The Adventures of L-Plate Bubbe: Bus Girls

                                          

Jews are probably the most travelled people on earth, and I'm not talking air miles here. From the Diaspora to today, they have schlepped their families and belongings from one country to another, building communities, setting down roots, starting businesses, and then at the whim of a ruler, a government or a baying mob, packing up and schlepping their stuff somewhere else.

I am in New York, having schlepped myself here via American Airlines. I'm not immigrating, I'm visiting family, but I know there have been Jews coming here since the 1840s, so I'm hoping to encounter some Yiddish speakers to try out my very basic attempts at speaking.

First attempt comes while visiting the Jewish Museum close to Central Park. I spot a couple of Jewish mums with their daughters. I edge closer and ask if they 'rednt Yiddish?'  One nods. I try a bit more. She frowns, corrects my pronunciation (Two is 'zway', not 'zwei' ~I have defaulted to German again). Discouraged, I move off.

Now it's my final day in the city. The kids are back at school and I'm on the Lower East Side, visiting The Tenement Museum, one of my favourite places. I lunch at Katz, managing to try out a few basic phrases, much to the amusement of the cutter serving me.

Then back on the bus. Two stops and a couple of women my age get on. They park themselves behind me and ... whoah! they start chatting to each other in Yiddish. At least I think it's Yiddish. Now's my chance. I turn round. Take a deep breath and launch out.  "Shalon aleichem. Ick heisse Carol. Ick com fum England," I say, smiling with fake confidence.

There is a pause. I am eyed thoughtfully. Then the greeting is returned, politely. I explain about learning Yiddish at 72, and why I'm doing it. The women (we'll call them Sara and Rokhel) smile back cautiously. There is another pause. The conversation founders. 

Then inspiration hits me. "Host du ayniklakh?" (Do you have grandkids?) Immediately, their eyes light up. They nod. Suddenly, the atmosphere changes completely. Phones are dug from handbags. Photos are found, passed round. I show them my pictures in return. We coo and admire.

And all at once, we are no longer three strangers; we are united in our love for our grandchildren. There is a word for this in Yiddish: naches. It means bursting with pride over a child's achievements. So here we are, three dames of the Diaspora, three bus bubbes, sharing a moment's naches on an uptown bus in New York. 

And it makes all my linguistic struggles totally worthwhile.

 

BEING A GRANDMOTHER IS THE BEST JOB IN THE WORLD

I clearly remember the day the job started. It was summer. Bright sunshine pouring through the open window of my daughter’s London flat. We were visiting for Sunday lunch and making small talk with her lovely husband while she put the finishing touches to the meal.

Then my daughter walked in from the kitchen, carrying a dish of lasagne. She put it down on the table. She stood up and cleared her throat. ‘We have some news for you,’ she said and paused. ‘We’re expecting a baby.’

And for a second, the world stopped turning.

And then it started turning again.

But it was a new world.

I was the last of my group of friends to become a grandma. I’d congratulated, celebrated, commiserated. I’d cooed over other people’s baby pictures; peered into prams; helped them choose tiny clothes to give as presents; listened to their tales; nodded, smiled, and all the time, a small inner voice was just crying out: ‘When will it be my turn?”

The Job Begins

Ever since she turned one, I have looked after my gorgeous granddaughter two days a week from 7am to 7pm while my daughter returned to work. Currently my daughter is back home on maternity leave, having just given birth to my grandson. So now I mind ‘Little G’ for one day only.

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Looking back over the past fourteen months, I have to say I never worked so hard, loved so hard, or laughed so hard in my life. I have never felt so exhilarated or so exhausted at the same time.

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In the spirit of sisterhood, I offer the following thoughts for those who travel with me through this wonderful experience, or are about to start out on it.

9 Things I Love About Being a Grandma

#1: The overwhelming joy you feel when you first see your new-born grandchild.

#2: Realising that even after all those years you CAN still change a nappy and give a bottle.

#3: Sharing delight in a small stone, a bumble bee, a flower blooming in a crack in the pavement, a yellow school bus, an orange.

#4: Reaching into your bag for your mobile phone and finding:

• Crumbs
• A half-eaten packet of raisins
• A green bottle top
• A post it note with something you can’t read but it says Important at the top
• An empty snail shell
• A packet of crayons with one missing
• A feather
• Two toy cars

#5: Lying awake in the small hours just smiling and smiling over the memory of some funny thing that happened during the day. I started a blog to remember my special times with Little G. You forget so fast.

#6: Watching them enjoy eating the food you prepared for them.

#7: Singing the same song over and over because ‘again’ means ‘again’.

#8: Recalling that smile of triumph when they finally reach the top of the climbing frame all on their own for the first time.

#9: And best of all, two chubby little arms round your neck and a little voice whispering: ‘I love you, Grandma.’

So, are you a seasoned grandma or new one? Maybe you’ve just learned that you are about to become one for the first time? Please share your delights and joys of being a grandma in the comments below.

Last Christmas I Gave you My Heart (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

In answer to your unasked question: Little G's Nativity Play went down a storm. No baby was dropped. Small waved copiously and Grandma was so glowing with pride, you could have run the lights off her.

And so to Christmas. Excitement is building in You Must Be Mad's house. The tree is up. Small has not, so far, removed any of the decorations, as he did last year when he took a great fancy to a small felt dinosaur, which kept getting rescued, returned, and re-stolen.

This year, we are hosting the family, and I have decided to go for ecologically sound decorations of a 'growing in the garden' variety, so there is trailing ivy up the stairs, and holly, bay and rosemary festooning the dresser and pictures.

Christmas lunch will be a feast. Due to Small's veg phobia, diplomatic negotiations will take place beforehand over the number of peas deemed acceptable. L-Plate Granddad will set light to the Christmas Pudding, despite Health & Safety warnings, and everybody will don paper hats and tell cracker jokes that Small won't get.

However. There is a spectre at the feast. Next year, Little G & Small will be moving with You Must Be Mad, to New York to live. Six years of sharing our lives and having adventures together is going to come to an end. And under the jollity and rejoicing, the greenery, the presents, the food and fun, there will be two very broken adult hearts at the table.

But the show must go on. And it will. Because it has to.

Happy Christmas, everyone ....

Christmas Capers (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

It has been some time since I wrote about Little G and Small. Much has happened since then. For Little G and Small, growing up has happened. Small is 3 and fighting a rear-guard action against all attempts to make him eat vegetables. Little G is 5 and at her local primary school.

Reception whizzed by in a flash for Little G, and now here she is in Year 1 ~ or 'Key Stage 1' as it is called. She reads exceptionally well, but thanks to the *wonderful* National Curriculum, has no literary appreciation of what she is reading. 'What did you like about that story?' I ask after we've shared a wonderful Michael Morpurgo book about a robin. Pause. 'I saw some digraphs and trigraphs,' she says.

I will be undermining the curriculum at every stage, believe me! But that is for later on. Right now, Christmas approaches and it is time to prepare for the school Nativity Play. Last year, Little G was one of 30 innkeepers, with the rest of Reception. They wore an assortment of tunics, the ubiquitous striped tea towel head-dress and sang a jolly song about there being 'No room' at the inn, bad luck!'

This Christmas however, Little G has been selected to be Mary and we are all at peak pride. In the week, her costume arrived from school: a long pale blue dress with sparkly bits, a head-dress and a cape. If you discard the head-dress and cape, the costume can double hat as Elsa's costume from Frozen.

The ensemble was also accompanied by a Baby Jesus doll. Little G has practised holding it in such a way as not to worry any new mums in the audience. When she isn't practising, Small, who has taken rather a shine to the doll, likes to shove it down his jumper and pretend to give birth to it. That's how we roll.

We have tickets for the first performance. So next Tuesday, L-Plate Granddad and I will take our place in the school hall with other parents, grandparents and family members to watch Little G's second Nativity Play. And it will be funny and brilliant and heart-stoppingly wonderful, all at the same time. Because it always is.

Nativity 2 ~ believe your journey.

A Bad Case of Mobile Madness

As many of you know, I have a tenuous relationship with technology. Actually, my level of competence is so low, you couldn't limbo under it. And so, at the back end of last year, the Other Grumpy Old Sod persuaded me to buy a Doro mobile, on the basis that it was advertised as ideal for the elderly and mentally incontinent, thus rendering it eminently suitable to my requirements.

The suggestion was made on the back of my previous three mobiles going wrong (the most technical I get upon these matters), plus the fact that every time I used his iPhone, a conversation ensued containing the phrase: 'Now what have you done?' And for a few months, it was good. Very good. And then last Bank Holiday Monday, I lost it at the garden centre.

In my defence, I was minding the 2 yr old and 4 yr old at the time while their mother was somewhere else buying plants, and before you roll your eyes, your options are extremely limited if you are standing in a pay-queue with a loaded tray and the grandchildren suddenly decided to re-enact The Great Escape. Unless you have taken the pre-precaution of tying them to you with strong cord. Which I had failed to do.

In the ensuing fracas, my mobile must've dropped out of my bag. It took me 24 hours to realise it was missing. A further day was spent scouring the house/daughter's house and car. I then used the landline to ring back places I'd visited, and lo! second call elicited the joyous news that the mobile had been handed in at the garden centre and it was in their safe. Safe.

You really want this to now end with 'and they all lived happily ever after', don't you? Sadly not. Between the loss of the phone and its subsequent return, something had happened to the relationship between it and the charger, which refused point blank to charge it. Thus, armed with charger and phone, I sallied forth to the EE phone shop once more, and explained to the 12 year old behind the counter that I had suffered another #phonefail.

After testing both items, it proved to be the charger that was at fault. Which didn't entirely surprise me, as it is plugged in by the gas hob and might, possibly, have got closer to a lit gas ring that it should've. The 12 year old then looked thoughtful, did some lip-pursing, and frowning, and told me that if I wanted to save £7, it would be actually cheaper to buy the rock bottom 'I wouldn't give a phone like that to my cat' mobile, as the charger that came with it was compatible with my phone.

So that is the reason why I am currently the possessor of two mobile phones, upping, at a stroke, my potential for #phonefail by 100%!  OK, in theory, I am in a better position, as I have a fallback phone. But don't hold your breath, is all I can advise.

Of Mice and Moan

Every now and then Hedges Towers is invaded by mice. They come in from the cold, like in a John le Carre novel. Unlike in a John le Carre novel, they then find themselves face to face with a small tortoiseshell cat with a rodent fixation. They do not survive long. Unless I get out of bed at 3.35am in the morning and rescue them. Or as the cat thinks: join in the fun, but then selfishly take the small furry toy away.

I tracked their current invasion to under the kitchen sink. There is a square hole where the water pipes go out. After the last invasion I'd blocked it up, but fitting a new outside tap on the Summer meant it had been unblocked. I re-blocked and applied peppermint oil. Cat then spent two nights staring fixedly at the cupboard door, like a replica of that old HMV advert with a small dog and a wind-up gramophone - but this time with a cat and a cupboard.

Sadly, misfortunes like buses always arrive in pairs. I now discover that I must expend a shedload of money on new glasses.This is because our nice local optician told me on Friday that my reading glasses had basically 'had it' - I think she used some technical word, but the bottom line is, they can't bend them back into shape any more without the whole frame breaking apart. And the little nose thingies have split and cannot be replaced.

Most of the damage has been done over the years by me putting them down to do closeup reading and then lying on them. Or dropping them off various surfaces and then stepping on them while trying to find them again. The rest of the damage has been done by Little G and Small. Apparently grandchildren are a HUGE source of glasses damage. Who knew?

So a frustrating hour was spent trying on alternative glasses - frustrating because I basically want The Identical Frames and they no longer make them. And I am so flaming short sighted that I can't 'see' myself clearly in new frames without coming within licking distance of the mirror, which is undignified on so many fronts.

The frames I like: the ones where you only have actual bits at the sides, (I refuse to channel Irene Apfel) cost over £350 - I have an unerring knack of picking out the most expensive stuff. And the lenses - don't go there. Trouble is, no glasses, no writing life. Currently we are scrabbling around down the back of the sofa and tipping out the penny jar.

So, if anybody with a mouse problem wants to hire a small tortoiseshell cat - completely unreasonable rates, but mouse problem pretty well guaranteed to be solved, please apply. Elderly myopic writer needs new glasses to write blockbuster to pay for new glasses.

Carpe Natalis (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

So that was Christmas. Little G got the bicycle she desperately wanted, and has spent a lot of time riding round the small grassy island outside the local cathedral. A few falls have also occurred, but give her her due, she has got up and got straight back on.

Mind you, she has a helmet to protect her, as they all do nowadays. I remember 'back in the old days' one fell off a bike, bashed various body parts, and that was life. I still carry the scars of a very nasty fall, age 7. Meanwhile, Small loves watching her ride, and gets very excited and wavy as she passes him, feet pedalling furiously.

But Christmas has been, and it has gone, and any sensible small person fixes their gaze upon the next big event. So it is with Little G, who is now eyeing up the approaching celebration of her fourth birthday. Actually, the next big event is You Must Be Mad's birthday, but apparently that is of secondary importance.

'It's my birthday soon,' she tells me when we pop round to see them, post Christmas.
'I think it's your mum's birthday first,' I say.
Little G waves this irrelevant information away with the contempt it merits.
'Yes, but I'm going to be FOUR!' she tells me earnestly.

She also informs me that she is having an 'Alice in Wonderland/Princess' Party. The second was what she originally wanted. The first is You Must Be Mad's idea. The usual hard won compromise has been reached. We have been given our orders: L-Plate Grandad will make his famous egg sandwiches, and I will try to stop Small from messing up the games, and getting trampled underfoot.

At some point in the proceedings, Little G will ingest too much cake, morph into Sugar Baby and stomp upstairs in tears ~ mind, this assumption is based purely on the past three birthdays.

'What happens after your birthday?' I ask her.
Little G ponders for a nanosecond.
'Small's birthday,' she says. 'Then it will be Christmas again.'
That's how we roll.

Cold Comfort (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

It is nearly the beginning of December. Everywhere is gearing up for Christmas: lights are being strung between High Street lamp posts, Christmas goods are enticingly displayed in windows, shops have placed twinkly trees in pots outside their doors in precisely the wrong place for a passing double-buggy, and we have all gone down with coughs and colds.

Small brought it back from nursery first. Little G then caught it, and with the loving generosity displayed by all small children towards their adored grandparents, they gave it to us. We are both fuzzy-headed, bleary-eyed, badly-slept, runny-nosed, coughing and generally under the weather.

Meanwhile Little G and Small, perfectly accustomed to living with a wide variety of minor ailments, forge through the day, mopped up at intervals, waiting expectantly for us to provide the next entertainment. All we want to do is curl up under a duvet without being used as a slalom or a trampoline. It doesn't happen.

L-Plate Grandad has cunningly mastered the ability to sit with his eyes closed and zone out for 5 minutes, but I am too worried about Small's ability to run amok to relax. I am like a coiled spring, constantly monitoring him for incipient catastrophes involving stairs, drawers, plugs, doors, small found objects on the carpet, the cat, sharp objects, or cupboards, for which I will be held accountable by You Must Be Mad. I do not remember feeling this heart-lurching sense of responsibility when she was growing up.

In an effort to corral the wagons pre~CBeebies time, I sit them both at the kitchen table, give Small some crayons to eat, and help Little G compose her letter to Father Christmas. I write to her dictation: ''A crown, a wand, a dressing-up box and a police outfit.'' She signs it. I am impressed. Little G is clearly going to rule the world when she grows up.

If she could also find a cure for the common cold, that'd be great too.

Just Plane Crazy (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

If we wanted to, L-Plate Grandad and I could spend all day ferrying Small and Little G from one organised activity to another, such is the wide and varied choice available locally. Playgroup might morph into Baby Sensory Club, then on to Music Time, Baby Yoga, Rhythm Time, Mini Mindfulness and so on. However, as these all cost money, and we are on a pension and mean, we refuse to pay out for stuff when we can amuse us and them for free.

One of our favourite free haunts is the local playground, recently refurbished. Little G is an experienced playgrounder, and can be safely left to work her way round the various things on offer, with only the occasional encouraging remark. Small, however, needs constant supervision as he has no fear, less sense and is reluctant to do any serious risk analysis before launching himself off the end of things he has clambered up.

Once we are all playgrounded out, we often drive to another favourite location: the end of the runway at Luton Airport. There, ensconced behind a mesh fence, we can watch the planes arriving and taking off. Little G and Small bring their two toy planes, and wave them in the air enthusiastically, making plane noises. Little G is now quite expert with the vocab, and can talk about 'control towers' and 'wheels down'. She can identify a Whizz plane from an EasyJet one, and a few weeks ago, we managed to see the last few scheduled Monarch flights going out.

Watching the planes is not just popular with us. Whatever time of day we turn up, and whatever the weather, there is always a line of cars parked by the fence, with men (mainly) with binoculars, flasks and sandwiches sitting in folding chairs along the perimeter. Some even have step-ladders and perch on the top step, like umpires at Wimbledon. It is clear that when it comes to watching planes take off and land, we are all just small kids at heart. Though two of us actually are.

Tiara-boom-de-ay (Adventures of L-Plate Gran)

Now that she has reached the ripe old age of three and a half,  Little G has become a huge fan of dressing up. Her favourite costume at present is a bright pink and green sparkly fairy dress with pink stick-on wings (think: Flower Fairies on acid) that I found in a charity shop. The moment she gets into the house, she is off to the playroom to change into it.

'Look, grandma, I'm a fairy princess. I'm so pretty,' she announces, twirling in front of the mirror while presenting me with a moral dilemma of epic proportions, because You Must Be Mad has dinned it into me that one must not encourage her to focus on her physical appearance alone. 'Umm ... but you're also a kind fairy princess who helps people, aren't you?' I parrot obediently.

Little G treats this intervention with suitable indifference. 'Of course,' she says, twirling a bit more. 'Look, my dress goes out when I turn round.' There then follows the discussion about whether the silver tiara is better than the pink tiara. It is hard work being three and a half: so many important decisions have to be considered.

Spending a day with a small child dressed as a cast member from Midsummer Night's Dream presents its own very weird moments. I find myself uttering stuff that no sane person would be caught saying, such as: 'Sorry, you'll have to take your wings off, I can't get the seat belt over them.'

Then there is the accessorising. Little G has a box full of what you could call cheap plastic tat, but to her represents riches untold. Much time is spent picking over her loot, selecting what to wear. Look, you might be a shrinking violet, but trailing round Sainsburys in a shocking pink fairy dress, pink wings, tiara AND a selection of Frozen necklaces and bracelets is the way to go. When you are three and a half, it's all about fading into the foreground.