I loved the weekends.
Andy and Gilly would often arrive first, making it up to our house in a fraction of the time that it took Ian, more than likely because Andy drove like he was racing in the Dakar Rally. The grandchildren would always spend a lot of time with us and usually be driven home after our Sunday evening roast. This was a time of chatter, hide and seek, exploration, and baking. Our old house buzzed with activity, right down to the canal and beyond. In the afternoons it would smell of meat and mint sauce, and we would finish the weekend with a chocolate cake. While I was usually involved in most of the children’s games, Harold would sit quietly, engrossed in his newspaper, or a library book from his weekly stack. The man read like there was no tomorrow.
“It takes a week to read the Sunday paper,” he would say quite certainly to anyone who was listening.
“You don’t need to buy anything else other than the Sunday edition.”
“The Sunday edition. Remember that.”
Oftentimes he would glance up from his chair to deliver a one-liner from his endless repertoire of jokes. Some were naughtier than they should have been;
“Listen here,” he would say, looking up over his spectacles at the boys.
“A man walks into the chemist with an earache, and he says, I don’t suppose you have cotton balls?” Harold would pause, making a long, deliberate wink. Most of the time, we knew the punchline before it came.
“The chemist looked at him aghast, what do you think I am, he said…a teddy bear?”
The older boys would hoot, making sure they remembered it for their own friends at school. Harold would return to his reading with a satisfied smile.
His work was done.
On one Sunday, Harold announced to the group that he and I would be going abroad to join a group called the Ramblers, on a hike through the Dolomites in Italy. International travel was something that had become quite common in the early 1990s and Harold dreamed of us seeing the mountains in the far-flung places of the books that he read. We had even begun a training regimen on Dolly Lane to build our strength and stamina.
“It will be quite an adventure,” he said to Ian with that excited grin.
Ian nodded, lost in a thought, or perhaps his Sunday dinner. Finally, he spoke up.
“The most dangerous part of the whole journey Harold, will be Andy driving you to London.” We all laughed out loud. He was more than probably right. These were our normal weekends.
They were quite lovely.
Lesson 33: Feel small in this majestic universe, Friday, October 6th
I just love these.