Dear Connor
Nana Di and I have just returned from Broome having spent five days with you, your mum and dad and your Nanny.
We spend so little time with you, at best two weeks each year and there is so much that grandparents and grandchildren must discover together:
The proper forms and parchments for greetings and, sadly, for farewells.
When we arrived, you rushed to meet us with your specially prepared greeting cards.
And so we rehearsed the many mysteries of Nanas and Papas, some of which we have practiced, some of which were new, some of which we did not have time for.
The numbering of smarties
And books to be read and listened to
The singing of songs, the dancing of dances, and the rhyming of nurseries
The mixing of potions especially mango smoothies and banana milkshakes.
The secret hiding places of chocolates
The telling of wonders
Incantations to keep big bad wolves at bay
The chants of giants and the singing of dragons
Recipes for wolf stew and fox soup (this makes you very clever)
The various forms of kisses: of Forgiveness, of Healing, of Comfort, of Joy and of Love, specially of Love
The many and varied forms of cuddles
The “Put Me Down Now Wriggle” (one extreme form of which is demonstrated here by your cousin Winton)
Cakes and Cousins and blood being thicker than water
Places to hide and places to seek
The conjugation of verbs, homonyms and apostrophes.
Your place in our family.
And poems, so many poems, we didn’t even start on poems. We have had no Cats and no Fiddles; no Black Sheep; no Doctor Foster; no Humpty no Dumpy; no Grand Old Duke; no Owl, no Pussycat; no Bad Sir Brian; no Songs of Sixpence and No Waltzing and No Matilda.
But so alas, the five days were gone so quickly, and so much still undone.
I took more than 500 photographs, mostly of you. They are a poor substitute. This one, of you with your mum. is particularly beautiful.
Tim Haslett's Blog 