Words from a Bird

As you get older, the things you remember and the things you forget can be quite unsettling.  Never has this been more apparent than last weekend, when we offered to babysit our grandson Little Z, for a couple of nights. He arrived on Friday afternoon hidden somewhere between four Waitrose hessian carriers, a cooler bag, a swim bag and a rucksack (with his name on, in case we got confused and somehow brought the wrong kid home).  Daughter number one barely stopped the car in the drive, choosing instead to slow right down, pass out Little Z and all the bags, and leave with a backwards wave and a shout of 'Where's the gin?' Of course, he came with instructions as befitting all new things which come into our house.  As always, I read these and was verbatim on how the next forty eight hours were to go, whereas the husband muttered those immortal words, 'How hard can it be, for heaven's sake?' The first instructions involved food, playtime, bath and bed (sounds like

One of my gorgeous neighbours is incredibly talented, and sculpts, paints and creates in her lady shed at the end of her garden. So when she sent me a message a couple of weeks ago asking if I fancied being a guinea pig for a new pottery project she is thinking about, I of course signed both me and the husband up for it. The husband is very used to being dragged along to various things that I want to go to (Dirty Dancing last Saturday - now that deserves a blog of its own altogether) so he acquiesced with a small whimper, whilst muttering something about '...on a school night as well'.  However.... In between agreeing to accompany me and actually getting his hands on some clay, the Mother (she with the Fairy Dust Syndrome) had to come to stay that night with us.  As you know, I couldn't really leave her in a strange house on her own, so I said to the husband that I would take her in his place to the pottery session.  Well ladies, he tried really hard to appear sad, even goi