Family Matters

No sooner was the child born than Anna, my wife, was booked on to the first Ryanair flight back to the UK. 

Our granddaughter had been born two and a half weeks early, which threw our plans out of the window. I was working and could wait a fortnight to meet Ari, 7lb 7oz (Ari as in R.E., not Ari as in 'Arry [Redknapp]). Anna couldn't wait to get her hands on new-born flesh so was flying over immediately, staying in a Travelodge for three nights (supporting the new parents, when needed), flying back to Poitiers, having a week to recover and then driving back to the UK (I don't fly), with me, as originally planned.

Apart from being jaundiced, having a lump on her head and being tongue-tied (all now resolved) the baby was perfect in every way, Anna reported back after her initial visit.

I had run through various scenarios in my head of the first meeting with my granddaughter; I would be handed the child, raise her to the heavens (like Simba in the Lion King or Kunta Kinte in Roots, depending on your age), with an orchestra crescendoing in the background. What greeted us, when we arrived in Letchworth at my son and daughter-in-laws' house was them trying to deal with the mother of all poonamis. I don't want to get too graphic, but a chicken dhansak came to mind. My son looked like a very tired man on the edge. “Can you comeback in 20 minutes?” he said, rather brusquely. “Don't be silly, we've seen it all before” Anna replied. We went and sat in the garden while the carnage was cleared up. 

As well as becoming a dad, sleep deprivation and his parents landing on his doorstep (for the second time in a fortnight), my son had a job interview in a couple of days. Part of me felt sorry for this costume of a man in front of me, but there was also a part of me sniggering internally. When he was born he didn't make a squeak for 24 hours then found his voice and didn't stop crying for the next 24 months. I can remember changing his nappy at four in the morning with him screaming in my face. What goes around comes around. Snigger. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than someone else's child having a meltdown in the supermarket. Snigger. 

When we return to Royaume-Uni we mainly stay with my dad. He serves a mean Charlie Bigham ready meal and always has a well stocked cellar. We do a bit of cooking, washing up and jobs around the garden and in return eat him out of house and home and drink all his Barefoot. Dad has defied medical science by living on a diet of Charlie Bigham's, Roka biscuits and smoked salmon, not a fruit or vegetable in sight and apart from bladder cancer, an enlarged prostate, cataracts and needing a new knee, he's as fit as a fiddle. 

Just outside his kitchen window, he has a bird feeder full of the highest quality millet. The first morning I went to put the kettle on there was a green parakeet swinging on the feeder, I thought I was in Africa! Another time I saw FOUR woodpeckers pecking at the premium produce. Tits, sparrows, goldfinch, robins, all pecking away as the feeder swings from side to side and on the ground a great fat wood pigeon, who can barely walk, hoovering up all the debris. It can only be a matter of time before the rats find out. 

As we were in town we decided it would be nice to get the family together, so the conch was blown and they arrived from all four corners of the south-east. Special guest was little Ari who made an unexpected appearance. She was passed around like pass the parcel; every time there was a handover, people would cry 'mind her head!'. Every combination of photograph was taken, it was like a royal wedding, Ari with aunts and uncles, great aunts, great uncles, father, mother, grandparents, great grandfather, one with father, grandfather and great grandfather and the baby fast asleep in all of them.

The Le Mans 24 hour road race was on the weekend we returned home and the train through the tunnel was full of Ferraris and all manner of high performance vehicles. Crowds of car spotters greeted us on the French side snapping photos as the sports cars accelerated onto the péage. Our Dacia Sandero didn't seem to turn many heads. 

Whenever we drive back through France we are filled with a mix of emotions: sad to have said goodbye to loved ones and knowing we won't see them again for a while, glad that we are driving on a lovely French road with no congestion and no potholes, sad that we will have to pay the péage at the end, guilt that we drank all my dad's booze....snigger.