My cousin Jessie and her youngest daughter, Jenna, came to visit today. It was great to catch up over a few hours of chat, laughs and memories.
It's Jessie's birthday tomorrow and I cannot believe it's been 'that many years' since I held her in my arms as a young lad myself... She was only a couple of days old and just been sent home from the maternity unit in Gibraltar.
All these decades later, we remain tight and closer than ever in our exile in the East of England... Self exile BTW.
She is the mother to two wonderful young ladies, Anya and Jenna.
It's hard to accept the 'little ones' are in their teens now. They were my 'testing crowd' for my material. Little jokes, stories and magic tricks I'd put them through (sorry girls).
Julie and I honed our grandparenting skills on them. Although not officially our grandkids, we treated them like they were. Taking them to places, testing our pram skills and enjoying every minute with them.
They are too old to stay at our house now, like they used to.. It's not hip. We used to lie in bed and make up stories, adding bits to the story line as we went along until the story was no longer what it set out as... Like a story line chinese whispers.
However, should they need to, they are always welcome.
They are great kids and have wonderful parents in Jessie and Tony and we are always there for each other...
We may not have lots of money, fast cars, flash jewellery etc but we have pride, love and family... Xxx
