Friday afternoon in Friesland :
For someone greedy married to ditto it means going to the market on the way home ... via the health and Turkish shops . Last stop is the stall that sells locally grown wonky , non-export quality sweet peppers etc.
Listen to loud altercation between cheerful stallholder and equally zesty 90 year-old Turkish woman over 50 cents . She eventually concedes and is given a bonus aubergine for her troubles . I meanwhile pack a huge plastic bag with strangely shaped red and yellow peppers , aubergines , courgettes and vicious chili peppers ."How much do I owe you ?", I ask , fishing a 5 Euro note out of my purse . "Less ", he says laconically .
Cycle on past a pretty , freshly painted crest
and assorted hollyhocks .
Balancing four bags of meat and veg. , I wait at the bridge in a bunch of thirty-odd cyclists , for three large yachts to go through . Feel quite proud of myself as I wobble carefully off without bumping into anyone ... till I see that the woman in front has an entire garden center of potted plants dangling from her handlebars and is talking on her mobile .
Get home , unpack and pedal to the supermarket . Get mugged by a goose . Same old , same old .
But one thing did make this week different . Grandson , two days after his fourth birthday , has demonstrated that he's learnt to read . Peering over his garden wall , he announced to his mother in a booming voice , "LOOK ! They've got lovely underpants ! ". Middle Daughter rushed over , wondering what he'd seen , let alone what he was going to bellow next . "LOOK! They've got stories on .That pair says "POW!"And that pair says "WHAM!" ".
And they did .
6 comments:
Great story and what a clever grandson!
Child prodigy.
Lovely story. I always think it's quite magical the way young children suddenly understand reading. My son, when small, looked at a hoarding advertising milk, and said, wonderingly, "That nearly says Kim, doesn't it?" And after that, there's no stopping them.
I wish I could grow hollyhocks as casually as that. Wham is a difficult word to read by the sounding out method. So is Pow come to that. Clever boy!
My pants only say Marks and Spencer. Must try harder...
You have it made, cycling to the 'shops', getting bags of fresh produce that you are allowed to handle and squeeze, real people arguing over price. On top of it all you have a clever grandson who will soon be able to read you a bedtime story.
Grannie, you are lucky.
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