A life on the ocean wave . . .

 

A life on the ocean wave . . .

 . . . well, Solent, anyway.

                                    Kat, Callum, Hailey and Melia 

Callum ‘phoned. He was taking Kat and the children to the boat, just to familiarise them with it, though Hailey is too young to do more than just sit and look. Kat was intending to take the children home after a couple of hours, so Callum asked if Barry would be interested in going for a sail.

    Melia gets to grips with ship to shore technology in the navigatorium.

Barry hasn’t been down to the boat for an exceptionally long time, with things like sepsis and pneumonia and associated problems disturbing the natural order of things. He agreed he would like a day’s sailing. It’s always enjoyable for him as he doesn’t have to do anything, just keep an eye on things and issue occasional instructions while Callum does the rest very capably.

                            Callum takes his ease before setting sail

Susannah, at home with us for the weekend, said she would drive, as she would like to see her nephew and meet her great-nieces.

Hamble Point Marina is just over an hour away from us, and they set off shortly after 9.00. Callum lives much closer, so his journey is significantly shorter.

Marnie and Dean joined the party later with their two children, who are old enough to take on some of the tasks. It was a lovely day, with light airs, blue sky, and a pleasant amount of sun.

                                            Fergus and Isla
They had a wonderful day, avoiding the Isle of Wight ferries and the cruise liners. The Solent is a remarkably busy stretch of water, but big enough that close encounters of the sailing kind are easily avoided. 

Barry brings the boat alongside after a most enjoyable day

(I don't know whether the video will play! Just checked - it won't.)

Plans are afoot for the future. Gareth and Elliot fancy a day out, too.

 

Defaced blue ensign, ASA

It can only be flown when Barry is aboard 

Outside of a dog . . .

 

Outside of a dog . . .

                              . . . a book is man’s best friend.

Our eldest grandson and his little family visited us on Sunday, unexpectedly. It was delightful to see them all. 

Callum's elder daughter, Melia, is almost two and a half years old, and a very competent little girl. In the morning before they set off from home, she announced that she wasn’t going to wear nappies any longer. Obviously, she judged that the time was right, though it wasn’t the most opportune time to relinquish them, but she didn’t go to the loo very many times while she was with us.

Her baby sister, Hailey, is four months old and she was happy to gaze around at her surroundings, and coo.

Melia is very used to dogs and our dogs were happy to have visitors, particularly those at nose level with sticky fingers. They had to be segregated periodically when food was being consumed.

Books and toys, drawing pads and colouring pencils were brought out to entertain. 

Gilbert, being a Literary Labrador showed an interest, using the books as a pillow after our visitors departed.

                             Our cats, too, have shown Literary Leanings.

      

                                                  The late Winston Ocicat enjoyed blogging.

                                                 He also enjoyed reading his Kindle in bed.

                                           Pats the Abyssinian enjoyed books from kittenhood.

                                                 Herschel Ocicat guards the bookshelves.

          Jellicoe Ocicat is studying ornithology amongst other subjects.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.

Groucho Marx

 

Unexpected

 

Unexpected

Melia, 20 months old

Mooching around on Saturday, doing nothing in particular as usual, we received a ‘phone call from our eldest grandson. He was headed in our direction, and would we be about for a visit?

Momentary panic as I looked around the sitting room. We hadn’t got five hours to clear up! On the other hand, we hadn’t seen him and his little family for a long time. Of course, we would be delighted to see them. After all, they were coming to see us, not conduct an inventory of the house and a critique of our home management.

Callum knows us well, and lived in the caravan on our drive for a year while he did his gap year near GCHQ. (The rest of the house was full with Susannah and her little boy.)

When they arrived, their little girl, Melia, had just woken from a nap and was clinging to Kat, unwilling to engage with strangers, and quite right, too. 

Really not sure, but safe in Mummy's arms

She is used to dogs and cats. There are two of each in her house, and all her Dorset cousins are knee deep in dogs, mostly working Labradors like ours. Nonetheless, we gated our dogs in the kitchen so that they could adjust to the excitement of visitors.

As Melia roused, she relaxed and showed her lovely smile, until Barry or I looked at her, when the shutters immediately came down. When we released the dogs, who went straight to Callum, she was entranced by them and life suddenly seemed more familiar to her.

 Gilbert, trying to understand

 Gilbert, our young boy, is not accustomed to toddlers, so he skirted around Melia, sniffing her surreptitiously, not yet realising that little children are sticky and good to lick. Roxy, having grown up with Frankie, is wise to the ways of infants and paid close attention as Melia munched a selection of sandwiches and satsumas.

The cats prowled around, as cats do, and Melia stroked them. Then she got into one of the empty dog beds, a big, fluffy doughnut of an affair, and was very happy. She is a very capable little girl and will be a loving big sister next March, when she will be two years old.

All too soon, it was time for them to leave. It was such a lovely surprise to see them and made our day.

The dogs were exhausted, as they always are with any change in routine, and slept soundly for the rest of the evening.

Visitors

 

Visitors

                                            Melia, learning to sit

On Monday evening I had a ‘phone call from my eldest grandson, Callum. Were we doing anything the next day? I confirmed that our day was clear so he said he and Kat would come and see us. This was to be our first meeting with Melia, our youngest great-grandchild.

They arrived mid-morning. They live about 1½ hours away, a distance of about 70 miles. Travelling during the summer holidays is much easier and their journey was trouble-free. Melia slept all the way. She is five months old and such a smiley, happy baby, with big, dark blue eyes. She has made tremendous progress since her heart operation in May and is really well and strong.

Susannah and Melia

It was lovely to see them all. Susannah took a break from work and popped round to see them and have a cuddle with Melia. Babies don’t stay small for very long. She is already rolling and teeth are imminent. We shall see big changes the next time we meet.

Gilbert was most interested - his first baby!

Announcement

 Announcement

I hesitated to post this before the parents had taken to social media, but now that they have I can introduce my youngest great-granddaughter, Melia (pronounce Meh-lee-ah) Shay. She was born on Saturday 25th February, three weeks early, thus catching out her usually super-organised parents. 

 In Hawaiian culture Melia means plumeria or frangipani. 

All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

In Greek mythology the Meliae are ash tree nymphs. 

For now, Melia, just one week old, is keeping her besotted, exhausted parents busy.

The photographer

Barry is usually to be found behind a camera whenever we have a family gathering or go out. This means that for most of their young lives our children, grandchildren and now our great grandchildren, were only able to recognise him if he had a camera in front of his face.

As the curator of the family archive, spending hours cataloguing the hundreds of photos Barry takes, it began to bother me that there were very few photos of him.

However, there are occasions on which it is possible to extract an image of him. The first one here is taken from an image caught in Callum's sunglasses on a recent sailing trip.

  The second is taken from Kat's sunglasses. Kat is Callum's girl-friend.

 Sometimes, though, he is the subject. iPhones can be very useful! Thank you, Callum.

What's been happening?

What’s been happening?

(Clicking on the photos enlarges them - usually . . . )

The days and weeks and months pass so quickly and when I look back I can’t see that anything much has happened. So, what has been happening?

In February and August of 2016, after years of increasing immobility and pain, Barry had two knee replacements. The result is that he is taller and can do so much more now. He was a very good patient and did all his exercises assiduously. His physiotherapist was extremely good and got the measure of him very quickly, recognising his very competitive spirit, and warning advising him not to overdo things.

 In February last year, 2017, Susannah treated us to a trip to Tromsø in Norway to see the Northern Lights. If proof were needed of the success of Barry’s knee operations, it was provided by that holiday. We went out at night into the fjords to see the Lights and Barry stood for several hours, filming them. The next day we went out again, in the hope of seeing orcas and humpback whales, though the majority had left the area, and again Barry stood for several hours taking photographs. We saw a couple of orcas and one humpback.

Aurora Borealis, Tromso

In the summer, Susannah and I went to Lucca in Tuscany. She was going to a friend’s wedding and I was going to look after Frankie. However, Frankie didn’t come with us in the end. It was very hot!

Villa Cheli, Lucca, Tuscany

Italian wall lizard

In August, our eldest grandson, Callum, came to live with us. He is on a year’s work placement from university. It’s lovely to have a young man in the house and beneficial for Frankie to have another good male role model. We see a lot of his girl-friend, Kat, too.

Callum and Kat at the helm of Appaloosa. 

In September Frankie started full-time school. As he had been attending pre-school in the same school since he was three, the staff and facilities were familiar to him. However, quite naturally, he was a little anxious and wanted to know if there would be toilets there! The uniform was a challenge for him. No longer was it a case of pulling on a tee-shirt and trousers. Now he had to manage shirt buttons. I have watched my husband countless times as he strains and contorts to fasten the wretched top button. Although Frankie had practised fastening buttons before term started, he could not manage the top button and found it frustrating. In fact, the thought of undressing and dressing affected his enjoyment of school and there were several occasions when he said, ‘I don’t like swimming/PE/school.’ It passed, of course, and now he is proud that he can get undressed/dressed quicker than his peers. Like his grandfather, Frankie is very competitive.

First day of school - so many clothes!

 The watchword in our house is, ‘Practice makes perfect’ and so it proves with many things. Frankie asked me the other day why I could write so quickly and I told him it was because I’d had lots of practice.

We hosted Christmas 2017, the first time we’ve done that for several years. Bethan and Robert and Charlie came, with Lolly, of course. It was fun and we were so well-organised, unusually for us, that we could have eaten lunch at 11.30. Susannah, a dedicated vegetarian, was in charge of vegetables and I was responsible for cooking the meat. The thing that delayed us and made us laugh was part of the vegetarian element. The Brussels sprouts were not ready! Even so, we ate at 1.00 which was just as well as small children cannot wait long for food without becoming fretful.

Charlie and Frankie

On the animal front the Labradors keep us busy and make us go out. We may sometimes be reluctant but the rewards are many, not least seeing the joy of our dogs playing. We both use walking poles as the ground we cover is rough and full of ruts and roots and often extremely muddy.

Retrieving sticks

The cats are six in number. We have our three Ocicat brothers, who will be six this year. Susannah’s much loved and characterful Abyssinian, Cleopatra, known as Pats or Patricia, died in 2017. Susannah already had two Somali brothers (Somalis are long-haired Abyssinians) and now has a tiny, exquisite Abyssinian female, Zula, who was one year old on 1^st February. The cats adore the dogs, Bertie in particular, and you may be sure that if you are making a fuss of a dog you will soon be joined by one or more cats.

Zula

All the animals love Callum and pile onto and around him and also Kat. I think they respond positively to youth!

Callum with four dogs and two cats

So there you have it. We have done very little other than look after our family. We are older but not much wiser and still look to the future though with less optimism about our lovely country. Politicians of both main parties, at least those in the headlines, the ‘leaders’, prove their incompetence almost daily. MPs of all persuasions demand that more money should be thrown at whichever problem is causing the most unease at any time. That is not the answer but it impresses the voters . . . maybe. Plus ça change!