Dear LPG,

I want to write about something that may interest some of the ladies that read your posts. 

I retired not too so I suppose that I am fairly new to the game of not having to go to work.  I live alone and while I have found some things to occupy my time, I do find that loneliness gets to me occasionally.

Like many other parents, my children have moved out of London in order to be able to afford to buy a house which has left me even more out of touch really, but there were regularly weekend  visits  and I have always enjoyed a short visits with their little ones.  I have often heard it said that grandchildren are much more fun because when you have had enough you can give them back.

I now have four and while my daughter has decided to be a stay at home mum, my son, who provided me with the youngest, and his wife are finding childcare costs a bit difficult.  They both commute to London every weekday and came up with a proposition for me.  So in spite of living about 30 miles away, I agreed to spend two days per week at their home on grandma-babysitting duties. 

I thought my pram–pushing days were over and I have to admit to feeling a bit embarrassed when pushing a pram to the shops for the first time.  I was in the depths of Kent having to relearn how to negotiate the curbs and battle with a shopping basket and pushchair at the same time, and I suppose I was feeling a bit isolated because I didn’t know any of their neighbours let alone the geography of the area very well.  After a few weeks I got used to that.

Then one day my children suggested that I go a little further afield.   I decided to go to the local park with a child’s play area, but I have to admit to thinking that I would be the oldest person supervising a child’s visit which didn’t really worry me until I was on the way.  I wondered how I would relate to the other parent’s there and rather hoped that there would not be any. 

The strange thing was that of the six groups of children and parents that were there on the day only two were with their parents while four grannies were running after the toddlers and the conversations flowed as we were all having similar experiences.  One of those grannies did not speak much English but was also part of our conversation and I really wonder what I was worried about.

The moral of my story is that there are a lot more Grannies than you think on child-minding duties and its great fun.  It fills a bit of a hole in my week and I have found some new friends and rediscovered how to get a pushchair around the streets.  So ladies, if you are asked embrace it!

BJ. Lewisham