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”

Squeaky brakes

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.

Do you know, Grandad drove over a thousand miles last weekend! Whether or not that affected the car, I don't know, but I do know that since I got back the brakes on my car have got very squeaky. That means they've been worn down and need new ones. So I'll have to takethe car into the garage tomorrow to get those brakes fixed. Otherwise I could easily have an accident.

My boxer friend - the one I'm writing a book about - is going to Cuba next week. The reason is that he is freinds with people from Cuba who are involved in boxing. You know that in the year 2012 (when you will be nine, not ten as I said theother day) the Olympic Games are coming to London. You and I are definitely going to go! But also, we are hoping that the Cuban boxing team will come to the North East in the few weeks before the Olympics to traina nd to get used to this country. That would be great, and I'd have a chance to meet them. I've already met two of their coaches who will be helping to train the Cuban boxing team. The Cubans have produced a lot of very good boxers and boxing coaches over the years.

You will have seen all the flooding that's still going on in various parts of the country. But here it's been very warm and dry today with very strong sunshine. I went for a run and I found the sun far too hot for me - I ran very slowly, even more slowly than usual. But there's one more round of the track league to go, and I'm hoping that my team will be the winners for the third year in a row.

If I do contact your Mam, I think I'll write a letter rather than telephone. With a letter, you can choose your words very carefully. If you're speaking on the telephone, one word out of place can spoil the whole thing.

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”

Talking on the telephone

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.

You've probably talked on the telephone to your other Nanas and Grandads - how I wish I could talk on the telephone to you! - but that is just two people talking to each other, one on each end of the phone. Now imagine a whole lot of people talking together on the same telephone. What would ahppen if they all talk at once? No-one could hear anything.

This happened today. Instead of having a meeting with people having to travel from all over the country to London to meet in a room, as usually happens, this time we all stayed at home and had our "meeting" on the telephone. We all ring in to the same number, then everybody can hear everybody esle - provided only one person speaks at a time. So we had to take it in turns to say something. It worked pretty well, but I found it quite difficult deciding when to "chip in" and say something.

I'm coing donw to London again the week aftre next, and I'm thinking about asking your Mam if Nana Ann and me can come and see you all. That would be quite difficult, as the last time we saw your Mam and Dad was when they got married, and that was before you were even thought of. So we have to go carefully.

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”

Long car journey

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 had to drive all the way back home frm Wales, but first I had to put Nana Ann back on the train to London. When she came the previous day, she had to stand all the way because the train was really crowded and there were no spare seats. This time the train was not so crowded, but even so Nana Ann was lucky because a lot of raileay lines have been flooded and therefore the trains can't run on those lines.

Grandad went home a different way, to make sure I wasn't stuck in any floods. It took a lot longer, and I didn't get home until very late, but it was worth it. Thousnads of people still can't get back into their homes because of all the floods - it's terrible. When that sort of thing happens, you realise just how lucky you are, living at home and sleeping in a nice wrm bed, your own bed.

Back to work tomorrow, and Grandad is having a meeting on the telephone! Maybe I'll get a phone call from you Mam, but its been quite a while now so I think she's decided not to phone. I'll give it a few more days.

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 more rain

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.

Nana Ann finally got to Wales about lunchtime today. I had to go and pick her up at the station. Then we went to a little place way out on the coast of Wales. We've been there before, but many years ago. One of the things I looked at was a railway, not the usual sort of railway that goes along the ground, but a railway that goes up and down a very steep slope. It's quite exciting going on it. I could take you to a few of these - they're all different and have different ways of working. On this one, the guard has to blow his whistle every time the car (as the train carriage is called) goes up an down. there are wto cars, side by side. As one goes down, the other come up. People use them to get up and down the cliff, and some go on them just for fun.

It's been raining a lot again today. As the car goes along, it makes waves going through puddles at the side of the road, the water swishing high inot the air. Nana Ann doesn't like me doing it, but you've got to have a bit of fun, don't you? Near where I live there's a ford across a river. A ford is a shallow part of the river where you can get across because the water isn't too deep. But sometimes people ttry to drive across this ford when the water in the river is too high. The water gets in the engine, the car stops, and the people are stuck in their car in the middle of a fast-flowing river and have to be rescued. This has happened so many times that they're talkign about clsing the ford, that is, not letting people drive across it. But guess who got stuck in this ford years ago - Grandad of course! I had to go to a nearby farm and get the farmer to bring his tractor and pull out the car and the people in it. Guess who was in the car(and she was a young girl hen) it was your Mam!

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”

Nana Ann stranded

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.

You must have heard about all the rain and the flooding. Well, lots of raods were blocked off and lots of trains. Grandad was luckey, very very lucky. The road I was travelling on was flooded, but only after I'd gone past. If I'd started from home a little later, I would have been stranded. Some people had to spend all night in their cars. They must have been cold, hungry and thirsty.

But Nana Ann was stranded - in London! When I got to the hotel where we were staying (in Wales) Nana Ann rang through to say she was stranded in London. Things were so bad she decided she would stay where she was and stay in an hotel near the railway station, and not even try to get back home! It cost her a lot of money and she was very cross, but there was nothing she could do. She's going to try and get a train to Wales tomorrow.

So, instead of having a nice meal with Nana Ann and staying with her, I've been left on my own (but I'm used to it!). The trouble is, we'll still have to pay the hotel for two people even though only one of us is staying. But that's life. There's a lot more people a lot worse off, especially those people whose homes have been flooded. As well as having to leave their houses and stay somewhere else, all these people will have lots a lot of furniture and carpets and so forth. Just image if your house was flooded, and you had to go upstairs to get out of the water. Everything on the ground floor of your house would be ruined by the water.

We'll se what happens 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”

Railway stations

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.

You must have been to at least one of the big railway stations in London. I love trains, do you? One of the biggest thrills I had when I was a las was going to a big railway sation and going up into the control room overlooking the station. I say room, but in fact it was more like a huge hall. It was very broad and deep, and it went right across all the platforms, but it was high above them and you could look down and see all the trains coming in and out, and all the people getting on and off the trains and so on.

When she was your age, I used to take your cousin Elaine to a railway station near us. It wasn't a great big sation, but there were polenty of trains coming and going. Some of the great big inter-city trains didn't stop there, but wen t right through at a hundred miles an hour. I had to hang on to little Elain as these trains came through. At such a high speed, they made a huge wind and if you weren't careful, you could be blwon over.

Going up to Scotland on the train from the North East is a fine thing - the tracks go very close to the coats and you can see the sea and the waves and rocks and ships and so on. And there's all the different bridges for me to tell you about.

But I shouldn't be talking about trains today, because I'm off in the car again tomorrow. I'm goiung to do some work and Nana Ann is coming by btrain to meet me, so we'll have a rare weekend together. So I'm off to bed early, because I'll have to be up very, very early in the morning.

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”

Sunshine and rainbows

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 don't normally talk about the weather, but these last few days it's been bright sunshine one minute and a haevy rain shower the next. The good thing is, this is exactly when you'll see rainbows. When I was coming home from the track meet the other night, there was a huge rainbow right across the sky. You don't always see a full rainbow with both ends on the ground. And also, this time - very rare - you could see a "shadow rainbow" all around, following the main rainbow but on the outside. This shadow rainbow is always very faint, and has the colours in reverse.

So, the next time you can see sunshine just after a shower of rain, go outside and the chances are you'll see a rainbow in the sky. Beautiful aren't they?

I was putting leaflets out this morning (This by-election to elect an MP is on tomorrow!) and it's amazing how many people don't put their house numbers on their front doors. How do they expect people to find them or to deliver things to the right houseif they don't have the number of the house on the door? I suppose they think that everybody else has numbvers on their houses, so it's posssible for people like me to work out what their number is. I can't believe they don't want to get any letters>

Love from

Grandad Kit and Nana Ann