Grandchildren

C&L went away for the weekend in honour of their wedding anniversary, leaving us with three wonderful but exhausting grandchildren. On Saturday I started the day with my customary run, lit the boiler, helped harvest our cooking apple crop, and cleaned windows atop a high ladder. In the afternoon I took the children to Dunlavin playground and was nominated as "it" in a game of tag for the main part of several hours. Meanwhile Ali was cooking our supper which was most welcome on our return. I slept very well last night.

This afternoon we took them to the upper Bohernabrenna Reservoir. There is a trail around this and indeed the lower reservoir too, which looked ideal for cycling. So after finding various coats, hats, gloves, shoes and snack, and having instructed them to use the "bathroom", we bundled their bikes into the back of the Galaxy and set off. Ali came but conveniently forgot her stick so had to stay in the car whilst I braved the elements. A's bike has stabilisers and A's motive power is somewhat lacking so I ended up being her engine. We followed the river Dodder which runs parallel to the reservoir and is orange in colour (these two facts being related as explained here).

Stock photo of dam at north end - we didn't get this far!

We parked near the marker at the south end

The orange river Dodder

The purpose of these short tunnels I could not figure

How not to ride a bicycle

Levitation

Half way along the reservoir we stopped and climbed down to the reservoir itself for the purpose of throwing large stones into it (what else?), and then O announced that we were going back. I tried in vain to argue that we had not yet come to the interesting part...

The interesting part courtesy Bing maps

Community is...

Community is...

...having three of my grandchildren living in the same house so that I can see them every day. But is also having my other four living in another community in AK...

Inconsolable grief

Non-family readers of this blog may not realise that a great family reunion is taking place. C&L with three of our grandchildren and J&S both live here already. J&R with four more of our grandchildren are visiting from Alaska, and K is visiting from Oz. Not only that but we also have an (unrelated) family with four children visiting, and a single woman visiting. So we are full to the gills. And things get noisy too.

So strange to think that my wife, four children, and seven grandchildren would not be if I had not (as a butterfly) flapped my wings those 40 years ago or so. Of course, in this story of life we are never told what would have happened.

The other night I dreamed that J and his family were leaving, I know not where too but I knew I would not see them again, or at least not for a very long time. And I was overcome (in my dream) with inconsolable grief. I felt like I would go on crying for ever, or at least for a very long time. And yet, curiously, another part of me knew that I could to some extent control this grief, that I was choosing to wallow in it and, given time, I would get over it and life would proceed as normally as it ever does. And it made me wonder what grief was made of.

Vast numbers of pictures are emanating from this reunion some of which and will, I suppose, appear either in this blog or on social media at some stage but frankly it is rather busy here at the moment and I don't know how I am even finding time to write this.