Home life
Nappy Christmas
Alice Thomas Ellis
Iremember Caroline remarking once with quiet sincerity that she hadn't got a grain of cuddly granny in her. We were discussing the prospect of our children having children and deciding that extended holidays were out. Occasional formal teas, OK — but no more. Now the fourth son has come for Christmas with his baby. Well, it's actually two and mobile and talks a lot, so he isn't really a baby except that he still wears nappies and is very bossy. I did one sensible thing in my life. I ensured that any possible grandchildren should have plenty of uncles and an aunt so that now I can say firmly that I don't do no nappy-changing nor getting up in the night and mean it. He woke up the other evening and announced loudly that he wanted his daddy and doors all over the house flung open as family members shot out to reas- sure him. The poor child has jet lag and his sleep patterns are all to hell and it's nothing to do with me. Other people entertain him in the watches of the night. Being a grandparent is positively peaceful if you take proper precautions.
I'm going to buy him a push-chair so that everybody can take him for walks to the zoo and the park if, that is, we can negotiate our way through the traffic. For some reason whoever authorises these things has decreed that more roads need digging up before Christmas, the traffic lights are out of commission and every- thing is again at a standstill round here with people standing in the middle of the road directing maddened Christmas shoppers down all sorts of routes they don't want to go. The new Sainsbury's is adding to the problem since customers in motor cars have to enter from the main road which copes only with single-lane traffic and there really isn't any point in trying to go anywhere except on foot. In order to get to the pram shop we shall have to cross many dangerous roads and I'm beginning to think it's time to go to the country.
This will involve different problems: streams rather than traffic, and hard slate floors which babies can hurt their knees on rather than carpets which they can spill their juice on. I had forgotten about putting things like the best china out of reach of what are usually called enquiring little fingers and keeping pan handles pointed inwards on the stove and keeping the bottoms of windows closed. Still, apart from the motor cars, it's safer in London than in the country. Now that our house is furred all over with carpet the odd tumble doesn't matter, but down there is a lot of wood and stone and open fires requiring the return of the fireguards which we lent to somebody we can't remember. I think the same person must have the cot since I know we used to have one and we haven't any more.
Beryl has just informed me that town is unsafe for a new reason which I hadn't thought of. She spoke the other day to a rat-catcher who told her that the sewers are now so awful that the rats can't stand it so they've all come up above ground. I was vaguely planning to walk along the canal bank to the vicinity of the pram shop, thereby missing the hazardous crossings, but now I remember seeing a number of rats playing round there and I may be more alarmed by rats than by cars. Besides, the baby would doubtless see them as cuddly toys and want to play with them. In the country we are seldom troubled by vermin because the place is alive with wild farm cats who present us with a different prob- lem — the daughter tries to adopt all their kittens. The baby has just gone upstairs, followed this time by Janet in a catching posture. Alfie was going to take him to the Post Office but the Post Office is on strike today. I don't know precisely why every- thing is so exhausting but I think I'll spend Christmas on the moon.
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