka at a party.  Teenage booze drinking is apparently rife here in New Zealand and moves to stop or at least contain the drinking seem to have no effect.  Perhaps this latest tragedy will bring home the seriousness to our young.

So what will we do today?  Sometimes we go for a walk up through the trees at the back of the house.  This is a magical place and a magical time for me.  James has produced a pair of sports shoes for me – somebody bought them for his birthday and they are too small so he gave them to his Granma for our walks. It has been very wet recently so maybe a walk is off the cards.  A trip to the mall will probably be called for although James is always concerned that we don’t spend too much money – a budding economist do you think? And then we will return home where James will no doubt light the fire in the living room and we will spend time together just chatting, or most likely me reading while he does whatever he does on the computer.

So to anybody else, Wednesday is just another day but to me it is special.

And I recently discovered the writings of Ruth Goode.  She was an author who wrote about many disparate things such as the scenic attractions of Maine, advancements in medicine and the life of the impresario Sol Hurok under the title “Impresario”.

“Our grandchildren accept us for ourselves, without rebuke or effort to change us, as no one in our entire lives has ever done, not our parents, siblings, spouses, friends – and hardly ever our own grown children”.  Ruth Goode, 1905 – 1997 American author.

So as usual, I have rambled off the subject and will be back tomorrow with more thoughts and ramblings of this ancient brain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related articles

• Wednesday at Lake Woebegon (growingyoungereachday.wordpress.com)