Play time........

Dolls and their pushchairs, little red cars, jungle-gyms, play food, Peter Rabbit books, playdoh.....can you guess where I have been? A little blonde-haired tornado and I have been playing. One just over 2 years old. The one who never seems to run out of energy. Unlike her Moregranny, might I add.

On the way home, I told Jean that it was just as well she was driving, because I would have been asleep at the wheel in seconds. It was a battle to stay awake.

This past weekend, Jean had planned to visit her Mum who is over 90 and in a home near my son's home, and suggested we go down together. The petrol, you know. You need a mortgage to fill the car. So I called and announced that my arrival was imminent. They did not say no.

And early on Saturday - so early that I completely forgot to lock the back door and had to phone a friend, while we barrelled down the motorway, to hotfoot it over to my house and do so immediately - we set off. It promised to be a beautiful day, and it really was. Sunshine and blue skies. And not freezing.

I met A and A at Costco as the doors opened. It was just off the M25, so easy for Jean to drop me and my Stuff, and then she zapped off to see her Mum and go to the seaside with her brother. Missy and I re-acquainted ourselves among the groceries, and she remembered me. I think. I gathered up the olive oil, peanut butter etc that I needed, and today, I remembered that they were still sitting in Ann's kitchen. Well, that did not go to plan then. I will have to go back. The olive oil, you know. It is important.

And so I have spent the past 2 days playing with Missy. She is super cute at the moment - even with a cold and runny nose, and is trying so hard to talk. She is into bags in a big way, and carries 2 or 3 around with her all the time. Full of Stuff. And she loves beads, as in my beads, so she hijacks my necklaces to wear. My attempts at a play-doh bunny were pitiful, but she enjoyed the process. But i an very good at playing with cars on road mats. And dressing dolls. And drawing flowers and trees on the patio with chalk.

So there was a great deal of laughter, a superb BBQ - the first of the year - and I did not stop smiling. I also crocheted many flowers in the evenings when all was quiet. And nearly nodded off.

I have told you the story of "Moregranny" before, I think. Emma's other Granny, Granny2B2, is called Granny. So I am Moregranny. It is a family name, and reminds me of my much loved granny.

When I was little, my Dad's parents lived in Pretoria - 1000 miles away from Cape Town, where we lived. And after my grandfather died, my grandmother came to live in Cape Town, to be closer to her only child, my Dad. My mother explained that I had another Granny, as well as the one I already knew, and I said "More Granny?" as a little one would say. And Mum said yes. And from the moment I saw her, I called her Moregranny, and she loved it. I thought it was her name. And indeed it became her name. By the time she died, when I was 11 or 12, I think, everyone called her Moregranny. My friend, my mother's friends - she was Moregranny. Tiny, Scottish and fiercely independent. She used to drive a huge old car and she peered between the steering wheel and the dashboard to see out the front.

We loved her. Everyone loved her. So I chose to be Missy's Moregranny, you see. I didn't want to me Nanny, or Nanna, or anything else. Being Moregranny is very special.

So this morning, Missy and I waved goodbye to her parents as they went off to work, and had a couple of hours alone together. She did not bat an eyelid, thank heavens. And when her Granny came to collect her and take her off to play, Jean and I set off home.

And here I am. 99% asleep. And it is just 3.30pm. I think I will be having a very early night tonight. But it was wonderful, and I am still smiling.

I love that little girl to bits.