Grandparent Duties & Book Reviews.

Afternoon Everyone.

Yesterday we were roped into a bit of last minute babysitting. It's amazing how your day can be a blank canvas then all of a sudden you get one phone call after another needing your services. Hubby's daughter has two little ones aged 5 and 21 months. She works in an end of life care home and sometimes has to pop in for training or meetings that are not within her usual working hours, which are weekends. This is when we are needed, usually at short notice for a couple of hours. This was the case yesterday. We decided to take the children to Affinity  This is a shopping outlet that is quite close to daughter's workplace, and, as it was a very hot day, we thought we would be better indoors. I had looked at what was going on locally and spotted that Affinity had put on several events for children over the summer holidays. One of these was to put in an artificial beach complete with buckets and spades. There was also a small soft play area, giant connect four game and table tennis, all free of charge. There were deck chairs and a pile of magazines for the adults and if you wanted something to eat or drink, there was a reasonably priced cafe too. I thought that it was very well organised. Hubby and myself both had a coffee but I had taken an insulated lunch bag with an ice pack in, full of drinks and a snacks for the children. Old habits die hard, it's years of going on trips with my own children and also through working in a special school. We also met my daughter there who was shopping and so inherited an extra grandchild as she wanted to stay with us. Not that we minded at all. We had a lovely afternoon and after we had dropped our  little ones back at home we got to keep our eldest granddaughter for a few hours more. We tried to take her home but had lots of excuses why she couldn't go yet and then it was "Please, please, Nanny, can I come to your house as I've not seen the dog for weeks. What are you having for dinner Nanny? Ooh that's my very favourite, shall I stay and eat with you? " She melts my heart though and I love her to bits, as I do all of the grandchildren. I was also asked by my son if I'd mind waiting in at his house for the delivery of second eldest granddaughter's birthday bed! Thankfully, it arrived early so I got away with that duty. Just when I thought it was safe to answer my phone, my daughter rang and asked if I'd mind going to let her dog out as she would be out most of the day. I was less busy before I retired!! Oh well, the joys of having offspring. 

Books....... If you remember, both Hubby and myself are avid readers. A luxury that evaded us when we worked. Hubby reads crime fiction and especially likes books set in Ireland by authors such as Adrian McKinty, Brian McGilloway, Ken Bruen and  Claire McGowan. I, on the other hand, read a range of books and at one time would buy anything with a cake shop or bakery in the title, much to Hubby's dismay and disgust! The reason for this was that I just wanted to read something light-hearted that I could pick up and put down without much effort. I have recently read one of Hubby's books called Rubbernecker by Belinda Bauer. I would never of dreamt of buying something like that but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I've always refused his suggestions of reading material previously as I thought ( wrongly) that they would be gory which I don't like. I was wrong, and in fact, have had to eat my words and admit that he was right (I don't like doing that, which wife does?) It wasn't all violence and had a really good story running through it and great characters. I won't spoil it but can really recommend it. Another book that I absolutely loved and read recently was The boy with the top knot by Sathnam Sanghera. A random choice even by my standards, but once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. Humour and sadness at every turn of the page and totally eye-opening. I was telling a friend of mine that I had read it and he said that it was on the TV recently and his wife had watched it an said how good it was. I hadn't seen it but thought that I would look for it to watch. Often if you read a book though the film can be very different. We met up last week and I gave the book to my friend to read and she sent me a copy of the DVD to watch. It will be interesting to see how they both compare. 

Have you got any books that have surprised you? Have you got any book recommendations? What do you enjoy reading?

Jules x

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