Being grandma

A few years ago, when half of my family lived in London, friends would ask after we'd been on a visit: So what did you do in London? Did you see a show? That sort of thing. And always the answer would be the same: We were in a muddy pitch somewhere to the south of Croydon, watching football. And that was how it was. And we were happy to do this, happy on occasion to split up so that one grandparent would be watching one team in one location while the other might be miles away, for the boys, excellent footballers both, were members of different clubs.

Today, move to sunny Scotland. And today was sunny, even in the West, and we were watching both boys play in the same team against a Rangers boys' team (I forget the correct terminology - it's the chaps who are being assessed to go into Rangers Academy) at the end of a week's summer training camp in Largs. All these years we've been passing through Largs en route to the Cathedral on Cumbrae and we never knew that the SportScotland National Sports Training Centre was up the back at the foot of the hills, with a field of cows the next door neighbours!

The boys played their socks off. We stood and - just occasionally, because we didn't like to be embarrassing - let out little yells of encouragement or approbation or - when there was a foul or a fierce tackle - oooofs or woahhhh type noises. As you can see from the photo, much of the action was quite far away, but occasionally thundered straight at us so that Himself was almost seduced into kicking the ball back before he remembered he was getting a tad decrepit for such things.The sun shone fiercely, and I can now feel my face burning.

After the match and after the speeches and certificates and the goody bags, we all headed down into Largs for ice creams in Nardini's, where we couldn't get a table inside but commandeered two outside overlooking the amusements. By then the boys had reverted from being archetypal sweating footballers into being grandsons again, and we all exchanged hugs in the car park before going our separate ways home. 

It was such a glorious day that I'm going to squander a couple of extras - one on the café terrace before son and d-i-l arrived with our coffees, and one looking out on our garden as the clouds rolled back in from the west and we were about to sit down to dinner.

Did I mention that we didn't have any lunch today?