To be Part

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Two hundred and forty miles ...

Dear Little Lamper,

we travelled two hundred and forty miles.

A cross-country trip, and the sun dripping hot, molten tarmac. It burnt our eyes. We chased down tractors and joined the queue, a motorway becalmed. But we travelled two hundred and forty miles.

We played music along the way - contemplative, loud. A soundtrack to our journey.

Little Lamper, we got lost along the way. Followed the down-load, but strayed in a country side-road too soon. Pulled up and called. Your mum answered, your dad spoke. We pulled into a sun-baked car-park and waited. For family.

You came, all three and met us in the dying sun. Your mum carried you so proudly across. And placed you in the loving arms of your grandmother. How can we ever forget the way she smiled?

Two hundred and forty miles. To be with you all.

love from Grumps

Weeks .....

Dear Little Lamper ...

Dear Little Lamper,

you look so small and vulnerable, perched precariously on my chest. I can feel your heart beat. Can you feel mine, calling down the generations?

You look so like your father. You bring so much joy to your mother. I picture you running through sun-charred fields with dogs and hawks beside. Hunting.

Let me run next to you for a second, and share this race together. Hopes and dreams and tears and joy flow inter-mingled as we hunt out meaning. Life is so precious, and you are so precious too, dear Little Lamper!

with love from Grumps

xxx

New Life

Seven Pounds Three and a Half Sugars

Dear Chroniclers,

it's hard to know just what to say. But perhaps reallyfried, our learning disabled son, best puts his finger on the pulse.

"Seven pounds, three and a half sugars ..."

The calls come thick and fast throughout Thursday night. And then around 10:45, maximouse, our eldest daughter, calls to announce her waters have broken. We hear the voice of her partner, Chief Lamper, in the background. Panic would not put too fine a point on it.

Mrs electrofried springs straight into action. Her overnight bag, packed and waiting this last week or so, is thrown hurriedly into the back of the charabanc and off she heads into the midnight air. Two and half hours later she arrives safely at the hospital, and six and a half hours after that, "Little Lamper" arrives safely into the world.

I travel down with teenygoth at the weekend to greet this new family, and the day passes in a joyful cavalcade of laughter, hugs, photos and tears. How new life moves us so! Teenygoth sleeps most of the way back, inevitably.

The next day we visit reallyfried to take him some pictures of his newly born nephew. His excitement knows no bounds, as he announces proudly,

"Seven pounds and three and a half sugars!"

Slowly, light dawns. Maximouse has telephoned her brother to bring the good news, and in explaining the weight of Little Lamper has drawn comparison to the humble bag of sugar.

How very precious is dear "seven pounds and three and a half sugars"!

with best regards,

electrofried(mr)

A Very Special Day

They've Scored!

Growing and Shrinking

Dear Chroniclers,

whilst one member of the electrofried clan grows bigger by the day, two others continue to shrink.

It is, perhaps, a metaphor for life. The baton is being readied to pass onto the next generation, and so yours truly and dear mrs electrofried have decided it's time to get fit, not fat. Grand-parenting is, after all, a role worthy of some considerable investment.

Cook has received suitable instruction from the lady of the house. No longer does the electrofried dining-table groan under the weight of her prodigious largess. Gone are the deep-fat fried spam sandwiches, the triple-larded mashed turnip entrees, the stuffed tripe charcuterie. Even Cook's infamous chocolate surprise (with export-strength whipped lager topping) has been banished. Our stomachs groan; conceivably with a collective sigh of relief.

Teenygoth has not taken the news well. Indeed, she has now girded her fast dwindling stockpile of Mrs Patel's own label fruit'n'nut with a substantial chain and padlock combo, all the better to repulse midnight raids from her father. But the results of this abrupt regime change are there to be seen already. Since Christmas I've lost two stone of ugly fat which, for the avoidance of doubt, did not entail a premature severing of electrofried head from torso.

I was reminded visibly of the impact of my continuing weight loss just this morning. On opening a kitchen cupboard in search of the teabag for mrs electrofried's morning "cuppa" a pack of surplus marzipan, discarded from Cook's annual excuse for a family Christmas cake, fell into my lap. Weighing it in my hand, I observed I had lost the equivalent of twenty eight similar packs - sufficient to mould a life-size figurine of Mollie, our beloved Collie/spaniel mongrel.

Chroniclers, I fear there is some way still to go, but we've made a start and we're sticking to it!

And the reason for this is illustrated graphically in the photograph above. There sits our eldest, her bump prodded tentatively by darling teenygoth. A subcutaneous electrofried grand-child grows ever stronger within, readying his/herself for the fast approaching birthing day. Unless, of course, our eldest has eaten all the marzipan...!

yours as ever,

electrofried(mr)