Back To The Folks
Apr. 16th, 2018 11:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeThis past weekend I headed back to my parents. It was a visit that had been planned before the death of my grandfather, but it was timed quite fortuitously in the end as this was the first weekend since the funeral that my father was alone. He is not an emotional man but clearly was struggling to come to terms with things, so I think he was glad of my company. We did get through an awful lot of beer, sharing a number of craft brews that I had brought up with me, but I think this was more social than anything else. And of course as I had been up twice in the space of two weeks, there was double the amount of beer available.
I arrived Saturday luunchtime and we headed out to the North York Moors for a walk. My father is generally fitter than I, and this wasn't aided by the hefty cold with which I have been suffering over the last week or so. The walk was quite a steep scramble up a hill before it opened out onto heathland up top, with views back towards Teesside in the river valley below. It was quite a warm sunny Spring day, but with the haze on the horizon, no civilisation could be seen at all, giving it a rather rugged other-wordly feel. My father had spent a lot of the 1970s hiking these hills and after our rather modest walk, we went to Chop Gate to a pub he last visited in 1974. It had changed a fair bit, with a lot more German fizzy on tap, but it was still a walkers' and bikers' place at heart and it was a great place to sit outside and stare out at the rolling hills.
We started on our own beer once we had gotten home, with a huge steak pie waiting for us for dinner. We then felt somewhat lethargic, so had to sleep off the calories before heading out to the local pub which had very much not changed since 1974. I got a pint of Magnet (as if proving my point) and we chatted some more, generally chilling and having a pleasant evening. Indeed, this is largely what we did throughout the weekend when we were together, but on Sunday I was scheduled to go around to visit my mother. After an incredibly appalling night's sleep, I awoke around 10am and stumbled downstairs for some breakfast before she arrived. She brought Henry, the youngest and more annoying of her two dogs, and he was 'full of busy' as my father would say. He was bouncing and bounding everywhere, but it was very good to see him. In contrast, once I got back to my mother's, Wilma seemed somewhat subdued. Still, it was good playing with the two dogs and going out for a walk with them, not to mention enjoying the huge chicken dinner my mother cooked too. She was somewhat hypocritical about her concerns about how much I drink, expressing this after offering me a third glass of wine, while I did get into a strange argument about my stepfather about disability sport which made no sense whatsoever. Anywho, it was a largely good afternoon before we headed around to my grandparents' place on the way back to my father's. Both my grandparents are 89 now and it's a little tough having a conversation with them, but it was still good to see them and share my news (even if much of the conversation centred around my mother's neighbours having their gable end replaced). They're both living independently, but it is becoming increasingly difficult, and it's difficult to know how the coming months will play out. Of course, following the death of my paternal grandfather the other week, I was just happy to see them and it did round off a positive trip back home.
I arrived Saturday luunchtime and we headed out to the North York Moors for a walk. My father is generally fitter than I, and this wasn't aided by the hefty cold with which I have been suffering over the last week or so. The walk was quite a steep scramble up a hill before it opened out onto heathland up top, with views back towards Teesside in the river valley below. It was quite a warm sunny Spring day, but with the haze on the horizon, no civilisation could be seen at all, giving it a rather rugged other-wordly feel. My father had spent a lot of the 1970s hiking these hills and after our rather modest walk, we went to Chop Gate to a pub he last visited in 1974. It had changed a fair bit, with a lot more German fizzy on tap, but it was still a walkers' and bikers' place at heart and it was a great place to sit outside and stare out at the rolling hills.
We started on our own beer once we had gotten home, with a huge steak pie waiting for us for dinner. We then felt somewhat lethargic, so had to sleep off the calories before heading out to the local pub which had very much not changed since 1974. I got a pint of Magnet (as if proving my point) and we chatted some more, generally chilling and having a pleasant evening. Indeed, this is largely what we did throughout the weekend when we were together, but on Sunday I was scheduled to go around to visit my mother. After an incredibly appalling night's sleep, I awoke around 10am and stumbled downstairs for some breakfast before she arrived. She brought Henry, the youngest and more annoying of her two dogs, and he was 'full of busy' as my father would say. He was bouncing and bounding everywhere, but it was very good to see him. In contrast, once I got back to my mother's, Wilma seemed somewhat subdued. Still, it was good playing with the two dogs and going out for a walk with them, not to mention enjoying the huge chicken dinner my mother cooked too. She was somewhat hypocritical about her concerns about how much I drink, expressing this after offering me a third glass of wine, while I did get into a strange argument about my stepfather about disability sport which made no sense whatsoever. Anywho, it was a largely good afternoon before we headed around to my grandparents' place on the way back to my father's. Both my grandparents are 89 now and it's a little tough having a conversation with them, but it was still good to see them and share my news (even if much of the conversation centred around my mother's neighbours having their gable end replaced). They're both living independently, but it is becoming increasingly difficult, and it's difficult to know how the coming months will play out. Of course, following the death of my paternal grandfather the other week, I was just happy to see them and it did round off a positive trip back home.
