Grandchildren: they Rock! We Roll!

To grandparents it's a joy to look after your grandchildren. Tiring but educational - we learn a lot.

Only this week my 4 year old granddaughter securely enthroned in her back seat in the car obviously misses nothing. I'd missed my turning though and before I could turn the car around another car appeared from nowhere. I uttered annoyingly "Blinking car!" I waited for a clear road and tried again. But before I could manoeuvre, another car approached at speed. "Another blinking car granddad!" she accurately stated from the back. I'm so relieved that my language was luckily very modest.

My two year old granddaughter is obviously destined to be an artist. We took her to McDonald's and I think she may have been there more times than us as she knew all about the kids' crayons and drawing paper - we did not. To add flavour to her portion of chicken nuggets and fries we opened her tiny carton of tomato sauce and thinking she would be happy munching into her meal, munched into our burgers.

I looked round after a while to check that she was enjoying her grub and found that she was really enjoying herself. Not eating but painting: dipping a chip into the tomato sauce, using it as a paintbrush and making sweeping brushstrokes onto the paper in vivid red tomato sauce. We didn't take the masterpiece home to stick on the wall - and it would have too. But maybe we should have as in artistic circles it would probably be considered very creative and would definitely win prizes.

Television Dramas

 I enjoy some of the current drama series on the tv but do get confused with the actors that sometimes appear in simultaneous productions. Identifying the the correct actor to the correct character to the correct drama can be a problem. There seems to be quite a shallow pool of actors that get fished out for all the best parts.The same actor might be a serial murderer in one drama (literally), a detective in another and giving birth in another; a man in one drama, a woman in another drama, a chimpanzee in another and an alien in another - all scheduled in the same month. With all the TV gismos we now have it's very easy to record several dramas and to have a playback pick n mix on our memory bank. And when you select to watch an episode at a later date it results in a who's who mind game to place the correct actor to the correct show. Meanwhile you've missed the action, lost the plot and have to rewind and recap.

ONLINE SURVEYS

What’s bugging me right now are those requests about products you have bought or services used. You receive an automated online survey by email to complete. ‘How did we do?’ or ‘We’d appreciate your feedback’ they crave. ’It will only take two minutes’ it lies, they take forever. It’s all automated and they are very annoying. There is never a way of making a specific point of your own, especially a negative one. Most seem devised to receive a pack on the back, not a boot up the backside. I mostly delete them on arrival but one where the service I received was excellent, deserved some praise I thought. It was page after page, mostly asking about their call centre staff. But it was their man who visited to sort a gas problem out I wanted to praise. Sadly there was no way to do this. I could praise the person who first answered the phone to me, but not the person who rectified the breakdown. I persisted however: ‘You’re nearly there’ ‘You’re nearly there, honest!’ it encouraged. It then arrived at the point for the information it really wanted to get from me in the first place: You’re profession? Are you married? Your earnings bracket? Do you own your own house?  And as a finale asking how would I would describe my home: comfy? toasty? snuggly? ‘B***** idiots!’ I yelled, and that’s exactly how I’d describe them - if there was a way to do it online that is. I cursed their stupidity and my gullibility to have even gone this far. DELETED! Never again. Never!

POETOONS: MY KIDS' BOOK OF POEMS

Just a Sweet Sample: Marmalade

Poetoons