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 talk to your Mam on the phone

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

I told your Mam about the little present we have got for you, and your mam said it was all right for us to send it. So it will be coming in the post, along with a nice birthdat card. We hope you get lots of cards and presents. Unfortunatel, we will not be able to come and see you on your birthday, but your Mam says she and your Dad will take you to the seaside. As long as the sun shines, you are sure to have a great time on the beach. I hope its a beach with lots of nice sand, and not just pebbles like so many beaches in the south (sorry to keep going on about thsi, but it's true).

Otherwise, your Mam and I did not have much to talk about. She told me about the work she is doing, but she has to spernd a lot of time at home with you, so she can't go out to work and do a full-time job like she used to. But you come first of course!

Nana Ann has been busy seeing to the house and garden. I've had to go to the supermarket and get some extra food in to feed Nana Ann, because she didn't tell me she was coming! But at least she sent me a message, not like a week ago when she just turned up on the doorstep.

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”

Lots of driving

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

Today Grandad was in derby to see another man about another book. Driving across the country this morning was a nightmare! Most of the main roads in our country go to and from London (lucky you, living in London) and that means the ones in the North of England go from north to south. So if you want to tarvel from east to west, or from wset to east as I did today, you have to use musch smaller raods and go through lots of little towns. This is all very nice, as I like to see these little towns (and I know most of them) but it does take a long time.

Then I eventually got back home. How glad I was! But then there was another surprise, a message from Nana Ann saying she was coming up from London and would I pick her up at the station. Now she was here only a few days ago, so that makes it two visits in a week. I can guess why. When she was here a few days ago, she found the house and garden in "such a state" she's decided to come back and finish the job. But it's nice to see her anyway.

Tonight I'g going to ring you Mam, so keep your fingers crossed for me - and you. We are still a very long way from us getting to see you (for the first time!) but let's hope this will eventually happen. I know it's your fourth birthday coming up very soon, but that will probably be too soon. Let's hope!

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”

Beside the seaside

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

I bet you love going to the seaside - we all do. Today I saw a lot of seaside places in North Wales. I was there to do work for my books, as usual, but I also was able to see an old auntie and uncle. Because they live in North Wales, I don't get to see them very often. And they have both been quite ill in recent years. But it was nice to see them and have a chat. They live in a bungalow very close to the sea shore.

I also saw two very famous bridges in North Wales, across the Menai Strait which is a narrow part of the sea that separates Wales from the Island of Anglesey. I went across one of these bridges today. Unforntunately, it was raining very heavily at the time and a mist was down, so it wasn't suitable for taking photographs.

A few years agao Nana Ann and Grandad went all the way round the coast of Wales, looking at every little seaside resort. Perhaps ne day we'll be able to take you to the seaside.

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”

The Manx cat has no tail!

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

The postcard I sent you shows a picture of a Manx cat - Manx is tha name for anything belonging to the Isle of Man. The thing about the Manx cat - and I mean all of them, not just this one cat - is that it has no tail! I hve no idea why that should be. The Manx cats are the only cats in the world that have no tails.

There are other things to see on the Isle of Man, for example, the Laxey Wheel. This is a huge great water wheel. I used to have a picture of it on my bedroom wall, as well as a map of the Isle of Man. So you can see why I've always wanted to coem here. The only question is, why have I waited so long? Never mind, I'm here now, but just for the day. I'm sailing back tonight.

The boat crossing was ok. The sea was calm - no big waves to rock the ship. Besides. it was a great big ship - big enough to take a load of cars and lorries on board. I watched them coming off the ship this morning. A great big door at the front of the ship opens up, a metal bridge coems down and rests on the dockside, and out come all the cars and lorries.

The roads in the Isle of Man are very narrow, rather like the Channel Islands. Today I have been on a bus, careering along these narrow roads, really hair-raising! And then I went on the electric railway. The rails are very close together, so the tram - or rather train - shakes about from side to side. It's also very noisy. But it's a great way to see the island as it goes up from the coats into the hills and back down again.

I've taken some more photographs for one of my books, plus a lot more to show to Nana Ann.

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”

Catching a boat

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

I've always wanted to go to the Isle of Man. Well, tomorrow I'll be there for the first time - I'm catching the boat tonight. We sail at two o'clock in the morning, so I won't get much sleep! The Isle of man is an island in the middle of the Irish Sea, between England and Ireland. It's a very unusual place. For a start, it has its own parliament that's even older than our own parliament in London. It has its own laws and its own money.

Every year there hold motorbike races on the Isle of Man, and lots of people go there to watch the races and ride in them. They race all round the island on the normal roads, so it's nothing like racing round a track. When I was a boy and I was ill and had to spend a lot of time in bed, I used to listen to these races - they are called the TT Races - on the radio. It was very exciting. I used to imagine the motorbikes going very fast round all these sharp bends in the raods. Now I'll be able to see the oads for myself, although the TT races for this year - and it's the 100th anniversary - have just finished.

I'll send you a postcard.

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”

Grandad's an Alderman!

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

Ok, what's an Alderman? Well, to be honest, it's only an "honorary" title in that it doesn't carry any powers with it, but it's just something that is given, very rarely mind, to people like me who have been councillors for a long time - in my case, forty years. You've heard of Dick Whittington, Lord Mayor of London? Well, he was an Alderman - although being an Aldermand was much more important in those days. But I am very pleased to have this "honorary title" to my name. I have a plaque and a scroll to mark the occasion. Afterwards there was a big party with eats and drinks.

That's why Nana Ann came up this weekend, to see me made into an Alderman (and not just to put the house to rights, although she did that as well!). But it was better even than that. As well as lots of friends, also at the meeting were your Uncle Norman, your Auntie Rosie and your cousin Elaine. I was so pleased they were there.

You know there's been a lot of rain in the past few days, and many places throughout the country have had floods. There has been flooding on the main railway line, so Nana Ann coiuld be delayed going down to London tonight. I'll let you know how she gets on tomorrow.

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”

Eye getting better

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

For once I didn't sleep to well last night, but today my eye has felt a lot better. I hope it's fully recovered for tomorrow, which is a big day for me (that's the main reason why Nana Ann has come up this weekend - I wasn't expecting her till Monday). What she has done is to have a real go at the garden. All the stuff she's hacked off she loaded into plastic bags which we then had to transport to the tip, or rather, to give it its proper name, community recycling centre.

This is an excellent place where there are blokes who are always on the lookout to see what they can salvage and sell. I think that's a jolly good thing. If they can sell things that the rest of us throw away, well, good luck to them. You could have leant us a nad, tiping the bags into the skip. As well as the bracnhes etc, we had cardboard and wood and an old computer.

When she was on the phone the other day, I told your Mam about the present Nana Ann and I have got you for your fourth birthday which is coming up soon. I had to make sure you are stil living at the same address - I didn't want to send it to an old address if you had moved, but she told me you are in the same house as before. Now it's going to take some time before we get round to talking about coming to see you, and after all this time I dn't want to "rush my fences" and try to go too quickly. So for the moment me and your Mam are just going to talk on the phone, but that's a huge improvement on not talking atall! And it means I can send you postcards from all the places that I go to, just as I do for other memebers of the family. I'll try and choose pictures that you will like.

Grandad was a bit tired today, with everything that has happened in the past week - including travelling half way across the country - but I'm sure I'll be up bright and breezy first thing tomorrow morning for my "big day." I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

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”

Sore eye

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

After all the excitement yeserday, it's poerhaps not surprising that today was a bit of a let-down, "after the Lord Mayor's Show" as we say. The fact is that I woke up with a sore eye, a very sore eye. It was so sore, I've had to go around all day with a black eye-patch, like a pirate. I think this is the way God or Nature tells us that we can't expect life to be a "bed of roses" all the time. Into each life a little rain must fall, but hopefully not too much rain. In fact it has been raining quite hard up here in the North country these last two days, and there has been some flooding hereabouts.

The rain didn,t bother me when I was at the runnign trcak today, in three races. I didn't do very well, but I was able to pick up quite a few points for myself and for my club team. Our team is equal top of the league at present, so every point counts. We have won the league these last two years, so we want to make it three in a row by winning it again this year.

Meantime, Nana Ann has been "putting the house to rights." Everywhere she's been, she's found dust, untidymess and in some parts there has been plaster falling down. I've never noticed! But the gouse is warm and comfortable. And of course Nana Ann got her cup of tea in bed when she woke up this morning, as she always does when we are together. And I've made the breakfats, lunch and dinner, as I usually do when we don't go out to eat. I made Nana Ann one of her favourite meals - cheese omelette with mushrooms, baked potato, green beans and asparagus. I had corn on the cob as well, which Nana Ann doesn't like.

I hope my eye will be better tomorrow - and I hope Nana Ann doesn't mind me having a glass of wine before we go to bed!

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”

Two wonderful surprises

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

We all like surprises - good ones, that is - and to have two great surprises in one day is a millions-to-one chance. But that's what happened today. First there was something almost as nice, but it wasn't a surprise. This morning I went to the printers and got a copy of my new book - the first to come off the printing press. It looks good, I'm really proud of it, and it's got lots of pictures in it that I can show you one day. Now that wasn't a surprise, but the next thing was.

I'd had my tea and wa working when the doorbell rang. We have a really loud doorbell, because this is a big house. I wasn't expecting anybody, so before I opened the door I looked out through our little spy window to see who it was. Guess what, it was Nana Ann! Now I wasn't expecting her to come until Monday, and here she was, three days early. Once again she'd played a little trick on me. The reason she came early was that she'd seen the photo I sent her of our front garden ("the jungle") so she thought she's better come eraly and sort it out.

Naturally I was very pleased to see Nana Ann. I got her a cup of tea after her long journey by train and bus fromn London, and we talked together instead of our havin g our usual conversation on the telephone. While we were talking, the telephone rang. I went out into the hall to answer it and lo and behond, you will never, ever guess who it was. It was your Mam!

Now you know I've never been to see you, and the reason for that is because me and your Mam had an argument a long time ago. It was nothing to do with you - in fact it was before you were born - and this is the very first time that your Mam has rung me for a very long time. But you did have something to do with this happy event - a lot to do with it in fcat. Remember a little while agi I sent her a postcard with Thomas the Tank Engine and his freinds on it? I asked you Mam to show it to you, if you liked Thomas the Tank Engine. Well, it turns out that you do like the Thomas the Tank Engine stories, and she did show you the card that I sent. And thta is why your Mam decided to ring me after all this time.

Now this doesn't mean that we will get to see you for the first time, but I am hoping that me and your Mam will eventually make up our quarrel and then we can all be friends again. But it is far too soon to be talking about that. For the present, me and your Mam will talk on the phone from time to time. I kow you have your fourth birthday coming up soon, so that might be the occasion when we all get together - but it might be too soon. So we can only hope. But this is very good news.

That's all I can write about for the present - three lovely things happening in one day is almost too much!

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”

Blackpool Tower

I am you 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. I am writing this daily "blog" to you to make up for the fact that I can't speak to you right now. I hope that one day you will be able to read this.

Have you ever been up Blackpool Tower? Yo should have. I'm sure you've seen pictures of it - it's juts like the Eiffel Tower in Paris in France but not quite as big, but it looks just as nice. And of course yoyu can see all the countryside aroubnd, and (on the Blackpool Tower) you can see way out to sea as well, even as far as the Isle on Man in the Irish Sea. I hope to go to the Isle of Man very soon. I've never been, but I've always wanted to go.

one of my books is coming out tomorrow and I can't wait to see what it looks like. I know what the cover is like, as I chose the picture on the front, but I haven't seen the whole book all put together. Then, lo and behold, I got an email today asking me to do yet another book! It never rains but it pours. THis time last year I couldn't get anybody to ask me to write a pamphlet, let alone a book. Now I've got lots (well, quite a few) books to write. Shows you just have to be persistent in this life.

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann