“What a great question, Sausage!” I said. “Yes, I suppose your children will think that it was the olden days when you were five”
“But it’s not really the olden days is it Mummy?” she continued
“Well no, not really I suppose”
“The real olden days was when you were little!”
I had to agree with her: “yes, when your children are grown up, they’ll think that when Granny was small it really was a long time ago!"
The Small Girl thought about this for a moment, then:
“Mummy?”“Yes darling?”
“Were the dinosaurs alive when you were little?”
“No darling” I laughed, “I am old… but I’m not that old!”
Whilst she was dancing, the Very Small Boy and I walked into town to while away the time.
“Want a coffee, Mister?” I asked him
“Yaay!” he cried “can I have a Babycino?”
As we sat in the café, he looked thoughtfully at my figure-hugging animal-print dress and commented
“Mummy, you look like a leopard!”“I know darling… it’s probably a bit much isn’t it?” I said, looking down self-consciously
“Yeah…” he agreed, nodding sympathetically as he sipped the chocolatey froth from his milk.
Later in the evening, after the children were in bed, DH and I lounged on the sofa in the breakfast room, aimlessly watching television.
“Have you seen anyone next door recently?” he asked, referring to the fact that one of our neighbours, in his sixties, had spent some time in hospital undergoing tests.
“Yeah” I said “I bumped into their daughter today actually”
“Is he OK? Do they have a diagnosis yet?” asked DH
“Yes”. I told him the diagnosis.
“Jesus…” he murmured quietly “that’s not good”
“No” I replied, standing up and taking a deep breath, feeling I might cry again “but he wants everyone to carry on as normal apparently, so that’s what we’ll do”.
And I gathered the empty dinner plates from the table, carried them to the kitchen and started to load the dishwasher so no one would see my tears.
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