Grammie visits her grandkids!

17 April 2005 ~ 20:30

We went to Heathrow Airport to meet her Thursday night after work. It was very very busy at Terminal 3 with flight after flight coming through. Eventually we saw her. We had to comment on how good she looked as she had lost about a stone in weight (14 pounds).

When we got home the first thing we did was introduce Barbara to Summer and Autumn. We were expecting Summer to say hello but we thought Autumn would be too shy. However, we were pleasantly surprised because Autumn's curiosity got the better of her and she came to say hello, let Grammie stroke and pet her and crawled across her lap. Summer was gregarious as usual and made good friends with Grammie. And Molly the rabbit didn't cause her too much of an allergic reaction, maybe because she had taken some antihistamines and we had put some Petal Cleanse on Molly's fur which is supposed to stop dander flying about.

On Friday I took mother-in-law shopping in Croydon (Nightdragon had to work). It was a foul day�it even hailed at one point. But we had a good time mostly by shopping only in the city's two malls. We went to Build-a-Bear and both bought cute border collie pups which we had stuffed. They sell all sorts of different animals and every conceivable outfit for them; soldier, policeman, astronaut, cheerleader, skater, ballet dancer, soccer player, bride and groom etc etc.

After we got home we waited for Mark to arrive then went for a nice Thai meal at a place up the hill where we'd been before. She really enjoyed it; it's a nice place.

Saturday, while Mark caught up with some sleep, I took Barbara his mom to Windsor to try and catch a glimpse of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles at their wedding. No such luck though. There were a lot of people and the road nearest the Guidhall was blocked off, with the Police telling you you could go any further. So we shopped around for souvenirs and had lunch then came home. We spent a cosy evening watching videos of our favourite comedy shows like Father Ted that she'd never seen.

On Sunday, all three of us got up reasonably early and caught the train to central London, where we hopped the tube to Trafalgar Square and visited the National Portrait Gallery. It was the Tudor section I knew Barbara would be interested in, so we looked around there at the very old paintings, visited the gift shop, then all went for a cream tea at St Martin-in-the-Fields undercroft. They also have a great shop there and I bought a cute dragon dressed as a knight.

Unfortunately I wasn't feeling well that evening so I had to go to lie down while Mark watched TV with his mom. She went home on Monday morning but I did get up at 7am to say goodbye to her (I took the day off work sick). Mark will see her again in July, but I know she enjoyed her brief visit. In fact she had so many gifts that I had bought for her and Tanya (Mark's sister), plus souvenirs she had bought herself, that she had to borrow her son's large suitcase to take them all back in!


Stored nuts | Future acorns