It’s a serious question when you’re eight, going on nine. Things are not just out there. You need to know whether you like them or not.
Rachel and David’s eldest is keen on space. She and Dan had fun setting up her telescope while we were there, and while you or I may be struggling to think what to wear tomorrow, she is looking ahead to 2020 and the next manned mission to the Moon.
At one point, she mentioned that she liked Neptune best as a planet. “Why?” “Just do.” (This is also important when you’re eight. And twenty eight or more. Sometimes we just do.) I think it helped that it was also blue.
What was interesting was that then the adults started saying which planet they like. I liked Jupiter, because it was the biggest. Her dad liked Saturn, because of the rings. Dan liked Pluto, because it was also the name of a dog.
It was a great reminder that we too had our preferences, even though we might have long forgotten some of them. Life gets a lot more complicated when we have to justify why we like something (or more often as an adult, why we are still doing something when in fact we don’t want to).
Perhaps it’s a good incentive to have a more immediate response to things. Meanwhile, I’m off to practise a learned response - a cup of tea.
November 20th, 2008
Friends that is. Big and small. We’re just back from visiting Rachel and David, and their four wee ones (some not so wee now), in Italy. As well as restocking the supplies of risotto rice, grana, and a certain small pasta that goes well in sausage casserole.
It’s now nearly 8 years since R and D decided to head to Italy, and interesting to see how friendships develop when you see people less often. For a while, we managed to see each other nearly every 6 months. Rising numbers of children on their side, and work commitments on ours, now stretch it to a yearly catch up. But it’s still well worth it.
One of the features of going over less often is that we end up with a snapshot of life there that may only last a week. Especially with the youngest at a year and a bit, change is a very rapid thing among children. We pick up their catch phrases, identify their favourite books at that time, and see other ‘big’ changes that in fact came in over time: both older girls now reading independently in both English and Italian, for example.
Even being around for just a week, it’s terribly gratifying for you to hear one of the children saying “I want my Alison”, or for another to call you auntie by mistake. Even the littlest went from hiding from us earlier in the week to accepting being fed by us, as well as a few games together, such as repeated shaking your head while holding a naughty grin at the same time. (She started it, not me.)
Time also shows what has lasted since a previous visit - the eldest remembering how to play ”Sausages and chips”, where you try to make the other person laugh by asking them silly questions. She will also set up photo opportunities for their Flat Eric, as we tend to do with ours, having seen our pictures in the past.
Other elements that we completely forgot - interim books that went into a parcel at some time, colouring in stencils on windows - are still part of life there. I remember hearing Rachel’s grandmother saying to me one time, with some pride, an estimate of how many English books she had sent over to Italy while Rachel and her siblings were growing up there, and I started to feel that we might be continuing a little of that trend.
Apart from the food products, there’s always things we bring back. A growing interest in the Veggie Tales’ “Silly Songs with Larry”, which was principal CD in the car while we were there. Photos of another year. An even greater appreciation of R and D’s skills as parents. A couple more pictures to go on our fridge.
Some people go on holiday for a change. I do that too, but it’s sometimes even better to go on holiday for more of the same.
November 20th, 2008