The Circle of Life

Anna, my wife, has left me. I am alone...alone in a draughty French farm house in the middle of nowhere, in the frozen north of the Deux-Sèvres (which most people who live outside Deux-Sèvres haven't heard of... 'Du Sevs' they say 'where's that?'... 'An hour's drive west of Poitiers' I reply... 'Where's Poitiers?' they retort... 'We're an hour's drive east of La Rochelle' say I... 'La Rochelle?' they counter...'We're about halfway down France!' ).

Not wanting to over dramatise my solitude, I have the cat for company (although conversations are a bit one sided) and I pass the long evenings with extra pop and crisps enjoying The Repair Shop, which I'm not usually allowed to watch (being Scottish Anna struggles with the sentimentality of the programme, whereas I weep with every reveal).

She is in the UK helping her mother (who is having an uber-bunion removed) as well as attending the baby shower of our soon-to-be-born grandchild. I don't remember having a baby shower when our two were born, maybe they are a recent invention. Having viewed the photos, it just seems like another excuse for a gang of women to get together, drink to excess and behave badly.

Both of our kids' births were very traumatic for me I remember; I was quite tired, hadn't had time to make a sandwich and the delivery room was very warm...like a greenhouse. I asked if we could open a window, to which I received a withering look. Anna was making heavy weather of it too...effing and jeffing.

On being told by the midwife that the torpedo shaped thing I could see emerging was the baby's head, I became alarmed...luckily his cranium popped back to a more acceptable shape post delivery.

Unlike me with my sandwiches my son has been ahead of the game: the nursery has been painted, furnished and filled with all manner of things cuddly, clothes purchased, cardigans knitted...they know the sex of the baby and have already chosen a name. Where's the spontaneity? In our day people would bend over to empty the washing machine and out popped a child...'Where did that come from?'. 

They have been terrific keeping us abreast of developments in the womb: week 10 the baby was the size of kumquat, week 16 avocado, at time of writing (week 34) we're looking at a butternut squash. We've had scans WhatsApp-ed to us ...some very clear, others not so, similar to those posters that were about in the 90s, if you stared at them long enough an image would appear. 

And we all move up the pecking order. My dad becomes a great grandfather! I remember my great grandmother... a rather fearsome woman to a small child: petite, white hair, but with piercing eyes which could see into your soul. Every Christmas, after a sherry or two, she would do an impersonation of a Kookaburra (she was Australian). 

My mum, for some reason, didn't want our kids calling her 'granny', she insisted on them calling her Ann, which was weird. I shall revel in the role of grandfather...I already shuffle around the house and can't hear anything people say. I will get the child over excited and feed them sugary drinks. One of my grandfathers used to pretend he was giving us an operation...we would wriggle and scream with delight as he tickled us, it's probably illegal to do that now but we loved it (he was an Irishman and I am forever in his debt for enabling me years later to claim an Irish passport, allowing me to live and work in France). 

My other grandfather was a Yorkshireman and lived to 104. We used to call him Mr.Wool as he worked, not surprisingly, in the wool trade. The older he became the worse his eyesight got, until he was virtually blind. Oh but he was still driving. In our early courting days he once took Anna and me out for a drive which was a hair raising experience...he mistook the Bingley branch of the Midland bank for a bus! Like Mr. Magoo he never had an accident but witnessed hundreds. 

It wasn't until I became a father that I fully appreciated everything our parents did for us as well as explaining some of their irrational behaviour (I have a twin brother and a sister who is a year older, so we must have been a handful, I can remember my mother being on the edge for quite a lot of my childhood). Maybe on becoming a grandfather another 'realisation' will dawn on me. 

So as I sit in my solitude contemplating the great circle of life and wondering if it's time for my next plate of Super Noodles, the clock keeps ticking...ticking. All we can do is wait, wait for the big arrival on 8^th June...talking of arrivals Anna will be arriving at Poitiers Baird airport soon, so I must locate the hoover and plump some cushions.