REAL LIFE
PAGE 26
SIMPLY LIVING FRANCE
the joys of being a grandparent Ooh, totally forgot about the wedding. Anyway, she decided she wanted a church wedding, both of them were divorced (don’t ask) but our local vicar was very helpful, not at all thrown by the fact they were both divorced and pregnant. A date was fixed and then of course a local hotel was booked for a small ‘shot gun wedding’.
I
t’s virtually twelve years since we, and that’s the royal ‘we’ obviously, heard the news all parents secretly long to hear, we were going to be grandparents for the very first time. Cue shock, excitement and a whole raft of emotions we hadn’t even thought of. Our daughter and her partner had been engaged for ages, were living in her flat, but had decided not marry and had thought about moving into a house first. Suddenly everything changed. Would we like to view a house with them tomorrow, and what did we think about a small wedding in April? At this point, husband dearest nearly exploded and I started thinking how to get a wedding organised whilst everything else happened! The next day, we dutifully viewed said house with them, I was on crutches just to make things a little trickier. The house was perfect, a Victorian terraced house in a lovely Georgian market town and the very next day, the flat was put on the market. The wheels were put in motion extremely quickly and it was pretty exciting.
Husband dearest has a very dry sense of humour so the invitations had a cartoon of him, with a gun, on the front! Her dress was ordered, with room for expansion and the flowers were also ordered. Her future husband’s son by another mother was going to be a pageboy and her best friend was bridesmaid. What could possibly go wrong? By the time April arrived, she was nearly 20 weeks pregnant, the dress
due in September. Those who know me, will be aware I like knitting and now, I had a new little pink someone to knit for, clickerty clack went my needles, one happy granny to be. Slowly life returned to a form of normality, the like of which we haven’t seen since. I was bursting with excitement when she asked me to go to one of the ante natal appointments with her, and yes, you guessed it, I cried when I saw my future granddaughter on the screen, suddenly this was all very very real. Their tiny box room was decorated ready for the new arrival, the wedding vouchers had been ‘spent’ on a cot and a pram system costing as much as a small family car (or so it seemed).Baby clothes were purchased and we all tried to wait patiently until September and the magic date. My daughter was lucky throughout this pregnancy, no sickness etc, she certainly bloomed and blossomed. Due date arrived, and went; daily updates were asked for without putting them under too much pressure! A water birth was planned, preferably in their sitting room, so the birthing pool was inflated, as was a birthing ball.
had been let out and life seemed simpler. The wedding was lovely, the weather perfect and the happy couple went off on the QM2 for their honeymoon, cruising to New York. Both sets of parents were left to finalise the house move after the purchase had gone through, just in the nick of time! Time to relax! Err no; suddenly we learned the new baby was going to be a girl,
All we needed now was for baby to decide to make an appearance. Daughter rang late one afternoon, she was experiencing some ‘strange’ feelings but was adamant she was not in labour. I was not convinced at all and tried to persuade her that she could well be in labour. I got my head bitten off, of course she wasn’t, what did I know? True, I didn’t know much only having had one
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