grandad kit

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Today was New Year's Eve, the last day of the old year - 2006. The day ended at midnight, with the first chimes of Big Ben. That happens every night, but New Year's Eve is special. Then there are fireworks along the river Thames, centred on the London Eye. I bet you've been on the London Eye, the big wheel next to the Thames. Your cousin Elaine went on it ans she loved it.

There are usually fireworks on the river Tyne, near where I live, but this year they had to be cancelled because the weather was too stormy.

On New Year's Eve it's usual to make New Year Resolutions, that is promises that you intend to keep. Mostly people think about how they would like to be better. They promise to give up smoking, to lose weight, or to be nice to verybody. And mostly it's only a short time before they break their promises! Some people make the same promise every New Year, only to break it every year. That's not much good, is it?

I have promised myself to get a lot more of my books published. Last year I had two published, but the year before that I had none atall, despite trying very hard. So this year I'm going to try and get six books published if I can. We'll see.

I can't promise to see you this year, as much as I would like. That depends on your Mam and Dad. we'll see.

Lots and lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Nana Ann said that today she wanted to go an see two old aunties of hers. They are both well into their eighties. They are not actually Nana Ann's aunties, but they are ladies who were kind to Nana Ann when she was a little girl, so she liks to go an see them every so often. One old lady wans't in, but the other one was. This old lady recently fell down and broke her hip. This is a very serious thing for old people. Their bones are britle and can easily break. This old lady was very lucky. Her son found her very quickly and got the ambulance to take her off to hospital.

At the hospital the doctors decided that thye old lady's hip was so badly broken, she would have to have a new one. It's a marvellous thing, and brond new hip made out of metal and ploastic. The great thing is, it will never wear out! Despite the accident, this old lady was happy and cheerful. I'm sure that being happy has helped her get better and better every day.

Of course you feel miserable when you are sick or ill, even when you have a cold, but if you can amage to think to yoursself "tomorrow I'm going to get better" then the chances are, you really will get better! It's called "mind over matter" and it's a good way of solving problems as well.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. Next year will be 2007. You're going to be four years old in 2007 and quite a big boy.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Have you ever eaten "Bubble and Squeak"? It's made up of cabage and potato and is cooked in a frying pan with a nive brown crust. Nana Ann and Grandad has soem Bubble and Squeak today, and it was delicious. We had it in a pub that serves meals. It was quite expensive - when you make it at home, it's very cheap - but we were having a meal out and this was a little treat for us. Nana Ann had been to work at her office in London, and I had been on the train to see a man about one of the books I am writing. When we had both finished our work, we met in London and decided to go out for a meal.

Once we took your Mam and your Uncle Norman out for a meal in London. Uncle Norman asked if he could choose the wine we were having with the meal, so I said yes. Afterwards, when we got the bill, the wine cost just as much as the actual meal! But it was a very nice wine. Uncle Norman has worked in hotels and restaurants and he knows which wines are the best.

What do you like to drink? I hope you don't drink too many fizzy drinks, as that's not healthy. All kinds of fruit juices are ok, and milk of course, but fizzy pop can be bad for you - if you drink too much of it.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Today some new geese arived on the pond. Nana Ann saw them first and called me out to have a look. The folck of geese that come to the pond every day and fly away again at night all look the same, all 30-40 of them. They are mainly black and white. They are called Canada Geese. These new geese - just two of them - are slightly smaller, and mainly brown. The female goose is mainly light brown, and male goose is darker with two blick rings round his eyes. It looks as if he's got two blavk eyes. They both have pink feet and legs, and stand quite tall. The male is very fierce, and you can see that when they get a piece of bread, none of the other birds bother them - they just eat it together. All the other birds, the Canada geese, the pigeons and the seagulls, they all fight each other for bits of bread - even when there's more than enough to go round!

Lots of people come to the pond to feed the birds, especially parents and children. When I see the I am a little bit sad, because Nana Ann and I would love you to come and feed the birds with us. Some of the geese are so tame, they take food out of your hand - although that's not something I would recommend.

Hope you are still enjoying your Christmas presents.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Are you still playing with your Christmas presents? I bet you are. Grandad and Nana Ann usually give each other books to read at Christmas. My three sisters all gave me presents: a dvd with Christams songs on it, a box of chocolates, and - best of all - a finger puppet. A finger puppet is a tiny little puppet that goes on your finger. But even though it's small, you can make it do all kinds of things. You can even preted that it's talking to you - just put it close to your ear and make it nod its head as if it was whiepering something in your ear. You may have seen "Sooty and Sweep" on television. That's what they do, but Sooty is also very naughty at times, squirtiung people with water.

Today Grandad and Nana Ann went to see some friends, and they gave us more chocolates. We won't have to eat them up all at once, or we'll get fat!

Lots fo love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Today is Boxing Day - I'm sure you know that. Today Grandad and Nana Ann had a quiet day in, apart from me going for a run and getting some bread and milk from the shop. We both like watching the horse racing on television. Nana Ann especially likes the white horses - they call white horses "greys" but don't ask me why - while Grandad likes to "pick a winner."

The one race we like to go and see on the actual racecourse is the Derby. That's in June every year, and Nana Ann likes to go if she possibly can. It's quite exciting being at the racecourse with all the crowds of people, but you can't see much of the actual races. The horses go past in a flash with a big thunder of hooves. You can see the races better on the television, but there's nothing like the atmosphere of actually being on the racecourse.

Grandad likes to have bet on the horses, but Nana Ann doesn't like me doing it. She thinks I might go daft and put lots of money on a horse and lose the money if that horse loses. That's what having a bet on a horse means - you hand over some money, and if the horse wins, you get a lot more back. But if the horse loses, you lose your money. So you have to be very careful not to bet too much money.

Love from

Grandad Kit anhd Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

You must have had a lovely time opening all your presents. I hope you did't get up too early and wake up your Mam and Dad. Grandad and Nana Ann thought a lot about you today. We would have loved to be with you today, but sadly that is not posssible - even though we are only a few miles away.

But the next best thing was that we had Christmas lunch with my three sisters, Pat, Ruby and Veronica. That's four of us children, altough of course we are all grown up now. Pat was on her own, Ruby had her husband Arthur, and Veronica had her two children Glenda and Hubert. That's eight people altogether. Can you count us all up?

Nana Ann really liked this Christmas lunch because it was a vegetarian meal - no meat in it atall. But it was still delicious. Afterwards we all played a game, in two teams of four. That was very enjoyable as well.

That's what families do at Christmas, all get together, even if you don't see each other much during the rest of the year. Because your Dad is Scottish, and his Mam and Dad - your Scottish Nana and Grandad - live in Scotland, I bet you go there for the New Year, which is exactly one week after Christmas. The New Year celebrations in Scotland are special. Nana Ann and I have been to Scotland for New Year at different times and always enjoyed it. We're sure you will too.

Lots and lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

We had our Christmas dinner today. Yes, we know it's only Christmas Eve, but there is a reason why we had our Christmas dinner today and not tomorrow which of course is Christmas Day. Because there are only two of us, Grandad and Nana Ann, cooking a Christmas dinner for just two people is a lot of work to make such a small dinner. So instead of cooking all that dinner at home, we go to the local cafe which serves a very nice Christmas dinner for not much money. But the cafe is closed on Christmas Day, and in any case we are visiting family tomorrow, so we had out Christmas dinner today, in the cafe. And very nice it was too. And not for much money. And no washing up to do afterwards!

Nana Ann is a vegetarian - vegetarians are people who don't eat meat - so she had the Christmas dinner with no turkey and no gravy. Grandad had the whole lot, including turkey and gravy. Although Nana Ann had a smaller dinner than Grandad, hers took longer to come. I suppose the cafe were used to making Christmas dinner with "all the trimmings" as they say, so when Nana Ann asked for something different, it surprised the people in the cafe and so it took them lonegr to make, even though there was less of it!

I bet you're all excited going to bed tonight, knowing that when you wake up Santa Claus will have been and left all your presents. You're sure to have a great time on Christmas Day, so really, really enjoy it.

Lots and lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

Now, I was wrong. Today Nana Ann didn't take Grandad to Walthamstow Market, as I had guessed, but she did take me to Borough Market which is next to Southwark Cathedral. This market is mainly food, but every possible kind of food. There are all kinds of cheeses, including great big cheeses the size of wagon wheels. The people on the stalls were handing out little pieces of cheese so you could taste what they were like. There were so many cheese stalls, each one handing out bits of cheese, that you could easily have had a whole meal of cheese, all for free!

And there were sausages and all kinds of meats, turkeys and other big birds, plucked and ready to cook. It's really hard getting all the feathers off a bird you want to cook for your Christmas dinner. And there were cakes and sweets and chocolates and all sorts of other things. The whole market was very crowded indeed with lots and lots of people all buying things for Christmas. I suppose a lot of them had waited until the last minute, and they had to rush round to get everything in time.

At the back of the market is an old-fashioned roundabout with hobby horses that go round and round and up and down. That's the sort of ride you would definitely like. It's like being in a horse race, except that the horses all stay in the same position. Anod of course there is the fairground music which all adds to the fun.

Nana Ann didn't buy much. Shge has already bought everything we need for Christmas. When we get to see you - which we hope will happen one day - we will definitely have a present for you, even if it's not your birthday or Christmas. But we hope you got our Christmas card.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann

Thank you for reading my blog. If you have difficulty seeing your grandchildren, or have any views about my situation, I would welcome your messages by e-mail through this blog site. If you wish, just use a first name or a nickname and your identity will be protected, like mine – “Grandad Kit.”

Dear “Tom”

I am your other grandfather, the one you have never met. You are three years old, and although I have never met you, I love you dearly and always will. You are my flesh and blood, and always will be. We will meet one day, I am sure.

One lot of birds I forgot to mention are the rooks - big, black birds with very strong beaks. They don't come every day. Today they were around the pond for just a little while. The big seagulls have all gone, but today there was a flock of smaller seagulls. This morning there were just three geese on the pond - perhaps the mummy, daddy and baby geese I told you about a little while ago. The baby has now completely grown up and is just as big as its parents, so you can't tell which is which. Human children take about eighteen years to grow to full size, so you have a long way to go yet!

Grandad went for a run on the common today. It was still very, very cold, so I had to wrap up well. I wore the fingerless gloves Nana Ann made for me - just like gloves but with the top half of the fingers and thumbs cut off, you'll remember. Fingerless gloves keep your hands warm, but leave your fingers free - in my case, to operate my stop watch. I always take a stop watch when I go running. A stop watch is like a normal watch, but you can stop it at any time and it tells you how long it has taken for ach part of the run.

Although I was cold at first, very soon I warmed up. When I go back, I was as warm as toast, but the backs of my gloves were covered in frost! When I got back, I could see there was a big traffic jam. That was because all the geese had flown back from where they had been during the day and were walking across the road, single file. As the geese waddled across the road in a long line, all the traffic had to stop.

Tonight there were very few birds on the pond. Just the two swans, about six to seven geese and about a dozen ducks who are always there. The moorhens always go to bed early in the bushes on the island. The pigeons have all disappeared to their roosts, the rooks have gone and so have all the seagulls. If I see any more birds, I'll let you know.

Tomorrow Nana Ann says we are going out - but she won't tell me where. She wants it to be a surprise, but I can guess. I bet she takes me to Walthamstow market! We'll see.

Lots of love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann