UNO and other fun and games with the grandkids

It is 2017: Pennie is 6 and Liam is 4. It is February: they have spent a week with Jan and me in Coates while their parents packed up and moved from Ham back to Richmond. I wonder how much Pennie and Liam will remember of this in years to come?

There were many games of UNO  - and, wondrously, Liam and Pennie won most of them! (Although Liam kept forgetting to call 'UNO' when he only had that one card left.) 


There were the usual requests for us to buy a ''mazagine.' Liam was delighted to get a magazine/mazagine with some Star Wars stickers including many Dark Fader (sic) figures - with which he then 'decorated' four sheets of paper - and very neatly too.

'Dark Fader' aka Darth Vader

But Pennie why, oh why, did every activity, no matter how much fun, no matter how many laughs, no matter how many words of praise, always end in tears? Nothing like a good sob to round things off?

Still, you were always good fun too, with your cheeky smile and your giggles... and your very good understanding of what was amusing. The there was your reading - wow! could you read!

'Grandma. grandpa. I've read 70 pages this morning - see! (and the pages read would be shown, held between your index finger and thumb. Or a question asked,'How many pages are there from 17 to 89 - I read that much. See!'




Then there were the endless 'eps' on NETFLIX. 'Not the noos, grandpa! It's boring! We want to watch Horrid Henry!'

A special outing that went very well was to the pictures/cinema - and both behaved impeccably when we all watched 'SING' together at the Vue in Stroud - and then had lunch at Jolly Nice on the way back 'home' (to Coates): sausage baps finished with ice-cream cones (both choosing pink 'strawberry' when I thought that at least one would follow my choice and go with 'shocklate?). Yum!