For the next couple of days we played tourist, visiting a village called Clovelly which allows no cars in it and is built on a fairly steep cobbled street from a clifftop to the harbour.
Quite a beautiful place even if was freezing cold and a very nippy breeze blowing the sub zero temperatures even lower. We were also becoming aware of what was happening in the rest of the country snow wise, as you can see above we were in the one part of the country that didn't get any.
The following day we visited Boscastle in Cornwall where they had that dreadful flood a couple of years ago, again a really beautiful place, and the pottery there is well worth a visit, they even have a witchcraft museum.
On the Tuesday night, my good lady and I celebrated her 50th Birthday with a Chinese meal in Barnstaple, we'd just, finished when we got a call saying that my step daughters waters had broken, so we hurriedly paid up and went to the house expecting a long wait as it was her first. How wrong we were, we got there to find her in agony and something was clearly not right so we ended up doing a frantic drive to the hospital with a very gravid young lady whose contractions were coming at two minutes apart, complete with the father and the full maternity kit for the birth (including a big pink yoga ball) The drive seemed to take an age though it was only 20 mins top and yes I broke a few speed limits en route though not when cornering, there's something about a screaming young lady in the back of your car that can energise even a safe driver. We got there safely and daughter, father and my good lady vanished into the maternity wing leaving me stranded with the big pink yoga ball. Next thing was that several medical staff pelted past me running and looking very concerned, when you see medical staff rushing, you know there's a problem. Seems the baby was breach and an emergency caesarian was required, we'd got her there just in time as though she was full dilated, the baby hadn't started down the birth canal.
So on Tuesday the 30th at 10:30 pm my beautiful Granddaughter entered the world (7lbs 15oz), screaming but healthy, her mum totally out of it on morphine, but recovering nicely.
The next few days passed by with hospital visits and preparing the house for her homecoming and as they don't like you to stay too long in hospital, she came home on Friday, with her Mum, proud Dad and Grandparents. She then proceeded to keep everyone awake till the early hours as she got wind and howled the house down, still one very messy nappy later we got her settled. The new parents not being too sure of how babies actually "operate" but we all have to start somewhere.
We spent the next 2 days helping them to settle in before returning home, though she has been out and about being showed off to various other relatives.
Coming back was a wrench, you kind of get very used to toting a little baby around in your arms but the new parents need the space and have a steep learning curve ahead of them, though we'll be back at Christmas to share the day with them.
The trip back was odd, freezing fog but very little snow till we got back into Kent, but even then seems we missed the worst of it, though I suspect it will be back at some stage. I did hear about someone in Chatham reporting a snowman theft though, daft beggar put £2 coins in the eyes then decided it was a police matter as the whole snowman went missing, don't know what it says about the people here, but most anywhere else they'd have settled at nicking the coins, must have been a damned good snowman.
7 annotations:
Ahh, sweet. How lovely. Best wishes to everybody.
Strange isn't it. One moment its all emergency driving and the next:
"What shall I do now?"
"Your job, and it's an important one, is to look after the big pink yoga ball"
"Right-oh. It won't get away from me."
Fixes ball with a steely gaze and dares it to try to make a bid for freedom.
Aw - congrats and all the things which need to be said.
Contests to the proud new parents! :)
Stupid iPad! That should have been 'congrats', though I dare say there will be plenty of contests in her future....
What a little sweetie. All the best to you all.
The thing that I have found about a grandson is that I actually can watch him growing up. When my own children were babies, they were in bed before I arrived home of an evening, and I was usually gone in the morning before they were up. Weekends, I was always busy with so many tasks that I spent very little time with them.
With a grandson, I can spend time with him, something I never managed with my own two children, and don't have to keep saying"ask me later, I'm busy at the moment"!
I've been keeping an eye open for this news but still managed to miss it! Congratulations to everyone - she's a little darling.
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