Two Bits – 1 May 2015

One day last week I went to bed with my wife, and in the morning woke up with a grandmother.

I feel it’s only fair to warn fathers out there that you will, too, one day have to brace yourself in preparation for this experience. One day you’re a young buck, full of the joys of spring, next you’re into old ladies.

I suppose I’d had fair warning though. About seven months earlier our daughter announced she was pregnant (my little girl!) and around that time a deep, low vibration started. It was my wife. She was vibrating about the arrival of grandmotherhood.

Out came the knitting needles. The dogs howled, the cats spat and unsheathed their claws. Rose announced she was knitting a blanket for Baby and a furious click-clacking started every night in front of the TV.

I made encouraging noises, but inside I was thinking ‘Oi, here we go’.

Step back a little. Shortly after we were married, perhaps driven by maternal instincts, she began knitting a little jersey. First it was going to be for her sister’s first child. Work progressed slowly. After a year or so, it was going to be for her brother’s first. A few years rolled on, so it was going to be for her sister’s second, and so on.

One day, ten years later, it was finished. It was a work of art! It was the most marvellous jersey I had ever set eyes on. Only problem was, the children it had been knitted for were now teenagers and wouldn’t want a little pink jumper.

Fast forward to today. Now this blanket for our first grandchild was a mammoth project, consisting of a zillion knitted squares of all different colours. The needles flew, the pile of wool grew smaller, and all along the vibration coming out of my wife was growing stronger by the day. If Eskom tapped into the energy, there would be no rolling blackouts!

The pile of wool grew smaller, the pile of finished squares grew higher. At Easter she announced: “The squares are finished!” Now began the task of sewing them together.

Quiet descended upon the house. Low muttering could be heard from the verandah. “This is harder than I thought,” she confessed.

I said nothing. Over the course of many years, I have learned that when the wife is on a mission and something goes wrong, the best course is to stay quiet. Not that it happens very often. Her being wrong. Not very often at all. But that’s just between you and me.

However, I have no doubt that very soon there will be a ‘Ta-da!’ and the finished article will be produced with a flourish and it will all have been worth it. My aunt knitted me a cot blanket, which I kept right up until a few years ago, when the moths got into it.

It wasn’t exactly a security blanket – it was just there on the end of my bed and had been forever. Oh I don’t know, maybe it was a security blanket after all. It certainly gave me a lot of comfort and whenever I think of that blanket I think of my spinsterish Aunt Laura, who never married, but at some stage she toiled long and hard to give me a token of her love to remember her by.

I have no doubt baby Daniel will grow up with Rose’s blanket on the end of his bed and, God willing, it will last many years and be a constant reminder of his Granny Rose, who loved him before he was born and will continue to love him forever, come what may.

Because I have a feeling these granny vibrations will only grow stronger, Grandpa is going to learn to vibrate, too, though I think it comes slower for guys. There is a lot to look forward to in grand­fatherhood.

New territory – like going to bed with a granny. Let me tell you, grannies know a few things young mothers haven’t thought of yet!

* * *

Bob is walking down a country road when he spots Farmer Harris standing in the middle of a huge field of sugarcane doing absolutely nothing. Bob, curious to find out what’s happening, walks all the way out to the farmer and asks him, ‘Excuse me Farmer Harris, could you tell me what you are you doing?’

‘I’m trying to win a Nobel Prize,’ the farmer replies.

‘A Nobel Prize?’ enquires Bob, puzzled. ‘How?’

‘Well, I heard they give the Nobel Prize to people who are out standing in their field.’