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"I was abroad, buying camels..."
Aug. 17th, 2007 10:14 am♥ Yum – Katie made the most delicious paella last night with chicken and chorizo and peas and stuff – glorious! Will be added to our stock inventory of recipes (we only have about five, routinely circulated).
♥ Mon grandpère was in hospital for a few days prostate cancer troubles, and he has to have an operation, which is a bit worrying, though Mummy says it’s very routine etc etc etc, but still pants, frankly. I hate it so much that my grandparents are getting ill and going to hospital all of a sudden. I mean, they’re nearly 80, I know it’s only to be expected, but I really, really hate it. I love them so much (even though Grandma is going completely mental these days over the Rosie thing, quite annoyingly so), and have so many happy memories of my time with them because, basically, all my memories of them are happy. Getting dressed up in an old bridesmaid’s dress and Grandma putting my hair in rags… playing with the old wooden play cooker in their back garden… Grandad showing us his old RAF uniform (complete with vee dashing hat)… painting pansies with Grandma in Ditch End, sitting in the window corner… lying around in Sunny Cove while Grandad built us sand cars and sand boats… helping Grandma make her famed sherry trifle, and being allowed to make the fork patterns in the cream AND put on the maraschino cherries AND very carefully lay down the roasted almonds with a grapefruit spoon… taking me down to the open day at St Hugh’s because my parents were away…
It was funny, I was talking to my parents when they came down the other weekend, and apparently Grandma had been saying what a star I was, and ooh, wasn’t I like her, and all this, and Daddy said it was like he’d had nothing to do with the making of me (skate over this people, don’t think about the specifics, for the love of God), and I feel a bit dishonest sometimes, because I always present myself to my grandparents in the way I know they want to see me, if you see what I mean. And superficially I am quite like Grandma, because we like a lot of the same things, and that’s what I focus on. But really, we are not at all alike, because I am, basically, my father. But a girl. And Grandma doesn’t get that, because I choose not to show her, because I know she wouldn’t get it. She doesn’t understand Daddy at all. Seriously. AT ALL. And she doesn’t really understand why Mummy married him, when he’s so unlike Grandad (yeah, cuz look how that worked out for Rosie), which presumably led to the famed “We never would have expected this from Miles… Martin, yes, of course, but…” comment, which was incredibly rude and hurtful, but it’s like Grandma has these freaky-weird blinkers on about my parents which lead her to suppose that saying things like this is fine, and it’s not, because she really upsets my mother, which is not on at all, because she’s lovely. Anyway, enough of such meanderings.
♥ I am off to Kathye’s for the weekend. My role: entertain the baby while the grown-ups do sensible things. I can do that.
♥ Mon grandpère was in hospital for a few days prostate cancer troubles, and he has to have an operation, which is a bit worrying, though Mummy says it’s very routine etc etc etc, but still pants, frankly. I hate it so much that my grandparents are getting ill and going to hospital all of a sudden. I mean, they’re nearly 80, I know it’s only to be expected, but I really, really hate it. I love them so much (even though Grandma is going completely mental these days over the Rosie thing, quite annoyingly so), and have so many happy memories of my time with them because, basically, all my memories of them are happy. Getting dressed up in an old bridesmaid’s dress and Grandma putting my hair in rags… playing with the old wooden play cooker in their back garden… Grandad showing us his old RAF uniform (complete with vee dashing hat)… painting pansies with Grandma in Ditch End, sitting in the window corner… lying around in Sunny Cove while Grandad built us sand cars and sand boats… helping Grandma make her famed sherry trifle, and being allowed to make the fork patterns in the cream AND put on the maraschino cherries AND very carefully lay down the roasted almonds with a grapefruit spoon… taking me down to the open day at St Hugh’s because my parents were away…
It was funny, I was talking to my parents when they came down the other weekend, and apparently Grandma had been saying what a star I was, and ooh, wasn’t I like her, and all this, and Daddy said it was like he’d had nothing to do with the making of me (skate over this people, don’t think about the specifics, for the love of God), and I feel a bit dishonest sometimes, because I always present myself to my grandparents in the way I know they want to see me, if you see what I mean. And superficially I am quite like Grandma, because we like a lot of the same things, and that’s what I focus on. But really, we are not at all alike, because I am, basically, my father. But a girl. And Grandma doesn’t get that, because I choose not to show her, because I know she wouldn’t get it. She doesn’t understand Daddy at all. Seriously. AT ALL. And she doesn’t really understand why Mummy married him, when he’s so unlike Grandad (yeah, cuz look how that worked out for Rosie), which presumably led to the famed “We never would have expected this from Miles… Martin, yes, of course, but…” comment, which was incredibly rude and hurtful, but it’s like Grandma has these freaky-weird blinkers on about my parents which lead her to suppose that saying things like this is fine, and it’s not, because she really upsets my mother, which is not on at all, because she’s lovely. Anyway, enough of such meanderings.
♥ I am off to Kathye’s for the weekend. My role: entertain the baby while the grown-ups do sensible things. I can do that.
