Round One - The Lister Family

Hello! As you can see from the above photo, my name's Samantha. My grandson is Dave, and he's proving to be a right handful. I wouldn't mind, but I hadn't expected to be bringing up a small child at my time of life. When my son moved to Prosperton, I let him aspirate all my skill points. That's right, he just sucked them all out of me, easy as pie with that weird vacuum thingy. After all, he and his wife would need points if they wanted to succeed in their new careers, in a completely new town. I was happy to see them off, and even sold my own property so they could afford this little place. It was a tragedy when that snow plough literally ploughed into their vehicle the day they moved here. Dave was lucky to survive; apparently his car seat was flung from the wreckage on impact, and he didn't have a scratch on him! Personally what do people expect if they suddenly move somewhere with so much weather. Where I come from it was sunny year round; no lightening strikes, heatstroke or freezing to death! I hear tell you can even be killed by falling hail here!

Anyway, the first few days were really hard, and I even had to resort to hiring a local nanny, just to get some sleep. She turned out to be more of a hinderance than a help though! Talk about expensive, and the darn woman kept making herself lobster. Guess who was footing the bill! Lobster! I couldn't believe it. In the end it proved more hassle than it was worth, and I eventually learnt how to nap when Dave did. I wish that boy would sleep more; he has me up day and night.

Here's a photo of Dave demanding porridge at three in the morning. As you can tell, I'm not feeling so hot, and I was worried I might end up in aspirational failure at one point.

But those precious toddler years soon flew by, and Dave learnt to walk, talk, and use the potty. I wish I could say I enjoyed those years, but I was too tired to even register their passing.

I was so pleased when Dave finally grew into a child. 5 years! It had felt more like 5 millenium to an old biddy like me. To say I was happy would be an understatement. I invited over a couple of friends to his aging up, but was too tired to realise I hadn't even dressed. I was mortified to find myself standing in my underwear in front of Arnold Rimmer and Tabby Felis. I wasn't so worried about Arnold, but I had a bit of a crush on Tabby, and wondered what ever he must think of me.

Money was an issue, and so I put in a small pond. That's one good feature of all this weather, the fishing! I'd never done it before, but Dave enjoyed it! It raised a small amount of cash, and gave me quality time with my grandson. I realised I actually quite liked him. I'd been to busy just feeding and changing him when he was a toddler to notice what a sweet boy he really is.

Tabby continued to visit on a regular basis, and even brought a couple of his grandchildren on occasion. Dave got on really well with both of the girls, who seemed very sweet. Kitten was a lovely child, and I bonded with her straight away. Poor mite, growing up without the love of her parents, although Tabby did everything he could to fill their shoes.

Dave loved school, and soon learnt to homework. It had been years since I'd been a first grader, and I was worried things might have changed alot since I was young. But when you look at it 2+2 =4 no matter how old or young you are!

Dave was soon a star pupil. Unfortunately I still seem to forget to dress alot of the time! I put it down to my age, I mean if you can't have senior moments when you're old, when can you have them!

One night, Tabby came over without the grandkids, and I caught him looking at me in that 'I'd like to get to know you much better' sort of way. I hoped I hadn't misread the signals he was sending, and decided we'd both wasted enough time if we both felt the same.

Yup, we both felt the same!

OK, so money's tight. Winter's coming so there will be no more income from fishing. The house is so basic I struggle for comfort. I have more senior moments than I'd like to admit to. I can barely cook, and the fridge stocks are getting low. All in all, I've never been happier!