It begins with, “Mum, would you mind having the children for half-term? We thought it would be really nice for you and Dad to spend some quality time with them.” Before you know it, the car pulls up in front of your house bursting with the grandchildren, their luggage and the ‘granddog’, that no one had remembered to mention! Out pile three small children with very runny noses along with travel cot, steriliser, stairgate, highchair, ride-on tractor, pushchair, doll’s pushchair, bicycles, three car seats and an assortment of carrier bags stuffed to the brim with wipes, rice cakes and nappies. You are instantly handed a detailed routine for the baby and talked through a list of instructions. “No fried food, no marmite (too salty), no juice (too sweet), no nuts (possible allergies) and limited television.”
The parents finally leave, with the grandchildren totally unphased. You return to the kitchen to find the list has thankfully been chewed to shreds by the ‘granddog’. For the next five days you barely have time to listen to The Archers or watch your favorite television programme and certainly have not read a newspaper. You struggle to answer the phone and, when you do, you cannot hear who is on the other end anyway. Your civilised evenings, chatting together over a carefully-prepared supper and a nice bottle of red are replaced with leftover cheesy pasta, Petit Filous and an extra large gin and tonic. You have both nodded off on the sofa in the middle of The Bill.
However exhausting they are, not many grandparents would change it for the world. Grandpa has a team of helpers in the garden and on trips to the rubbish dump, and Granny has a kitchen full of chefs who have crammed tins full of peppermint creams and cookies. They have eaten the odd fish finger, nut, lightly spread marmite soldiers and watched a few DVDs, but all in moderation. They are well-exercised, happy, allergy-free and their teeth are intact (just). Typically, the minute their parents pull up in the car, all three grandchildren promptly dissolve into floods of tears.
