Life with Grandpa

By Pat Pinsent

I wasnt very happy when Mum told me that Granny and Grandpa were coming to live at our house, which is in a little village in the country. When they lived in a big house near London, we used to go and stay. Granny would cook nice meals, and we used to go up to the middle of London sometimes and visit the London Eye and the zoo or the shops in the West End. But when Grandpa got dementia, Mum said they should come and live at our house as we had a self-contained two-bedroom flat they could live in. She said the last tenants were a nightmare. If Granny and Grandpa were living with us, she could help Granny keep an eye on Grandpa. What with not going to stay with them near London anymore and having extra people in the house, I wasnt really sure that was what I wanted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Feb 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546285816

Pat Pinsent

Pat Pinsent has spent most of her working life as a university lecturer, specialising in childrens literature, the subject of most of her seventeen published books. This is her first venture into fiction, impelled by her husband suffering from Alzheimers, together with the realisation that in todays ageing society, many young people are encountering family members with dementia. Although several incidents in this book have been inspired by real situations, Debbie, the central child character, is not based on any of her eight grandchildren. Pat spends much of her time discussing books and history with groups near where she now lives in Norfolk, and playing the keyboard (badly!) to accompany some local singers. Her main function in life is to be a slave to her cat, Maddie, who seems to spend most of the time sitting on her lap!

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© 2018 Pat Pinsent. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/02/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8580-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-8581-6 (e)

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Contents

Chapter 1 - Where Has Grandpa Gone?

Chapter 2 - Table Manners

Chapter 3 - The Car won’t go

Chapter 4 - I’d rather take a two-year-old to church

Chapter 5 - Singing is good for the brain

Chapter 6 - The Holiday. I – Getting There

Chapter 7 - The Holiday. II – Bath or Shower?

Chapter 8 - The Holiday III – Out and About

Chapter 9 - A Sudden Fall

Chapter 10 - Discoveries

Chapter 11 - The Great Escape

Chapter One: Where Has Grandpa Gone?

‘Hello little girl, who are you?’ demanded the old man who looked rather like the pictures of Albert Einstein. I was used to this as he’d asked me the same question every day for the last month.

My answer was the same as it always was: ‘I’m Debbie, your granddaughter.’ I ignored the fact that he called me ‘Little girl’ though I’m quite tall for my age, nearly as tall as him! I didn’t think it would be a good idea to call him Little Man! But I knew what the next question would be.

‘Where do you live?’

‘I live in the other part of this house with my mum. Her name’s Jane. And my little brother is Jack.’

I wasn’t very happy when mum told me that granny and grandpa were coming to live at our house, which is in a little village in the country. When they lived in a big house near London we used to go and stay, and granny would cook nice meals and we used to go up to the middle of London sometimes, and visit the London Eye and the zoo or the shops in the West End. But when grandpa got dementia mum said they should come and live at our house as we had a self-contained two-bedroomed flat they could live in. She said the last tenants were a nightmare. If granny and grandpa were living with us, she could help granny keep an eye on grandpa. What with not going to stay with them near London any more, and having extra people in the house, I wasn’t really sure that was what I wanted.

‘You always got on well with him. He used to tell you stories – perhaps you could even help out sometimes and keep him entertained,’ mum said.

Not that there had been much chance for me to do that – granny didn’t leave me alone with him or let me take him for a walk. And it was no good trying to play games with him. I knew he wouldn’t understand computer games, but he couldn’t even play the old fashioned board games like Monopoly, as he couldn’t remember the rules, or whether he was the shoe or the top hat or what. The last time we’d tried to include him in a game, he kept moving all the pieces all over the board – the only thing he seemed to want to do was to throw them. In fact I didn’t see too much of him, as their part of the house was quite separate; they even had their own kitchen and bathroom.

I did meet him in the garden sometimes, like now. Our conversation carried on just like it always did. He said, ‘Oh I know Jane, she’s my daughter. Where is she?’

When I said, ‘She’s gone to school,’ he couldn’t understand: ‘Why has she gone to school? She’s too old to go to school.’

I explained it was because mum’s a teacher, but he couldn’t accept that: ‘How can she be a teacher? She’s not old enough!’

First she wasn’t old enough and now she was too old! I told him she’d been a teacher for ages. This, as usual, led to a new question: ‘Is Jane my mother?’

‘No, she’s my mother,’ I explained.

This conversation, like all the others, was getting boring. Fortunately granny appeared on the scene. ‘What are you doing out here, Harry?’ she asked, not really expecting an answer. ‘You’ll get cold outside, come in and have your lunch.’ She was always telling him what to do and what not to do.

He objected, as usual: ‘I wanted to talk to this girl. She’s brought me a message from my parents. They’re going to come and see us today. So I can’t go out.’

Granny was used to this: ‘But we’re going to the art group, you know you enjoy that. You do painting and drawing, you’ve always been good at them.’

He protested that he wasn’t going out, because his parents were coming, but she was used to that too. ‘Rubbish, you know they died thirty years ago. They’d be about one hundred and ten if they were still alive.’

Grandpa was upset: ‘Oh dear. I didn’t know they were dead, you should have told me before.’

I’d heard this conversation lots of times so I tried to escape. ‘I must go and do my homework for school tomorrow.’

‘Why aren’t you there today? And where’s Jack?’ granny demanded.

‘Teachers’ day for meetings at my school. They don’t want us around. And Jack’s at nursery school, they’re not having meetings there.’

‘I don’t know what schools are coming to – teachers never used to have days when the children weren’t there when I was a teacher,’ she moaned as she tried to usher grandpa indoors.

Grandpa refused to follow, still protesting. ‘Jane told me I shouldn’t go out. I’ll go to art if Jane tells me I can.’

Granny said she’d try to get Jane to talk to him on the phone and tell him she wanted him to go to the art group he attended every week, ‘Perhaps if I get her to talk to you … Stay here, I’ll see if I can get her on the phone.’ Granny bustled indoors, leaving me with grandpa.

‘I want a drink,’ he complained. ‘She was going to get me a cup of tea.’

‘Would you like some orange squash, grandpa?’ I asked, trying to be useful.

‘That would